If you are after a lunker bass, the best time is at night under a full moon. Fish the large or small rivers.

Shoal Bass do not have any special dietary requirements. They eat all the popular bass foods used to catch largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, spotted bass and stripped bass. As with all bass, crayfish, sometimes referred to as crawfish, is at the top of their list and it is their primary food source.

Shoal Bass will also eat hellgrammites, insects and other small fish including shad, bream and even a catfish. The Shoal Bass will also go after any food it sees close to the river bank or in shallow water like a small snake, a lizard, frog or even a toad.

Other popular baits include some bait-shop staples like the black leech, horse leech, earth worm and fathead or golden head minnow. The problem with all of these is that they will catch every other fish in the river. Your best bet when using any of these common foods is to right size the bait to the expected size of Shoal bass you expect to be present in the river. Smaller baits will be ignored by the larger fish and attract pretty much every other small fish like rock bass and sunfish.

Shoal Bass are not picky in their diet and will go for almost anything. And, like other bass, they will strike at a bait or a lure for one of two reasons. The first is that they are hungry and the second is out of need to defend their territory. They may even go after bait that is larger than their mouth – much like people, their eyes can be bigger than their bellies.

Looking for a Lunker?

The Shoal Bass is not a terribly large fish. The largest Shoal Bass caught on record is 7.8 pounds. The most common size caught is in the two pound range. Finding a near world class sized Shoal Bass is a rare event these days as their habitat is reduced, however, there have been report from anglers that the water ways of Florida have offered Shoal Bass in the four pound range.

If you are after a lunker bass, the best time is at night under a full moon. Fish the large or small rivers. The size of the river makes little difference in the search for the largest Shoal Bass. The best time to start fishing is right after the sun has set. Give the bass time to get used to the dark then expect a good three to four hours of solid fishing before activity falls off. Activity will remain soft for several hours before picking up before dawn.