Deep Deadsticking - Part 1
September 5, 2008
Two anglers had been beating down the shallow bank all morning. The pair were a local tournament angling team, replete with a few wins under their belts the past few seasons together. Eventually, they espied two shad balls that had also been there all morning, although somewhat offshore.
The shad milled merrily atop the surface, feeling safe and secure in the only district of protection shad have - their unified school. Two balls of them, a few hundred yards apart, each rippled a section of the surface about as big around as a bass boat.
From a slight distance, the shad were indeed difficult to distinguish from the rest of the surface. They partially obscured themselves by their own slow-swirling vortex, the spiral motion of the fluid school members orbiting ceaselessly around their center.
But once espied, the anglers HBP'ed the trolling motor into close casting range.
Simultaneously, the two launched salvos of everything on the boat at the shad. They threw topwaters over them, pulled spinnerbaits under them, wobbled crankbaits through them and swam shad-imitating jigs all around the edges of the bait schools. They ripped jerkbaits and jerked jigging spoons erratically on the bottom below, and everything else, until they ran out of ammo.
About the only reaction that the onslaught of lures caused was for each whirling mass of water that was the shad to draw in a little closer toward its center.
Other than dimpling the surface like a gentle rain, the shad never paid the anglers no mind nor did any bass.
For the moment, life was cool, calm and relaxing for the playful shad - but tense and vexing for the two savvy anglers who threw everything they had at the bait balls, but hadn't stoked a single bass.
It had been a tough morning for the two.
If left unspoken, their dashed hopes of being defeated by the shad balls, would dissolve the two's confidence to nothing. Words became necessary to salve their unrequited casts.
Pretensions followed. "They're no bass under these so-and-so shad" and "They're just playing cause they aren't no bass in this here cove's why," and other mollifiers helped the two talk through and regain control of their confidence.
They wanted to win this tournament. They couldn't let two stingy shad balls take them out of their game.
They sparked up the sleek beast that was their boat and it roared out of there, them clutching onto it's grey-carpeted back at WOT.
Better fishing was a twenty-minute rocket ride uplake is what they had semi-convincingly told each other to hope for.
Back in the cozy cove, the shad had no desire to depart as suddenly. They had been there for most of the week, and it was not too bad there for them. There was plenty of nutrition there for them. With every passing day, the shad were maturing into hale, hearty specimens. Fine shad they were becoming too.
It's true there were largemouth, smallmouth and walleye camped on the shad, following their every move, but this gamefish garrison waw not a worrisome lot to the shad. It was acceptable and usually the case. Not so many striped bass or white bass were crashing in on the schools at dusk or daybreak. The carnage wasn't sufficient to cause the school to flee this place. Their home - the school - was still intact and everything indicated it'd stay that way.
The school's a good place to be, the only place a shad can survive. It's solace for a shad to know the school will still be there tomorrow, even if every individual isn't. So they stayed another day and ate plenty and grew fat and frolicked merrily together. Life was good in the shad ball, even if no one could ever stray beyond it.
Within the hour, however, another tournament team entered the area. It was a remote cove, hidden from the main lake channel, and only the best anglers knew its location. These two had found the shad balls there during tournament practice, and knew just where to find them again now, and what to throw, to win the tournament.
They pulled close on top of the shad balls, picked up ten pound test spinning sticks and grinned giddily at each other. Each gently flipped an unweighted wacky-rigged 4" (9S series) watermelon Senko into the middle of the ball and let it sink down straight through the shad ball, and got a good fish every time.
If you threw a topwater over them, or pulled a spinnerbait under them or swam a jig through them or whatever else, you'd never get hit. But if the two could cast an unweighted wacky Senko directly into the center of the school and just deadstick it down to the bottom and wait... oh my!
You see, there were dozens of bass and walleye camped on the shad, with hungry eyes riveted intently on the school, watching their every move. They didn't want to alarm the shad, but didn't want to lose contact with them either. The predators stayed out of sight, out of mind, using every nook and cranny to conceal themselves. The two anglers understood these predators weren't going to risk rushing into the bait balls and blowing the shad out of the cove.
If they were off on the cast, if they cast say ten feet off the shad ball, they'd never get bit. It was a good thing it was not too windy or they'd barely be able to see the shad well enough to cast dead center into them, and then just wait for the bite that is bound to happen...
They knew the predators would rest just beyond the edge of alarming the shad, and if a shad fell out and fluttered to the bottom below the bait school, a bass would bide its time until it was safe to sidle over sooner or later to hunt for the fallen shad - but only after the bait ball had drifted a bit away.
So the next time you and your buddy are casting away over a blissfully milling shad school, before you blurt out the obligatory, "They're no bass under these shad" or "They're just playing," and other mollifiers like that... recall this story and try it. You won't be sorry.
Click here to read more:
- Part 1: Deep Deadsticking
- Part 2: Deep Deadsticking
- Part 3: Deep Deadsticking
- Part 4: Deep Deadsticking By Jim Gildea
- Part 5: Deep Deadsticking By Jeff Gustafson