Bass fishing in cedar lakes

Question
Marc,
My buddy and I are casual fishers. We get out just for the relaxation. We recently fished at a cedar lake in southern new jersey where the bass were jumping all over the place, but we had little luck cathing anything. We were using surface poppers as well as jig worms, etc. We tried everything in the box. What should we be doing to have a better time of it in cedar water?

Answer
Hi Jim,

That is a tough one.  It's hard to say what was going on with all the surface activity.  Bait fish, bug hatch, etc.

My first thought would be, are you sure that they were bass?  If you were in the middle of bass feeding that heavily and weren't able to hook up, it would be very unusual.  Could they have been carp or something like that?

Otherwise I think you did all you could do.  Observe and try to match the behavior you are witnessing.  If there is some kind of unusual surface bug hatch, a surface plug would be the choice.  If you saw baitfish exploding out of the water, a shallow baitfish crankbait or spoon would be a good choice.  And when bass are feeding as vigorously as you saw, they will often hit just about anything, including the plastic worm you threw.  bass aren't like a stream Brook Trout where you have to match the hatch perfectly.  Again, that makes me wonder if what you saw were bass.  

If it was a mayfly hatch, that can play havoc with fishermen.  Traditionally, the bite for a lot of species is poor during a mayfly hatch.

I don't know if you did anything wrong.  Some days they just won't bite.  As you have probably heard before, that's why the call it "fishing" and not "catching".

Hope they bite next time.

Marc