by David A. Brown - LIVETARGET Lures

The umbrella rig and modern electronics
have motivated anglers to take a second
look at the relationship of baitfish
schools with predatory bass, and the
methods by which bass attack, separate
and feed on them. Lure manufacturers
are getting into the act with tackle
designed to mimic “pods” of bait cut off
from the pack. We asked pros and biologists to weigh in on the schooling baitbass relationship to help you capitalize
on their interaction.
by David A. Brown
ILLUSTRATION BY MARK SUSSINO,
PROVIDED BY WILDWINGS (WILDWINGS.COM)
Safety in numbers – it’s a basic survival instinct that
can’t be overstated in the life of a baitfish. They know
predators are never far away, and they’ll sense impending danger even before they see it. As the drama builds
and the threat level rises, the frightened baitfish draw tighter into one homogenous mass.
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This survival strategy is not infallible, however, and all bets are off when
nature fires up that green-backed missile with the big mouth. A bass charges
headlong into the baitfish bounty and
the school shatters as clusters of frightened forage closest to the predator scatter in panic. Within this short period of
mass chaos occurs fleeting moments of
white-hot opportunity for anglers wellpositioned to take advantage.
“Schooling among baitfish is a
defense mechanism,” says Gene
Gilliland, the assistant chief of fisheries
with the Oklahoma Department of
Wildlife Conservation. “A big school
presents an intimidating silhouette, so
predators must break up the school to
identify smaller, more manageable targets. A small pod is edible.”
The notion that predators target
small wads of baitfish is nothing new
among biologists, but the bass fishing
world has only recently started dialing
in its focus on how this deal works –
and more importantly, how it can
impact fishing productivity.
The past couple of years have seen
wildfire development in umbrella rig
styles and techniques, as this multiarm
tool opened the door to previously unaccommodating fish by imitating those bait
clusters. A byproduct of the umbrella-rig
rage has been a new focus on exactly
how bass feed, and the theories have
taken center stage
in the form of new
lure designs (See
Tools for the School).
Each year brings a new
round of latest-and-greatest lure
innovations with flavor-of-themonth buzzwords, but suffice it
to say that this bait-ball concept
has staying power.
First, a little perspective from under
the water.
Dining Habits
We often hear the term “opportunistic” when describing the feeding habits
of bass. But it doesn’t mean that bass
simply wait somewhere for food to
come along and then take advantage of
the opportunity.
“Opportunistic is not lazy,” Gilliland
says. “It’s all about energy conservation
– calories out versus calories in. If an
easy meal swims by while I’m resting in
the brush pile, that’s more calories in
than expended in the capture. But if bass
always waited for food to come to them,
they would probably starve to death.”
Forage type also influences bass
feeding habits and positioning. Dr.
Mike Allen, a University of Florida
Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences professor, says that bass definitely display different feeding habits in waters with
pelagic schooling prey such as shad.
“I’ve seen
ponds where
there’s only
bluegill and
you’d catch bass
all along the shoreline,
but when shad are introduced
into the lake, the bass move offshore,” Allen says. “The bass
school in response to baitfish
schools. They get into groups where they
work together. I don’t think it’s necessarily a conscious decision to work together,
but what they learn individually is that if
they form a school they can do more
damage.
“Baitfish schooling is really effective
because it’s hard for the predators to
focus on any one thing because the
school looks like a single object,” Allen
continues. “So, if the bass can break this
up into these smaller groups, then
they’re more efficient at capturing prey.”
Allen also says that school-busting
strategy is not just a deep-water behavior. He’s observed the same behavior in
shallow Florida lakes such as Kissimmee
and Okeechobee. Wherever this occurs,
Allen says, lures and rigs that mimic the
momentary clustering scenario climb
right into the bass’ wheelhouse.
“The umbrella rig looks exactly like
what they want, which is a small school
that’s broken off from the bigger
school,” he says. “You hardly ever see
Bigger Bites
The concept of bass busting up bait balls extends beyond
smaller prey such as threadfin shad and emerald shiners.
Keystone Light pro Casey Martin says that grass beds on his
home waters at Lake Guntersville often attract schools of hefty
gizzard shad – mouthfuls too big for any except the largest bass.
Martin says he has witnessed bass rushing the gizzard shad to
splinter the school so they can pick off one or two of these
favored foods. In any lake with a sizeable population of gizzard
shad, it’s not uncommon for an angler to catch a bass with the
tail of a hefty shad protruding from its mouth.
Straight Talk pro Scott Canterbury (at left) has observed similar
behavior from bass staking out panfish during summer months.
