“That’s key,” says Lawyer. “For deep
schoolers, you’ve got to have a good
set of Lowrance electronics, there’s no
two ways about it. There’s simply no
good way to find deep schooling bass
without those Lowrance electronics.
That’s your eyes under the water, and
the only way to find bass with them is
to put your time in, idling and looking.”
timing
The time to start looking for sum-
mer schoolers, says Lawyer, is right
after the spawn.
“As soon as the spawn’s over those
fish start migrating offshore onto these
spots,” he says. “They’re strung out
from spawning and running the banks,
and now that it’s over they start migrat-
ing into these groups that are going
back to that summertime restaurant
out there in the lake. They just want to
hang out and eat, sort of like going to
Florida for the winter.”
And as long as the food stays there,
the bass will stay there pretty much all
summer until fall starts creeping in. As
the water begins to cool, the bass will
move back up shallow.
“That’s when you get a lot of the sur-
face schooling of aggressive fish that
are putting on weight for winter,” says
Lawyer. “Catching summer schoolers
tends to be more of a numbers game,
and catching fall schoolers produces a
little more quality, as those fish have
had all summer to regain their strength
and eat and grow.”
patterns and Baits
When bass are schooling near the
surface, it’s important to stay above
them with baits.
“The best luck I’ve had is with a
spoon,” says Lawyer. “It’s erratic, it darts
around, and you can keep it deep or
close to the surface. That’s what I did at
the Forrest Wood Cup last year on the
schoolers – I tried to keep my spoon
close to the surface with that darting
action. Even if they aren’t hungry they’ll
still hit it as a reaction bite.”
Lawyer uses either a 1/2-ounce
homemade spoon in white or a 1/4-
ounce Freedom Lures Minnow Spoon.
“It’s only a quarter-ounce, but it’s
such a good little flutter spoon,” says
Lawyer. “You don’t have to work it so
fast to keep it up there, and it’s really
erratic and darts around. It’s an awe-
some schooling bait.”
When bass aren’t as aggressive,
Lawyer likes a Zoom Super Fluke for its
larger profile that tends to catch a big-
ger bass. For deep schools, he likes a
drop-shot with a Zoom Finesse Worm.
“But the whole key to that [the drop-
shot] is a 3/8-ounce weight or some-
thing heavy, so you can drop it down
there fast when you see one right
underneath the boat on your Lowrance
electronics,” he says.
Perhaps the best overlooked bait
for schooling bass, says Lawyer, is an
old-school hair jig.
“Freedom makes a hair jig called the
Hydra Shad that’s a really nice bait. It
has the appearance of a nice, big shad,
and it’s big enough that you can get it
down there quickly and work it on the
bottom or just above.”
GO SMALL FOR DEEP
SCHOOLERS
Lawyer believes one mistake
people make is to throw baits that
are too big. Instead, he says, take
the stealthy, understated approach
by throwing smaller baits that tend
to disturb the school less.
“Everybody throws big baits,” he
says, “but it seems like once you’ve
caught one you’ve busted the
school up so bad they kind of get
onto what you’re doing and you
have to go find another school.
Sometimes you’ll bust a school up
throwing something noisy the first
time. You’ll catch one, but it seems
like you catch more fish out of the
school when you try to go with
smaller baits that don’t disrupt the
school as quickly.” ■
Zoom Finesse Worm
Zoom Super Fluke
Freedom Lures
Minnow Spoon
Lead spoon
Freedom Lures
Hydra Shad
30
FlWFIshIng.com I July 2017