Have any of you been faced with this type of deal? How did you overcome it?

I know this isn't the best picture. I didn't have this realization until editing my tournament footage. On this spot I caught maybe 30 bass in about 2 hours. Do you notice how tight that ball of bait is? Just a complete circle. Those bait are scared! That's how bait protects against predators.  You can see the same thing if you use a 2d sonar unit. There's still a lot for me to learn about this but it's very obvious that bait behaves differently depending on how many fish are around.  I never thought of this before.

This is a picture of my graph from Rayburn. Your's looking at a picture of a ball of bait on 3d sonar. This is what a ball of bait looks like when it's not threatened. Notice how the long skirt of forage lingers out to the right? They aren't worried about predators.  I'll post another screenshot of a place where I caught fish every cast. You'll notice a difference in how tight the wad of bait is together.

I fished a little bit this morning. I learned something at Rayburn I was eager to try here at home. When I’m idling I often times see a lot of bait fish. All the bait doesn’t have fish on them. The way to tell the difference between when a group of bait ha so fish or not is by how tight the wad of bait is. Of the bait is really tight there’s probably a lot of fish there. If the wads are loosely gathered it’s just bait being bait. Knowing this can save a lot of time.

Hello everyone I’m new to the page. Have been fishing for about 3 years, def later than I should have but being 40 what can’t we do haha. 

I’m back in the saddle this week. Looking forward to hearing you guys. Questions on the workshops that were posted while I was at Sam Rayburn last week. Thanks for all of you guys. Well wishes and support and that last event. I learned so much that I can’t wait to share with you. I’m going to make a video about something really important that I learned about finding bait and noticing what type of bait to fish around. 

When using the Neko rig in grass, how much weight do you use? Should you try to gently get the rig through grass or heavy enough to drive the rig to the bottom?  I would be fishing in 4-6 feet of water in the spring and early summer before that grass gets too thick.

Anyone going to Redcrest?

Suppose to be cold and rainy for the next few days in my area. I’m going organize my tackle. I use the ping pong table and lay everything out. I can then package everything in groups like crankbaits, spinnerbaits, worming techniques , soft plastics and terminal tackle. Label the containers and Then I’m more efficient on the waterways. 

Looking forward to hear how Rayburn is going.  Looks like you had a positive day minus the weather/late start.