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  1. #1
    I'm your Huckleberry Chuck D's Avatar
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    Question Upgrading your weight in spotted bass fisheries; what's your plan of attack?

    I live and fish on Lake Norman over here in NC which is a lake that has about 8 years worth of spotted bass in it now and over 50 years of largemouth since it was impounded back in the 60's and I always find it interesting to talk about these two species of fish with other anglers.

    In our lake when the PAA comes here or the FLW and BASS tours or BFL/Weekend Series kinds of things the game plan for many of the pros is the same one I try to use which is get a quick limit of spots and then try to upgrade your creel/stringer with some largemouth as they traditionally have been bigger here. You can very easily get stuck in a "dink-a-thon" and end up weighing in a 7lb bag of spots or make the right adjustments and bring in a 19lb bag of the right ones which may be spots and large mouths but a big bag here is commonly all largemouth.

    The spots here are growing now with blueback herring in the fishery so changing tactics for LM only may not always be the best plan but seems to be as "big fish" is always a fat largemouth it seems in our local events. Upgrading size regardless of species is always the game plan as we know.

    Some of the things that I've tried and had success with are upgrade/upsize bait sizes, changing fishing locations from the main lake to the backs of pockets, creeks, etc, and flip shallow cover (boat docks for us as we have no vegetation in the lake).

    Wondering what you do in a spotted bass fishery that normally has them biting (especially the little ones that are super aggressive) all day long to get some bigger bites from either species?

  2. Member
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    #2
    It''s almost impossible to fight off the smaller spots so I'll give you a new tactic to try. Go to the main channel or look about about 50-100yrds. from points for large herring schools. The smaller bass will be to the sides of the school, the large bass underneath the school. The small bass attack the school and stun the herring which then fall through and beneath the herring school. The large bass are lazy and wait for the stunned bait to fall to them. Vertical jig through the school to catch the large deeper bass. Use a lure that will resemble a stunned herring. I use large grubs to help make sure the small bass don't bite. Also, the larger bass want a meal and not a snack. This is good for all bass species and I have fished this tactic for decades with success. It is good for all species of bass.
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  3. I'm your Huckleberry Chuck D's Avatar
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    #3
    Thanks Loz. Are you taking it all the way to the bottom or dropping it 10 or 20' below the school?

    Anything in particular that you are looking for on your graph? Do you see the fish & bait "setup" a particular way on your graph that tells you to drop on them or is it just drop and see kind of deal?
    Last edited by Chuck D; 09-15-2013 at 08:43 PM.

  4. Allan Collins
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    #4
    I put my boat on the trailer and leave Norman

  5. Member
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    #5
    Set your electronics to manual. Turn up the gain until you can see the lure as a line on the screen. Jig your lure a couple of times and you will see it. It is imposible to see below a school unless you use a flasher unit. I use my lcd electronics to tell me the mood of the bass. If the bass move towards the lure, I'll probably catch bass. If the bass move away, they are negative or neutral mood and I'll go somewhere else. You can't have the big bass without the smaller bass in the area. There has to be stunned herring periodically falling below the herring school for the large bass to remain. Almost all lakes are seeing more fishing pressure over the years. The big bass are going to the less pressured areas of the lake. What does that mean? They are now suspending with the bait schools. I count down my line to the level I believe is 10 ft. under the school. I will vertical jig the lure and gradually bring it up. I keep track of each raise so when I get a bite, I have the correct depth for the next bass. I also fish from a Puma.
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  6. Member
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    #6
    Fish head, Jig, Little Jon DD, Topwater and swimbaits...... And go deeeeep

  7. Banned
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    #7
    I think Spots really school by size, so I usually just move. I've had several times I've gone through multiple fish, some times 20+ looking for one just a half inch longer. A fat largemouth is alway gonna be big fish. A few years back after the fish kill on Table Rock, spots dominated most tournament bags and you needed about a four pound average, plus a kicker largemouth, to have a chance at a check. The largemouth are now back in force and spots are much less a factor in winning tournaments.

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    #8
    I'm on my phone so haven't gone through comments so I may be repeating someone. I live on Smith Lake which is known for spots and herring. One thing holds true with spots for the most part. Typically the size fish you catch are all going to be the same in that school. If you want consistent bigger fish get out in deep water and fish til you find a school of bigger spots. Spooks will work at any time of day for big spots. Throw oversized jigs and big finesse worms on points and around boat docks. Concentrate is the 15ft plus range.

