Bass reveal their hunting tactics to sharp-eyed anglers.

Applying This Knowledge Imagine a small cove with three or four laydown logs in two to three feet of water. If you believe bass principally hunt from ambush, you might at most hope for one or two bass to be holding under each log. And after you catch a bass or two, you might look elsewhere. This could be a valid tactic when bass are neutral or inactive and not moving. If you understand that bass feed by moving, however, you might return again and again to each log, hoping to find new active arrivals passing through the cove. You might even decide one log is the arrival point and silently wait there, making intermittent casts to catch new arrivals. Similar situations develop in deeper water on points and humps. Suppose you’re casting a rattlebait and get a hit at a large flat or point. You’ve seen that feeding bass often travel in small schools and so expect other bass to be there. After a few fruitless casts to the spot where the bass was hooked, decide which way the bass were moving and cast well ahead of their probable course. If this doesn’t garner another strike, try another possible route, perhaps a reverse course.

Bass become active periodically. We’d see them yawn a few times and form small, loose schools. The schools then moved to patrol the edges of cover and the shoreline. Other divers report similar observations.

From shore or a boat, it may be hard to see inactive bass hiding inside cover, but diligent observers eventually see this behavior. Underwater observations merely confirm behavior any angler can detect if he takes the time.

Bass hunt actively, usually moving in small schools along the shoreline and edges of cover. They enter cover to rest, hide from larger predators, and digest food. Semi-active or neutral bass often suspend near cover, where they hunt opportunistically rather than actively. They sometimes strike nearby and vulnerable targets that are lulled into approaching too close or that get careless and look away too long. These behaviors may account for great catches made by carefully flipping or pitching lures into cover.

Active bass are more eager to bite and easier to tempt with lures, but they’re more wary and easily alarmed while exposed and moving. Casts to cover are effective primarily because active fish pause nearby to look for emerging, vulnerable, careless prey. Anglers who flip or pitch may believe they’re taking bass lurking in ambush. Field observations suggest, however, that often they’re taking bass cruising open areas near or under brush or vegetation, looking for prey.

These behaviors can be seen in practically any clear, shallow bass water. Preyfish try to avoid cruising bass and stay about three feet away from hovering bass. But they’ll approach inactive bass closer. Totally inactive bass, those sleeping and digesting prey, often are seen with prey within inches of their mouths.

Preyfish know when bass are feeding, and they try to avoid them. When a lure looks and moves like a healthy preyfish, it must be close to a bass to be considered a vulnerable target. Bass learn early in life that healthy, alert prey can successfully dodge them. Bass learn to conserve energy and await vulnerable targets. To consistently draw strikes, a lure must appear to be fleeing in panic, trapped against a solid background, injured, or distracted and unaware of the bass.

For too long, writers and biologists have emphasized the ambushing nature of bass. Take time to look and study for yourself. You’ll likely see what bass observers have seen. And you’ll likely reach similar conclusions.

* Ralph Manns, Austin, Texas, is a fishery scientist and angling authority who has contributed features and columns to In-Fisherman for almost two decades.