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Schooling bass busting baitfish is a regular occurrence on many Pennsylvania waters throughout the warm-water season. Anglers take advantage of this classic summer and early-fall pattern with a myriad of topwater lures. During spring, pre-spawn fish will gather and chase swarms of bait as well. Sometimes these fish do not respond as well to a typical surface lure. The reason for that is difficult to figure. Maybe the answer has something to do with water temperature; or, perhaps it is indicative of selective feeding behavior. Frenzied bass behave like that at times, focusing on baitfish under the surface. Obviously, this calls for a bait that runs under the surface. Especially during the spring, but also in the heart of summer when topwaters probably work well, there are instances when I have had to tie on a subsurface lure when the bass seem to get tunnel vision.


Minnowbaits, lipless crankbaits, and spinnerbaits are often the lures of choice used to catch aggressively feeding subsurface bass, and there is no shortage of makes, models, and colors in those categories for anglers to choose from. But even with such an array of options, I frequently find myself tying on some sort of soft-plastic bait in a growing number of instances when faced with the situation of schooling bass busting bait.


A sometimes overlooked benefit of most soft-plastic lures is that they are typically fished on a single hook. A bass solidly hooked on a single hook will rarely slip the hook, while a higher percentage of fish hooked on hard baits adorned with treble hooks will shake free of the lure. Fish caught on a single hook can usually be released quicker and easier than those attached to a treble hooks. That may seem like a trivial feature, but feeding frenzies tend to be brief, and every second counts. Being able to get off an extra cast or two can greatly enhance your success.


Most avid bass anglers already possess many bags of soft plastics, yet employ them mostly for finesse and vertical fishing tactics. One of the most popular types of soft bait that I have increasingly thrown for schooling bass over the past few seasons is the standard tube. For schooling bass, the tube is zipped through the water like a scared baitfish. I found this technique one summer day when bass were feeding wildly off the deep edge of a weed line. After teasing the surface with a few different topwaters, I was unable to draw a single solid strike. Yet bass were boiling continuously within easy casting distance. I was baffled. Finally, in frustration, I grabbed another rod that held a green pumpkin tube jig, cast the lure to the center of the action, began reeling as soon as the tube hit the water, felt a solid jolt, and quickly landed a bass. That fish was followed by several others in short order, all taken by swimming a tube.


When burning a tube in open water, tubes rigged on jigheads with a sizeable exposed hook work most efficiently. Because you are fishing mostly open water, there is a miniscule chance of it hanging up and a slashing bass will often hook itself on the wide hook. Generally, I prefer an 1/8-ounce jighead, which is heavy enough for good casting distance yet won't sink too quickly during the retrieve. Usually, the retrieve should be straight and fast, but occasional pauses can make the bait stand out as distressed prey, often triggering bites. Apparently, a tube zipping about under water gives the impression of fleeing baitfish to feeding bass because this tactic has caught fish for me in extremely clear water, which is generally one of the toughest conditions to catch bass.


The amount of realism, in terms of color, profile, and motion, that can be built into a soft-plastic lure is undoubtedly why they are so attractive to fish. Some of the most realistic soft plastics currently on the market are swimbaits. I regularly use some smaller 3-inch swimbaits because that size often represents the bait bass are ganging up on. When fishing clear water and a specific baitfish type is the target prey, this realism goes a long way. Matching the size and color of the forage is crucial to catching persnickety fish that seem to be keying on specific prey. Swimbaits are fished similarly to a horizontally presented tube. Typically, I swim them steadily and quickly, sometimes using short stops with subtle falls and abrupt rises.


Rather than a specialized swimbait hook, a regular jighead is best suited for small swimbaits due to the size of the plastic. Also, before sliding on the bait, a light dab of superglue coating the underside of a dry jighead keeps the swimbait firmly attached to it.


Another pair of plastics that sort of fit into the same category with each other when employed for schooling bass are sticks and jerkbaits. These are two very important baits to remember, specifically as summer progresses. That is the time when young-of-the-year baitfish hiding around weeds and other vegetation are assailed by pods of marauding bass. The exposed hooks on most surface lures and even some soft plastics will constantly grab the weeds. A 3/0 or 4/0 wide-gap worm hook buried in a soft stick or plastic jerkbait gives an angler a way to access feeding bass near surface weeds.


Soft jerkbaits, like swimbaits, have a realistic look and action to them. Usually, these are retrieved with a staccato jerking motion as their name implies. For schooling bass, I smooth out the retrieve using the reel more, retrieving it rather quickly in conjunction with a constant twitch of the rod tip, which runs the bait on a straight line with a tail shimmy. I pause it once or twice during the retrieve causing the bait to fall just a bit and then pop it back into rhythm. Of course, the usual erratic side-to-side motion works too.


While retrievals and usage conditions of sticks compare to those of soft jerkbaits, a stick is akin to a tube in that its profile doesn't exactly imitate anything in particular. Nevertheless, sticks have an uncanny ability for catching bass. And rigged and retrieved in similar ways to soft jerkbaits, sticks have a knack for tempting schooling fish to hit them. The reel-twitch-pause method has taken many subsurface bass for me. Undulations in the back half of the stick affected by twitches add extra attraction to this subtle but deadly bait. When choosing soft sticks for schooling bass, colors such as watermelon, smoke, or pearl with some sort of sparkle or glitter molded into them are consistently effective.


While topwaters and other lures are a foundation for catching aggressively feeding bass, subsurface soft plastics fill in the cracks and provide the finishing touches.