This weekend on Lake Belton I stopped in the morning for what I thought was schooling white bass topwater action. As I looked closer I noticed that it was not whites and looked like maybe small mouth buffalo. Can`t be sure cause I did not catch one despite constant casting into them. They hit the top constantly for about 30 min over an acre or more. I watched many hundreds of them break the surface but I don`t know what they were doing. Here is a screenshot of my graph. Anyone know what this was?

Years ago while fishing old lake Dallas we came upon what we thought was acres of schooling sand bass. The Hummingbird flasher was lite up. We started throwing top water baits no bites. We finally noticed all the fish were Gar I never seen that again since.

Has Belton got a good small mouth bass population? I have never seen or heard of buffalo hitting the surface. They aren't built for surface feeding. Small mouth bass can be close to the color of buffalo and vice versa.

It did not seem like they were feeding at the surface, when they surfaced there was no big splash. Just up so I could see their backs then down again.

Buffalo do surface and when they do they look like a porpoise. They do that apparently when they are feeding on the bottom. There are theories that they are surfacing to clear silt from their gills from stirring up the bottom. They do not clear the water as carp sometimes do.

A porpoise is exactly what they reminded me of when they hit the surface.

+1
Buffalo and Carp both do this, in addition to other things such as tail slapping at the surface and even leaping completely out of the water. I have seen (big!) Buffalo caught by White/Striped Bass anglers in the past, oftentimes they act as a sort of "clean-up crew" eating the scraps of shad below a school of feeding bass.

Buffalo commonly roll on the surface. I see them often rolling even in the middle of big reservoirs. Many times the fish jumping at this time of year are carp or buffalo. I watched an angler this weekend run from fish jump to fish jump throwing a bass lure. All of the fish I saw jumping were carp.

My favorite is when I've baited an area for several days. I love seeing people fly past, mark a ton of fish, and whip around to give it a pass or three. Little do they know the fish they're marking are Carp and Buffalo

We were fishing in the spring at the marina on raybob by the tires. Kept hearing big splashes while the shad were spawning by the tires. Carp and buffs were smashing the shad against the tires is all I could guess. We foul hooked a couple on poppers when they whacked em.

They may not be built for surface feeding or predation but I guess they will not pass up a good meal.