Jackson and I were at the Monticello landing again Friday at daylight. As we were putting the boat in we talked to a guy who said he had seen some fish schooling the day before. That ratcheted up our expectations. As we eased out through the snag infested waters we soon saw schooling activity.  Expectations rose yet higher. It took a few casts to catch one but they were striped bass. We were going to a spot in the same general area anyway so we trolled over. There we caught a largemouth pretty quickly. Then I hung another that came up and gave a spectacular jump 18 inches high and shook its head so violently that it snapped my line. The fish was 2 1/2 pounds in my estimation. As I was rigging up another Booyah, I heard a fish jump and also the tinkle of my spinner blades. Before I completed rigging up the fish jumped again still trying to lose the bait impaled in its jaw. A good lesson in the need to retie your line before you start another day of fishing. Jackson then got into the act and had one to snap his line too. I think we caught one more in that spot but all were small. This was out in the open water around a submerged pond. We tried the pads with a Ribbit but could not get even a small bass to bite. I tried a swimbait in a little deeper water but only lost the two that bit. Finally in the edge of the pads Jackson got the FOD to bite his spinnerbait. It weighed 3 – 15. We tried and tried but just could not get it figured out. We ended up with 5 bass that came in the boat and even more that we lost. In years past, this time of year the bass have been in the pads but not now. I noticed none of the small insects that get on the pads so maybe there are no bream in the pads, thus no bass. Maybe that’s the reason for the bass not being there. A theory in progress.