“I’ve seen them sit around bream beds, and if there’s a ton of
bream in the area, the bass just sit there,” Canterbury says. “But if
one bream slips off the bed, or slips out away from the rest, the
bass attack. Again, that’s their opportunistic nature. They like to
pinpoint their target rather than going after that huge group. If
there’s a whole bunch of them in there, and they make a charge
and bream go everywhere, that might throw them off. But when
one gets out on his own, that’s when the bass attack.”
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schools of five shad swimming around
in the wild. Either you see no shad or
else big schools of shad.”
Straight Talk pro Scott Canterbury’s
firsthand experience with schooling
baitfish supports the scientists’ findings. His observations suggest that
looking for areas with more baitfish to
locate bass might work on a basic availability level, but strategically, massive
numbers of bait can present an overwhelming challenge.
“Sometimes you’ll see thousands of
shad, and the bass are just lethargic,”
Canterbury says. “But when a small
group comes by, it does trigger them.
“I’ve seen wolf packs of bass that
will sit around and watch huge schools
of bait go by, but when that bait breaks
into a smaller group, I’ve seen them
attack,” he adds. “They can pinpoint
them a lot easier that way instead of
when they look up and the whole surface of the water is covered with bait
and they don’t know exactly where to
go to attack.”
Feed the Need
On Tennessee River lakes such as
Lake Chickamauga – the site of his
2013 Walmart FLW Tour win –
Keystone Light pro Casey Martin uses
the phrase “getting fired up” to
describe how bass respond to the sudden availability of baitfish. The mood,
he says, goes from interest to active
participation in a split second.
“When bass see another fish eating,
they know that it’s feeding time and
there’s other bait around – like a big ball
of bait on the ledges when they move
from the channel onto the flat,” Martin
says. “I think that triggers those fish to be
extremely competitive for food. I think
that’s when you can catch multiple fish on
a variety of lures. And not just an umbrella rig – I’ve caught them two at a time on
a Strike King Pro-Model 6XD for four or
five casts in a row.
“Those fish know it’s feeding time,
and it’s almost like they work together
to pinpoint and narrow down that bait
and attack them,” Martin continues.
“It’s kind of like what wolves do in the
wild: They’ll attack the pack of prey to
try and split them up and then go after
the weakest one.”
Tobias Wiegand is the lead designer
for the Koppers LIVETARGET BaitBall
Series, which incorporates multiple
baitfish images into its crankbait, jerkbait and topwater designs. Wiegand
says that there is an instinctive followup element to bass feeding. The decade
of development that yielded a best-inshow award for hard baits at ICAST
2013 included countless hours of underwater video showing that when bass
attack a group of baitfish, there’s always
another bass trailing right behind, looking for an opportunity to feed.
“That is the basis for the whole concept,” Weigand says. “Once one predatory fish has gone into that bait ball and
has busted the bait ball, there’s potentially a second or third predatory fish
that is after that group that got separated. We believe that is the underlying
system behind it all.
Tools for the School
While the umbrella rig most clearly resembles an isolated bait pod, various state and tournament regulations prohibit multilure
rigs. It’s currently not allowed in Walmart FLW Tour competition, and is restricted to five wires, five lures, five spinners and three
hooks for Rayovac FLW Series and Walmart Bass Fishing League events (presuming state regulations allow).
Two- and three-arm versions, such as the YUM YUMbrella Double Up Rig and Ultralight Tripod, present options for broader
compliance, but a handful of new lures take creative approaches to incorporating the appearance of a bait cluster into what
remains classified as a single lure.
According to Keystone Light pro Casey Martin, if bass are already crashing clusters of real baitfish that have been separated
from the school, a single lure – as long as it’s the right lure – will draw strikes. But, if you’re looking for ways to imitate a cluster in
other scenarios, have a look at the following selection of lures.
Koppers LIVETARGET BaitBall
Series – Vividly depicting clusters of
actual baitfish – threadfin shad, emerald shiners and glass minnows – the
BaitBall Series of hard baits employs a
solid form to mimic a fractured bait
pod. $16.99 (livetargetlures.com)
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Mann’s Three-For-All –
A trio of soft-plastic minnow bodies
connected with the patented Mann’s
HardNose molding process has a single weedless jighead hooked into the
middle body. $8.99 (mannsbait.com)
FLWOUTDOORS.COM I MARCH 2014
“You have to start with how fish
perceive their environment,” he adds.
“Every predator fish knows exactly
what’s going on around it. Any predator looking for food is going to focus on
a group of fish, rather than a single fish.
This allows the bass to target its food
easier and quicker. So it was not the
actual school that we incorporated into
the bait; it was that cluster that separated from the main group. That’s the
group that the bass will go after.”
