Today, my fellow guide, Stan Daniel, and I decided to try and figure out the problem with the Stick Marsh bass. We may have found the answers. But, it will have to work a couple of more times to be sure. We caught, or had on, 8 small fish in real shallow water in the wood at the very south end of the Farm. Worm, jig, spinnerbait. Then, we were out in the open water of the Farm when Stan spotted a huge school running baitfish everywhere. It was possibly the largest school either of us had ever seen. However, as we managed to get on them, we think it could have been multiple school of different sizes of bass. The winds were 15-25, so there was a good chop on the water. But, the surface action was so strong, you could see the fish and the baitfish clearing the water. We drifted down through the area three times using a wind sock to slow us. Each time, we'd get 2-3 small bass. We decided to try an anchor just upwind from the estimated location of the main breaking activity we had seen. The first time we tried, even 2 anchors would not hold in the wind. We moved a bit further over and finally got the anchors to hold. Every 15 minutes, or so, there would be 2-6 breakers come up on the baitfish. A Rat-L-Trap was fine. A Carolina-rigged worm also worked well. There appeared to be three separate schools of bass in range of the boat. The one to the north side was 8-12 inch fish. The one to our west was 2 to 3 lbs. There were some larger ones that broke too far for us to reach them and we ran out of daylight before we tried to set up on them. I expect we caught 25+ and had another dozen come off the Rat-L-Traps when they jumped. At one spot, Stan must have caught nearly a dozen small ones in 20 casts. Using the Carolina worm, we determined the bottom in the open water area to have a LOT of shells, probably big shell beds. We are sure because we snagged large shells off the bopttom 3-4 times when we let the crank plug get to close to the bottom. Whether we can do this successive times remains to be seen. But, it does give a very positive indication that the previously 'uncatchable' bass population in the Stick Marsh/ Farm 13 is probably just fine. And, that they are exactly where we had anticipated they would be -- out in the open water working the baitfish. A good point to remember is that these bass will be moving into pre-spawn modes by Christmas. So, we should see more and more return to the shallow, wooded areas of the south farm and the north and west walls of the Stick Marsh. Jim Porter