Deep Water Sanctuary - Home of the Baitfish?

[Bryan-AZ]

What do the bass do when they are not on a structure and decide to move to deep water in the channel? Well, it looks like they aren't always dormant.

This first picture shows a downscan of a nice reef/bar type of structure goes all the way to the main channel at 55ft. This is a wide channel with a muddy bottom.

The threadfin shad are so thick in the bottom of the channel that they almost look like rock clumps on the downscan. I circled the area in red to give you an idea of the approximate area I was floating when I took the attached video. Basically, dead center of the channel with 100+ feet from the structure.

(the waypoint I set on the group of fish is most likely a stack of Yellow Bass)

Channel-Bass1.jpg (93.43 KiB) Viewed 1367 times

This downscan image is from when I was sitting still in the middle of the channel. The layer of threadfin shad takes up most of the 50-55ft range. Just above them were the bass swooping through these clouds of shad in the middle of the channel... you can see them as streaks.

Channel-Bass2.jpg (163.83 KiB) Viewed 1367 times

This video should put the above images in perspective. I started the video when the camera is inside the cloud of shad at 50ft. Then, I moved the camera a few feet above to see what was tormenting the shad...

Click here for the video...

Channel-SchoolingBass.wmv

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