The Truth About Bass Behavior: Underwater Secrets

many of you know that I spend hundreds of hours filming bass underwater and in doing this I have learned way more than I ever could by just standing on the deck of my boat but this makes sense right because what we can observe from above the water is so different than what is actually happening under the water well here are five bass behaviors that I have seen again and again over the last three years and they're often very different than what we think or what we have been told number one bass Rome much more than we realize we often think about them finding a comfortable spot and just sitting there for extended periods of time well this just isn't the case it has been so obvious to me that bass are on the Move both Largemouth and Smallmouth so much more often than we realize now they may not be necessarily migrating big distances you know all the time were really covering some ground right I like to often think about it as this analogy of a dog roaming around in a yard they kind of pick an area that's conducive to what they want at that time whether it's oxygen food sources access to deeper water whatever it might be and they kind of just circle through that area and just go through that particular spot but they're on the Move now as that sun gets higher and more intense it makes this roaming a little bit smaller right it's going to push them up into those shady areas but even with those Shady locations let's say under a great big dock type system they keep moving in and around that dock now yes are there times when they're absolutely loafing and just sitting you know maybe suspended along a dock post yes that does happen but they move so much more than we realize that they move so how can this help us well one you can never go wrong with a searching mindset this mindset of covering water to locate Bass that's always going to be a good approach just about on any given day when you think you've located this key spot okay this really high percentage area this visible Target when you think you got it nailed in your mind's eye right there expand it out a little bit so they may be going by this particular Stomp and relating to it for you know a few seconds or a minute and then they kind of move out and about and circle back up to that area so once you hit what you think is the best spot you know it's like wow look at that stump I'm going to pitch a jig right to it make sure you check out a little bit farther because there's a good chance that there's bass in the area but they're just roaming around or covering a little bit larger territory than we realize number two and this one really shocked me is that bass are rarely deep in Brush we often think about you know pulling bass out of the middle of the thickest brush piles right right well in all my filming that is just not the case they relate to the edges but here's why we often think we're pulling them deep out of cover let's take a look at this particular image right here so you can see some thick brush and you've got bass right here relating to an edge underneath okay underneath some overhanging brush where you've got some Open Water they're down there where it's open right on the edge now think about if we were up on a shoreline or up in a boat and we pitch a jig down into this we drop it through those branches and get one of them to bite we pull it out what does it look like from our perspective we're pulling them out of that thick brush when in actuality they were on an edge in Open Water Edge next to that brush so what's our takeaway here well you can never go wrong when you're focusing on edges number three is cold front bass do not move as far as we think they do and this is one that I've spent a lot of time researching over the last two years and what I have found is that whatever they relate into okay whether it's the top of a rip rap bank or up you know around some docks along the shoreline when that cold front hits they slip to the bottom edge of whatever they were relating to so in this particular instance before the cold front there was bass up here around this dock you know in this shady area kind of circling around it back and forth when that cold front hit all they did was drop down to where this sloping Bank meets the lake bed okay so there's a vertical drop of maybe five feet six feet but only a horizontal movement of a foot or two and I've seen this again and again and again as those cold front bass will just slip to the bottom edge of whatever they were on it's deeper water not necessarily deep water if that makes sense number number four when bass are on alert or put on alert because something's going on that they aren't comfortable with or feel suspicious about they kind of casually or nonchalantly slip down to that next break line very rarely do I see them move horizontally when something puts them on alert they just pull out of that you know upper piece of cover along the edge of some brush they just kind of move away from it and slip down slowly and casually they do this again and again and again I've seen it so many times so as Bass Anglers how does this help us well let's say for example you're fishing behind another boat or you're walking down the shoreline behind another angler they are probably missing some fish or presenting their lures to empty water because they those fish were aware of some banging around in the boat deck you know they saw your Shadow when you were walking down the shoreline so don't forget to check that next cast length out that's slightly deeper water so many times that I've seen when I'm actually in the boat is I'm sitting right over the top of the fish and casting to empty water and number five is bass are rarely alone and I mean rarely yes there will be that time when you've got one sitting you know right next to a stomper relating to a stump and there's nothing else in the area but those times are far in few between this is probably the number one mistake that we make as Bass Anglers as we catch a fish or two and move on and I have just seen some incredibly large schools of bass even on smaller bodies of water so as we're going through a location we catch one we catch two make sure that we take the time to fish that location carefully and if we think that we've you know alerted them and they've slipped down farther well then back off a little bit fish a little bit deeper when you're on the shoreline cast out farther and if you have to go ahead and switch up lures you know maybe you caught a couple on a crankbait and now you need to slow down to a Shaky Head but those fish are probably still in that General location and they are very social creatures and they love to be in areas and congregate in areas together and speaking of things that I have learned over the last couple years if you want to watch a video on about how bass relate to Bridges and how these bridges are so much more complex than the cast or two that we will often put on them go ahead and watch this video right here and make sure to go out and encourage someone today you never know how you might just change their life for the bass fishing life I'm your host Steve Rogers

Channel: Steve Rogers Outdoors

Views: 126,763

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Id: WvX1IqO28pw

Length: 7min 42sec (462 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 16 2023