Open water bass fishing

When most people think of summertime bass fishing, they think of chunking spinnerbaits and plastic worms along brush and weed lines. Don't get me wrong, those tactics can work... sometimes, but there are times when conditions are perfect for an open water bite.
We fished a small 800-acre reservoir that doesn't have a lot of habitat for largemouth bass. The fish in this lake have adapted to the conditions and feed primarily on shad and other prey fish in open water. On overcast days with a breeze, these fish begin actively feeding near the surface. We fished an open water hump that quickly dropped from 15 to 27 feet. The fish were stacked up around 20 feet, and we could see large schools of shad on our graph. Every few minutes, the bass would herd and school of baitfish to the surface and the top of the water would erupt with a flurry of activity. Whenever that happened, a well placed cast would produce a hit. It didn't matter what you would throw in front of them, they would hit it. Once the sun came out from behind those clouds, however, the bite ended. Here is a nice 3 lb fish I caught on an Excalibur ghost minnow. I'm not sure why I look so pissed in the picture, I was actually in a pretty good mood.