Schooling bass that won't bite

[limitlong]

Yesterday I ran into a situation that I have never encountered in my 35 years of serious bass fishing. I was fishing a tournament with my buddy and about noon went to the back of a creek where I have caught them good in the past. Shad was everywhere and bass were busting through them. They fed constantly for a couple of hours and I only caught one 3 pounder that was foul hooked on a jerkbait. The water was stained and you could see a foot or so down. Water was 47-48 degrees.

In the past I have always caught cold water schoolers, usually on an a-rig, fishhead spin, small swimbait, etc. We threw fishhead spins, flukes, alabama rig, jerkbaits, shad raps, little george, silver buddy, sassy shad, rattle traps and many other baits. It was no problem to hook a shad on every cast and we could see the fish slashing through the bait and they were all 2-4 lbs. We would wait until we saw the boils on the water and throw right on the boils.

Now I have dealt with summer schoolers that would not eat in super clear water, but this was a first. The shad were 2.5 inches long. Any ideas on what may have worked and what works for you guys in this situation? I think I had a couple of good bites and had fsh hooked briefly before they came off. I'm guessing that if caught those fish would have been foul hooked.

[M1RT]

In the rare times I couldn't get them to hit a walking or popping topwater of the baits you mentioned, I tossed a white or smoke wacky rigged senko and caught them.

[smithlakebass]

Small 2.8 keitech on a ball head will do trick

[John Jackson]

Small grub, #4 or #5 shad rap, inline spinner like a mepps.

[Real Pudd legend]

Spybait or a Scrounger

[jamey1e]

I've encountered this several time's. Learned my lesson a few years ago from an older fellow that straight wore me out on school of bass. I had tried everything I could think of with out a bite. He comes along and catch's one almost every cast. He was throwing a super fluke jr in white ice. Thing is I had tried a regular super fluke in the same color with no luck. He taught me that when you encounter a school like that you really have to get a good look at the size of the bait their chasing. Even if it means getting up on top of them. In this instance one inch made all the difference. Sometimes it could be the action also. I've found schools that you could throw a soft jerk bait into and jerk it along and they wouldn't touch it but would annihilate it when you just slowly reeled it back on a steady retrieve.

[DrewFlu33]

I've had success on the river here in situations like that by throwing a weightless 3 inch white Senko on a 1/0 hook and fishing it like a fluke. The tough part is casting it far enough, but they'll hit it!

[Casslaw]

I had an issue with schoolies down here in Florida in November. They wouldn’t hit anything other than a lipless crank, I have no idea why. I think, at the time, they were focused on bait so much smaller than normal they simply wouldn’t react to any squarebill, topwater, jerkbait, soft plastic, spinnerbait, chatterbait, NOTHING!

Once I started throwing a red eye shad, it was a hit fest! I’d get 4-5 hits per cast before one would actually get it. It felt like they were swiping at the lure with their mouths closed, it was very odd. This lasted for almost 3 weeks then they went back to hitting my “normal” schoolie lures.

[DrewFlu33]

Another thing I've seen work which is completely couterintuitive is to throw a Carolina Rig at them. It sounds nuts, but for whatever reason it just works at times.

[Real Pudd legend]

Jigging a Damiki rig style set up works wonders for me

[Fx20 2011]

I only had that happen once. What I did was went to a 4 inch black senko with no weight. I have no idea why it worked. They would not even look at the same 5 inch senko. I mean we tried everything we had and this is what worked. I bet the next time if will take something different.

[eyra_kid]

My goto for finicky schoolers would be a Ned Rig with a White Lightning Finesse TRD. 1/15 or 1/20 red Finesse ShroomZ

[PolarKraft195]

Small swimbait on a 1/4-3/8 oz underspin!

[Wackyjig]

I deal with this quite a bit on the tn river. This time of year the bait fish are so thick its incredibly hard to compete with thousands of the real deal. My usual go to is something white. Whether it's a jerkbait, trap, swimbait etc.
The white bait in the middle of that big ball of shad really stands out and usually gets a strike