What does it mean when 'baby' bass pop up all over the water's surface?

[ultralight]

Not quite sure where to post this on TT and hope this is the right forum.

I'm a trout fisherman and know very little about bass. However, this evening as I was test casting a few rods I built this evening for casting distance, the water started dimpling all around me and little baby bass was leaping out of the water. This went on for at least 30 minutes and continued after I left. So I dropped a quick line with 2 lbs test and a 1/32 minijig and caught probably 10 bass between 6 and 8.5 inches in short order. (Yes, I'm sure you serious bass buys are laughing right now.... but as I said, I'm a trout guy so anything I can catch a bunch of bass, I'll take that new experience.)

Question - I've not seen behavior like this before in this lake. What does this mean? Does this mean that there are larger bass down there hunting these baby bass? Something else?

Thanks for any insight.

[Bronzeye]

I've spent a lot of time on bass water and have never seen little bass do this. Unless later posters say they've seen this, it is probably too rare for an answer to provide strategic value.

I doubt that they were leaping to escape a half-hour onslaught of predation, because they readily bit your lures. The dimpling suggests minnows surface feeding; the bass could have been charging them to eat them, with the momentum of the bass carrying them out of the water. Most of us have seen plenty of that when larger bass hit our surface lures.

You fish for trout. If you have a fly rod and some unweighted streamers, you could probably have a blast with these little tykes on similar evenings by stripping lightweight streamers just under the surface film. I've done that with a #8 Aberdeen hook wrapped in silver tinsel (no body underneath) and topped with black over white marabou. Can be great for evening crappies in shallow water, too.

[Hobie-Wan Kenobi]

A lot of times, panfish will surface as well. I've caught panfish that were either escaping bass or, chasing bugs on the top. It would be offine shore over about 10-15 feet of water. The panfish and small bass (too small to eat the panfish) would crush lures tossed into the fury.

[ultralight]

Thank you both Bronzeye and Hobie-Wan Kenobi. Much appreciate the insight!

Thanks.

[ultralight]

Just a quick update. Went back today and similar event, except at a reduced rate.

That's when I noticed that some type of bug was dimpling the surface of the water - almost looked like a light drizzle with the dimpling. So I assume that they are somehow feeding on the bugs. Sure looks unusual for bass to be doing that.

[toddmc]

This years spawn will be about that size and they will often be in large schools this time of year. This is very typical behavior. They are usually very aggressive and wiling to attack whatever is available. It's usually small baitfish that they are after. The small bass are eating very small silversides on my home lake right now. The small bass will eat any small baitfish imitator that you throw at them.
We throw a lot of large baby bass pattern baits for the big bass this time of year in SoCal because largemouth are more cannibalistic than most people think.

[ultralight]

Thanks! Helpful.