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    #9
    Oh biggest thing I left off. Get a large flutter spoon and fish deep! May take awhile to get to right depth but the reward pays off

  10. I'm your Huckleberry Chuck D's Avatar
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    #10
    Good insight guys. Been kind of doing the same thing 20lb sack is suggesting as well as LOZ and that's move and try to get over the "right" schools. I often get stuck dropping in to massive schools only to catch 20 or so 10" fish and rarely get anything better out of that so after about 3 or 4 dinks out of a school, I'm gone and looking for another school that's on bait which is like finding a needle in a haystack as I'll pull up on another "situation" and catch the same little rats over and over and over and it drives me nuts. I always wonder why the bigger spots don't just eat the little ones, it'd make fishing a lot better and they'd bit these bigger swim baits more too...

    Using LOZ's approach of dropping bigger baits has helped but not uncovered the motherlode yet which I know lives here as I've caught a few now and again during the winter on jerkbaits. Seems my best spotted bass have always been on the main river channel on points and the farther I go in to creeks the smaller the spots get but that's where the LM's start showing up and they live in the cover whenever possible which here is brush piles and of course the bazillion boat docks we have here.

    Shakeyhead, love me a flutter spoon for sure. I use a Nichols Lures shattered glass. Check it out if you have not already, it's incredible when they'll bite it.

    What do you guys find as far as location goes for bigger spots? Certainly it's all about the herring and where they are today but do you see the best bait to fish size correlation staying on the main channel? Uplake? Downlake?

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    #11
    Chuck, I've found that once the large bass move to the main channel schools, they stay there except for the spawn. No reason for them to move. They have food, can move up or down in depth, have few predators to worry about. Perfect place for them. Now, bass do tend to school together but once they reach a certain size they tend to be loners. Plus they feed sporadically because so much food is available to them. I've been asked to expand the writeup I told you about into a magazine article. I'll flesh it out and you can see it once it is proofed.
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  12. Banned
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    #12
    My biggest spots have always came away from the main school. Alot of times I made a bad cast (casting at a distance) and moved the spook 2 or 3 times and have a 4lb plus spot kill it.

  13. I'm your Huckleberry Chuck D's Avatar
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    #13
    Thanks LOZ. I really enjoyed the article that you wrote and would really like to read about the additional content you will be adding to it. Please keep me in mind on the distribution list as I'll be looking forward to it. Re; the main channel, that's my thinking as well. They don't need to do anything other than move shallow to spawn and feed opportunistically. I believe 90% of the fish we're not catching are "behind us" while we are looking at and fishing the bank. I am dead set on figuring out the deep bite and open water bite here. The striper guys catch giants regularly trolling live bait down in the 25-40' range here and get pissed because these big fish are wrecking their downriggers! LOL!

    Shakeyhead, that's interesting as I've found the same here meaning the bigger fish that I have caught have seemed to be off on their own a bit or away from the pack if that makes any sense. It goes along precisely as LOZ outlined meaning the bigger fish in open water will often be below the school of bait and smaller fish due to their being opportunistic and basically "lazy" because they can be. How deep are those fish when you are catching them on top? Are they traveling a long way or in the under 15' range typically? I've not had much luck with them over deep water on top other than when they are schooling of course. Good discussion guys. Much appreciated.

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    #14
    LOZ most definitely knows what he's talking about! He's posted some great info on this site since I've been here, probably way longer then that lol

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    #15
    Thanks guys. I've asked that this thread be saved so others can learn from this effort.
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    #16

  17. I'm your Huckleberry Chuck D's Avatar
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    #17
    Experimented some this afternoon, I stayed on a creek channel today following schools of bait and catching dozens of small to mid sized spots out of them. As the evening hours came on and the sun began to set the bait started to rise from the bottom out of the 25-35' range and I was able to visibly see them. Not sure which species of shad (threadfin most likely) these were but they were super small (2" and under) and the spots and white perch were all over them.

    I caught fish on a drop shot, tiny swim bait on a dart head, grub on a dart head, and a small fish head spin with a small swim bait on it out of and below a number of these schools all day and "school skipped" from one bait school to another trying to upgrade the size of my catch to no avail; what I caught size wise stayed the same in that entire creek and it's a loooong creek... Bigger baits got no action at all around these particular schools so I had to stay small which confirmed what I thought these bait fish were; little...

