7 replies to this topic

[PantherMartin15]

hey all,

 

Was hoping someone could help me out with this one, so I was at Rice lake after some bass this past weekend and when I got to one of my spots I noticed something I havent really come across before. So this spot is at a point of where a bay empties out to the middle of the lake. So theres a point  on one side and the other has this weed line, thats kinda like tall grass that sticks out about 4 to 5 feet above the water almost like bull rushes.  I normally dont go to the weed section I stick to the one point cause of the rocks, looking for smallies but this time I thought what the heck lets try this weed line.

 

Thats when I noticed these schools of bubbles (i'm not actually sure what they were, looked like bubbles but I could only see them from as close as maybe 3 feet away) kept surfacing. Schools of about 15-30 bubbles all surfacing at the same time. Never in the same spot and surfacing quite frequently. Then the fish started jumping. Again I never saw one close up only heard the sound then saw the distruption in the water from where it jumped. These were decent sized fish tho, so I tried going after them with everything I had in my box, cranks, spinners, and plastics but nothing would bite. They continued to jump all around me and the bubbles kept surfacing in various spots but I couldnt do anything but get frustrated lol !!!

 

My thinking was it was schools of small, bait fish in which some type of bigger fish were trying to eat? Am I correct here? If so any idea what type of fish these were and how I might go after them?

[troutddicted]

Probably - in a case like this you need to match what the fish are eating.  Fishing a river a couple years back we noticed shiners being chased to the surface followed by the wake of a larger fish.  Using minnow imitations we would cast to this area as quick as possible and connect with the brown trout that were gorging on the shiners.  Cool experience.

[IR4J]

I would assume it was some largemouth chasing bait, I cant remeber what the forage base in rice is but I would assume shiners...

 

Try fish a weightless fluke, or jerk bait.. best schooling imitation in my opinion

[416fish]

They could be Carp.  That sounds like carp behaviour to me.  Use boilies or corn to catch them.

[NADO]

yea i'm thinking carp too. The bubbles were likely caused by the carp feeding on bottom, often when carp feed on bottom they will come and jump at the surface to get the mud off of them.

[PUMP KNOWS]

yea i'm thinking carp too. The bubbles were likely caused by the carp feeding on bottom, often when carp feed on bottom they will come and jump at the surface to get the mud off of them.

 

 

I never knew that

[Jet fishin]

That explains a bit for me too

[alwayscatching]

To be honest as much as I would love to say that they are bass, past experience on Rice tells me that they are probably carp. I have seen that before on the little channel off the left side of the O River on Rice. They have monster carp there.