How to Find Shoaling Striped Bass

When bass are shoaling, they are spread out amongst a large area. Shoaling stripers are spaced out rather evenly from one another, sometimes through miles of open water. In past years, my crew and I have found schools of stripers that extended for more than a mile.

Bass often exhibit this type of behavior during the night. Sometimes shoaling bass will be on the feed-other times they seem to be resting. When you encounter shoaling stripers, cross your fingers that they do not have lockjaw. It may be hard to believe, but I have on many instances, trolled through a half mile long school of shoaling bass without enticing a single strike.

When shoaling bass are willing to feed, the troll bite can be incredible. In these situations, it is possible to consistently catch a striper every 10-15 minutes for as long as bass exhibit shoaling behavior. Shoaling stripers are prime targets for tube and worm trolling because they are spaced out evenly amongst a large general area. Therefore, trolling tubes through this area will present your tube to individual bass on a fairly consistent basis.

This is much different than trolling through an area inwhich bass are schooling. When bass are schooling, youmay have a large school of many bass see your tube for only the length of time it takes for you to troll through the school. Once you troll through the school, your chance at catching a bass disappears until you encounter the next big school of bass-which could be a long ways away.

Because of this difference in bass behavior, I generally do better trolling tubes when bass are shoaling, as opposed to schooling.

The exception to this rule is when a school of bass has congregated around a piece of structure, such as a ledge or drop-off. In this scenario, it is possible to continually troll over the ledge or drop-off where the bass are holding. The fish remain in the same spot due to the structure, which is very convenient for fishing purposes.

When the drop-off or ledge that is holding bass suddenly goes dry, and you stop marking and catching fish, there is a good chance that the bass have moved off the piece of structure into the open water surrounding the drop-off or ledge. It's now reasonable to expect that the bass are now either exhibiting shoaling or schooling behavior in the area around the piece of structure.

Striped Bass Fishing Techniques

It's possible to miss a single bass mark when cruising at high speeds in an area where bass are shoaling. Therefore, if I suspect shoaling behavior, I'll generally search for bass at 10-15mph. This way it is easy to distinguish a solitary bass from other fish, such as dogfish or bluefish.

When cruising at 15mph or less, a striped bass will appear as a small orange blob on my color sonar unit. I've noticed that shoaling bass are usually found closer to the surface, holding at around 15 feet or less-even in depths of up to 80 feet. Keep in mind the fact that marking one solitary bass in the ocean is the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack.

There is a good chance that the one bass you marked on your sonar, is but one of hundreds or even thousands of fish shoaling in the general area.