    So, back to the drawing board tomorrow afternoon and that means back out to the river channel in search of blueback. Wanted to confirm what was living around the area that I was fishing today as a proof point and did which is part of the process of elimination so that's yet another key piece to the puzzle; forage size.

    Did manage to catch some larger spots off of docks on points with a mid sized solid body swim bait which is a pretty steady pattern here other than the dead of winter. Basically I got tired of the little spots wearing out my d-shot and grubs on these schools of tiny bait and wanted to get bit by a bigger fish to break the monotony. I still contend that the larger fish are out deep and I am determined to find them.

    We have threadfin, gizzard, blueback, and now alewife in here as the striper guys keep dumping massive loads of non native bait species in the lake trying to get the stripers and hybrids growing. The alweife strategy blew up on them a few years back when the alewife which can live very deep and at a lower 02 level than other species of bait stayed deep and thousands of stripers died trying to get down to them and suffocated. They had thousands of dead fish on the lower end washing up on the bank. That's how we got bluebacks in here; they put a million fingerlings in one year and changed the fishery literally within 2 years.

    Since Duke Power does not "pull water" (this is a nuclear power plant lake and also a coal plant lake) there is rarely current unless we are getting heavy rain and they are letting water out. That has the bait scattered normally which makes it a trial and error search process for the most part but there are some areas that consistently hold bait so I'll be checking those tomorrow evening and hoping to find some better quality bites. Back at it tomorrow. Learned plenty today by confirming notions that I had about forage and what lives around them. It's a process for certain...

  18. Member
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    #18
    Way to go, Chuck. So, it appears you have a little confirmation that a lot of the large bass must move offshore to structure or shad schools. Also that it is possible that large bass locate with the larger(bait size) shad schools. All the pieces of the puzzle are in place. People can tell you or write about what's taking place but until you do it with success--well, it's just a theory. One more bait to try for spots and when they get on it you throw it all day long. The short arm spinnerbait, helicoptered through the school. The spots love the vibration.
    People are going to catch large bass from that long creek. They are there but not in the numbers that you will catch offshore. We don't have alewife around my area and they weren't there when I tourney fished in your area. Are you saying they are bad for all predators or just stripers?
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  19. I'm your Huckleberry Chuck D's Avatar
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    #19
    Yep, there are some large bass that come from this creek but they are few and far between down here; that is for sure LOZ. A buddy of mine caught one over 8 here this Spring during pre spawn about 1/2 mile from where I was fishing today but I've never caught anything in this particular creek over 4lbs over the years regardless of time of year so it's an odd deal when a big fish comes from this part of the lake but you are right; they live here too.

    Re: the Alewife, they are a pelagic baitfish like the blueback and can live remarkably deep so they are especially dangerous to the stripers particularly since they need higher levels of 02 being pelagic themselves. Since they have larger bodies in general which require more 02 to sustain themselves the stripers get in to trouble fast trying to go deep on the alewife and simply run out of air and die. Spots as we know can live super deep but are not always as nomadic as a striper and can handle being in lesser 02 enriched water from the biologist reports I've read as long as they are not "running & gunning" for extended periods or they'd suffer the same fate; suffocation from depleted 02 levels.

    Not sure how the alewife would/will affect the hybrids (white basss/striper cross breed). Hybrids have been introduced here by the NC Wildlife Org about 2 years ago and appear to be doing well from what we are told. Never caught one myself but I don't fish the are where they dumped them in that often. I'm going to be near it tomorrow as it's near the main lake and I want to go search for herring schools on some deep long reaching main lake points.

    Any particular short arm style, weight, blade configuration that I should look at on the spinner bait? Not real up to snuff on that spinner bait vs the standard long arm which I use quite a bit but that's for sub 10' depths here mostly when I'm running a shad spawn pattern or pre spawn fishing.

    Hoping for some better quality tomorrow IF I CAN FIND the herring schools. They move so much that it can be tough to locate them. Lots of face time with my new Lowrance HDS12 lately. Really enjoying these new touch units.

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    #20
    I'll add a little bit to this. Not sure but I assume our spotted bass lake here are much the same. I've found better fish is deeper water then mentioned, 40 to 65 ft zone. I've also found that the 4 plus pounders often seem to like heavy jigs on very long casts. They also seem to be prone to baits fished very slowly with little action. Dragging in this deeper water has been very productive for bigger spots. Other times just dead sticking is the ticket. Winter time here is best for those bigger fish and I stay on main lake creek channels.

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