Thanks, hope you had some luck at Long Sault, I should be heading there for some carping soon, one of my buddies caught his PB carp there last week at 29 lbs.

I have seen them go investigate the anchor while I was snorkelling on underwater Islands but I’ve never noticed one actually following a drifting anchor like that. What I can tell you is that they are extremely curious. Often times when I anchor on a spot where I know there are lots of bass and wait 5 minutes or more before entering the water with my snorkelling gear, they are all around the boat just seemingly waiting for me. Another thing they like to do when you’re snorkelling is sneak up on you from behind and come very close. When you turn towards them they take off like kids playing or something. Some however aren’t shy at all. I’m guessing they are the alpha males or something in a group. They’ll be darker in colour and will always be the first to “greet” you underwater. I’ve had some display quite aggressive behaviour. I.E “I don’t like you being here”.

As far as following an anchor, my bet is that your anchor was acting much like an eel does when stirring up the bottom looking for food. I have seen time and time over again large smallies following eels around and jumping on a crawfish trying to escape. My bet would be it was following the anchor hoping it would stir up a crawfish or small minnow or something. I wouldn’t bite anything you had because it could see you and your boat. If they know you’re there, it’s extremely hard to get them to bite. They aren’t really afraid of boats, but I think they actually associate boats to getting caught and will become very good at seeing that your lure is a fake.

Cool stuff man. Hope this answers your question a bit.

We were anchored in some moderate current in about 5-6 feet of water, over some rocks near an island. The anchor was dragging very slowly along the rock / sand bottom. Next thing I see is a huge smallmouth bass that I first mistook for a drum following the anchor and bumping it. We obviously tried to catch it with everything in our arsenal, but it wasn’t interested in the least bit as I expected.

Here is the strange part: Once we realized it wouldn’t hit anything, we tried to figure out why it just kept following the drifting boat. We tried spooking it with the rods, as well as netting it, it just moved and came right back again. It wasn’t aggressive at all. The only thing that managed to spook it in a hurry was when I caught another perch and brought it near the boat. At that point the bass left in a hurry. Once the perch was released, the bass returned again. It tried this again with another perch and it spooked again. We could have gone on for hours, but it was time to leave.

My best guess is that the anchor was disturbing it’s territory, and it was “sizing up” our anchor, although that doesn’t explain why it followed us for about 100-150 feet over the course of ½ hour.

Maybe it was following the dragging anchor in search of food, but it really didn’t seem too hungry, as it completely ignored us.

I would love to you have ever had similar experiences with bass, or if you can confirm this strange bass behavior.