Angling Application
The collective wisdom of scientists
and Walmart FLW Tour pros leads to an
important conclusion: You don’t necessarily need a big school of bait to attract
bass and flip their feeding switch.
According to Canterbury, fall fishing
on the Tennessee River lakes and most
of the nation’s impoundments is often
as simple as graphing bait schools and
then fishing for the bass that will
undoubtedly surround them. However,
bass won’t hesitate to attack what
“
Every
predator fish
knows exactly
what’s going on
around it. Any
predator looking
for food is going to
focus on a group
of fish, rather than
a single fish.
”
– Tobias Wiegand,
Koppers LIVETARGET Lures
appears to be an isolated bait pod, even
if they didn’t isolate it.
“Anytime the opportunity for a bass
to feed arises, it’ll take it,” Canterbury
says. “That’s how they live. They can’t
go buy food, so when the opportunity
comes by, they’re going to feed.”
When bass suspend in fall, winter
and early spring – specifically in the
prespawn stage – the bait-ball pattern
usually peaks. Bass are “looking up” and
keying on migrating schools of shad.
This period continues until bass start
moving toward the shallows to spawn.
Martin’s win at Chickamauga last
summer proved that bass instinctively
go after what they perceive to be a cluster of baitfish even though there might
not be any real bait balls close by.
Fishing an umbrella rig – something
not normally considered a summertime
approach – Martin won by targeting
suspended bass.
“Most people put up that umbrella
rig after the fish spawn,” he says. “But
anytime those fish are in a big group, I
think they’re always focusing on baitfish, and that’s when those [multilure]
lures are the best.”
Effectively maximizing the bait-ball
impression requires that an angler
duplicate the forage size as closely as
possible.
Z-Man QuadZilla – This collapsible fourarm rig with willow-leaf blades attached to four
wires situated around a center arm is rigged
with a skirted head and hook. After use, the
main head slides down to snug all the arms
to the center for easier storage. $11.99
(zmanfishing.com)
BOOYAH Boo Rig –
Four stiff-wire arms with
willow-leaf blades surround
a flexible wire center arm
with a snap to attach a
swimbait, crankbait or any
other baitfish imitator.
$6.99 (lurenet.com)
MARCH 2014 I FLWOUTDOORS.COM
Castaic Lynch Mob –
The Lynch Mob resembles
a spinnerbait with the
blades and skirt replaced
with swimbait hooks.
When rigged, it produces
gobs of vibration to match
the frantic nature of an
isolated bait pod. $6.99
(castaicswimbait.com)
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Meals That Matter
Regarding seasonal bass forage, Dr. Mike Allen, a University of Florida Fisheries
and Aquatic Sciences professor, points out that while threadfin shad school all year,
they’re not all interesting to adult bass. It goes back to the feeding efficiency equation: Fish have to take in more calories than they burn to acquire food. Crappie and
smaller white bass eat a lot of juvenile shad, but largemouth bass worth catching
start taking interest in shad when the baitfish reach at least a couple of inches long.
“A bass needs to eat prey items about 15 percent of its size to make a living
doing it,” Allen says. “A 10-inch bass needs to eat a prey item that’s at least 1 1/2
inches long.
“So if you’re a 24-inch trophy bass, it might be that threadfin shad aren’t ever
what you want to eat,” he continues. “That’s not to say that no one will ever catch a
big bass on a small bait that looks like a threadfin shad, but, ideally, those big fish
aren’t going to be chasing 2-inch-long threadfins. They need to catch a larger prey
item. Conversely, we’ve all caught 3-inch bass on a 3-inch bait, but most of the time
that forage needs to be at least 15 to 20 percent of its body length. Otherwise it’s
not worth using the energy to catch.”
PHOTO BY BILL LINDNER PHOTOGRAPHY
“Obviously, on Beaver Lake you’re
not going to catch bass on 8-inch swimbaits, but on Guntersville, where I do
most of my fishing, we have a lot of gizzard shad, which are normally bigger
than the threadfin shad on those Ozark
lakes,” Martin (seen below) says.
“Consider the lake, look at what kind of
bait is in there and match the hatch.”
Weigand says it’s important to
understand not only how bass eat, but
how the baitfish respond when they’re
on the menu. For example, when bass
push glass minnows to the surface, the
baitfish often go airborne when they run
out of water. Koppers LIVETARGET’s
Glass Minnow Popper design includes
baitfish that appear to be leaping for
their lives, while the essence of a popping lure mimics the sound and disturbance of such an encounter.
“I think it’s always important to
understand the environment in which
you’re fishing and apply the right tool
for that scenario,” Weigand says.
It seems basic, but sometimes anglers
forget to remember that maxim.
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