Back to school

Schooling bass producing for some on Lake Dardanelle

RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – When the kids go back to school, so do the fish. It’s an old bass-fishing axiom that proves true much of the time.

Sometime in August of every year when the back-to-school sales begin, you can bet there are bass schooling on shad somewhere in a local reservoir.

A handful of pros fishing the Walmart FLW Series BP Eastern on Lake Dardanelle made schooling bass pay off on day one.

Fifth-place pro J.T. Palmore of Gasburg, Va., is one such pro who stalked several pods of bass along rock-jetty lines yesterday, visually looking for the cruisers which are in search of shad. Palmore ended up with a five-bass limit weighing 11 pounds, 9 ounces.

“To me, it’s just like fishing the James River back home,” said the FLW Series rookie. “During the summers, bass gang up in small wolf packs and hang out around current breaks in the river, looking for shad schools. When I find those kinds of schooling fish, I go to a jerkbait to catch them.”

During practice Palmore said he scouted more than 30 various riprap embankments and jetties on Dardanelle, looking for this particular pattern. When practice was over, he had located just three wads of bass.

“What makes it crazy is there will be a pack of bass cruising back and forth on one small section of a jetty, but then I can go to 10 more jetties and never find another pack of fish,” he said. “They seem to like one little place, and that’s it.”

Before takeoff this morning, Palmore was tying on a topwater to see if he could get some of the schoolers to come up on the surface during the early morning hours.

The day-two weigh-in of the FLW Series begins at 2:30 p.m. at Lake Dardanelle State Park.

Thursday’s conditions

Sunrise: 6:30 a.m.

Temperature at takeoff: 66 degrees

Expected high temperature: 91 degrees

Water temperature: 83 degrees

Wind: light and variable

Day’s outlook: sunny