There are times I'll idle over offshore structure, like a point or a hump and find a smaller school of bass, nothing huge. I'm just wondering how long to sit on a school of fish that are relating to offshore structure, if they don't bite immediately?

Thanks

Till they stop biting

This I guess. . . ? Not really sure I understand the question. If I find a school of fish offshore, and they're biting, I'm not leaving until they quit or I gotta go. Why would you move if they're biting?

if they don't bite immediately, how long do you stay on em'.

Depends on confidence in the spot. Just cover the area good then go to next spot. You can check it again later and maybe have better results.

The key is getting them to bite. Once the biting starts they get fired up and the catching begins. There are many baits that will do this depending on the depth they are holding. I have found most of these schools are suspended off the irregular feature on that structure at about 10 ft.. It is like a trail of suspended fish leading from deep water and connecting to the structure. That first bite is very difficult to get. When they are that shallow they are easily disturbed and will disappear quickly.

Making long cast with a senko, usually weightless so the fall is very slow has worked on the shallow suspended schools. Deeper bass allows you to get vertical over them to use a drop shot; or stay just off the school and move a deep diving crank through the school slowly letting it suspend for long periods of time in the school.

Either way this is going to be short lived so once the school fires up get back into them as quickly as possible each time until the biting stops. They are there for a reason and if the bait leaves because of the frenzy then the bass will leave with them.

At the FLW event on Chickamauga I sat on 1 school all day. At 10:30 I had not had a bite, @ 10:45 I had 22lbs. Donald is right, get the first bite on a drop shot, senko or whatever you can. As soon as that happens fire the biggest crankbait you have out the to catch the big fish. Hope this helps

The advice that James & Donald gave is spot on. I do it a little differently.

When I am making my milk run at Fork, I will pull up on a spot where I have had success in the past and fire out a big crankbait first. If I don't get bit within 10-15 casts, I am running down the lake toward the next spot.

I may hit 20-30 spots in a days fishing. One of them will most likely pay off. To answer your question regarding how long I will sit on an offshore school. When the crankbait bite stops, I will throw a jig or C-rig to try to get a few more bites. If I don't get bit within 20 mins on one of those, I am gone.

Great advice! Thanks guys

For myself, a lot of factors are involved in this. The daily circumstances and body of water that I'm fishing make a huge difference. Different seasons, different lakes, trending weather, how many other deep water targets may be available and fishable and crowded water are some of the considerations to start with and can influence what mode of attack that you may choose. There are quite a few effective ways to fish a school and some good ones have already been addressed.

Come back and check them later.

Depends on how big the school is, I've sit on one school for 6 hours , catching them, I'd sit in the kill zone at the edge of timber, the shad would go out 40 fow and the school of bass would go around the back of them and chase them towards the edge of timber and another school would be waiting at the edge of timber to meet the shad, these were big school of bass 2lbs-6lbs biggest one I could pick off was 7lbs, I sat and watched them all day doing this. They would stop for about 20-25 mins then go round up the shad, what was fascinating, after some time the sand bass would join the bass and do the same thing, sitting awhile on a school can pay off if you can pin point exactly what they are doing and if the shad are staying, if after some while the shad move and you can't find them on that structure, go find the shad where they moved, especially on a point, start of the day the bass and shad could be relating part of the point and later on in the day bass and shad could be relating to a different part of the point

depends if fishing a tournament or fun fishing...