By Lawrence Taylor
It’s one of the most frustrating situations an angler faces, standing amidst schooling bass as they churn the water to a froth and not getting them to bite a thing. You rummage all the way through the bottom of the tackle box, but nothing you throw at them triggers a strike. I’ve been there, and you probably have, too.
BASS Elite Pro Angler Matt Reed and I encountered that situation in late October on Alabama’s Lake Guntersville. We cruised up on the violent melee with confidence because we’d been catching schoolies on Heddon Spooks just a mile or two away from this new area. After an hour and plenty of cursing, we pulled up the trolling motor and left.
“If that had been a tournament day, I’d have left a lot sooner,” Reed said. “You can sit on those spots and die if you can’t catch them. School fish look like the easiest prey there is, and sometimes they are, but when they do something like they did today they can be the most frustrating in the world.”