Paul Roberts

Sorry this is off topic, but you would know... Are those lakers sitting there on the bottom in 75'+? I thought they hung around the thermocline, but admittedly, I'm not seeing one on this particular, secret lake where drinking water comes from. Nope --nothing fish related is apt to be too off topic. Could be either. Lakers can and will suspend at water temps below 55. When I did fisheries work the target for our gill nets was 52F for lakers. One night we had seiche occur that dipped 55F water onto the top end of one of our nets. That end was full of brown trout in the morning. That lake your refer to, I believe is only 90ft deep -yes? Unless it's the other one -at what 125? Either way, lakers will certainly suspend but you can expect to find a lot of them down on the substrate too, provided temp is right. Lotsa sculpins down there. Plus, fish don't stay within their "optimum" temp. They stay in a "preferred" temp that changes with the need for that preference -usually food. I once caught a pickeral 80/90 in that said lake. To make this relevant to the bass stuff I was seeing on this 12 foot deep pond: Physoclistus fish (closed bladder) do have a bladder system that is very efficient. Over the course of a day it should be able to adjust a few feet (if they need to). But this may take energy they do not need to burn. And realize, bass do not need to be AT equilibrium to function well. Some finning is all it takes to hold position and maneuver. I always wondered if positive buoyancy actually offers some speed advantage too. But it takes some energy to be positively buoyant; You can't sleep if you are getting sucked up to the surface. My guess is (with my present incomplete understanding of this gas bladder thing), bass aren't likely to change depth more than 5 feet for any length of time in short duration -like onset of evening (this is a guess at this point). I'm guessing they are holding in/near brush at ~7 to 8 feet and coming out as much as up. I think this because this is the depth I'm catching fish. Shallower, I'm finding the smalls (9 to 12"). Buck Perry was sure onto something when he coined "Depth Control". There's LOTS in that little phrase. BTW: Those bait balls you saw were up feeding on zooplankton (mysis?) and fish fry that were onto the smaller plankton. Ahh...it's coming back to me now. The FLs strain lakers are somewhat unique in that they are known to live suspended, more commonly than other strains. This was an issue with Lake Ontario's laker fishery, in which lamprey's were devastating the native and stocked (I believe inland Canadian) strains. This was bc they were bottom oriented and vulnerable to bottom oriented lamprey. The stocking of FL strain lakers was part of the success story behind laker re-introduction into Lake Ontario. My advisor then was instrumental in this work. I remember being on a trawler with him and another researcher and the trawl (this is a huge rig drawn by a 65ft boat) bringing up a huge dead laker with a "shotgun" hole in it's side. That thing stunk to high heaven and Chuck and the other guy, in rubber suits and masks, held it for a trophy photo shoot -proof of the lamprey devastation. The looks of pride on their faces was priceless -you had to be part of that project to fully appreciate it ;D. (Trawl samples brought up more lamprey killed (and OMG rotten!) lakers than would be predicted w/ normal mortality.) But FL lakers do use the bottom: Where 52F water hits the bottom (esp with good substrate) is a best bet.

Sorry this is off topic, but you would know... Are those lakers sitting there on the bottom in 75'+? I thought they hung around the thermocline, but admittedly, I'm not seeing one on this particular, secret lake where drinking water comes from. Nope --nothing fish related is apt to be too off topic. Could be either. Lakers can and will suspend, and prefer water temps below 55. When I did fisheries work the target for our gill nets was 52F for lakers. One night we had a seiche occur that dipped 55F water onto the top end of one of our nets. That end was full of brown trout in the morning. That lake your refer to, I believe is only 90ft deep -yes? Unless it's the other one -at what 125? Either way, lakers will certainly suspend but you can expect to find a lot of them down on the substrate too, provided temp is right. Lotsa sculpins down there. Plus, fish don't stay within their "optimum" temp. They stay in a "preferred" temp that changes with the need for that preference -usually food. I once caught a pickeral 80/90 in that said lake. To make this relevant to the bass stuff I was seeing on this 12 foot deep pond: Physoclistus fish (closed bladder) do have a bladder system that is very efficient. Over the course of a day it should be able to adjust a few feet (if they need to). But this may take energy they do not need to burn. And realize, bass do not need to be AT equilibrium to function well. Some finning is all it takes to hold position and maneuver. I always wondered if positive buoyancy actually offers some speed advantage too. But it takes some energy to be positively buoyant; You can't sleep if you are getting sucked up to the surface. My guess is (with my present incomplete understanding of this gas bladder thing), bass aren't likely to change depth more than 5 feet for any length of time in short duration -like onset of evening (this is a guess at this point). I'm guessing they are holding in/near brush at ~7 to 8 feet and coming out as much as up. I think this because this is the depth I'm catching fish. Shallower, I'm finding the smalls (9 to 12"). Buck Perry was sure onto something when he coined "Depth Control". There's LOTS in that little phrase -stuff he obviously didn't quite understand the "why" of. BTW: Those bait balls you saw were up feeding on zooplankton (mysis?) and fish fry that were onto the smaller plankton.

You know, I'm not a good judge. I've got to do some GPS measuring to get an idea on this. It's about a 1/3mile at the widest (??).

Yeah, John, the big diff with salmonids (as you know) is that they (as well as alewives and shad) don't have the depth change limitations that bass have. My guess is these fish are coming out of cover and not spending their days plastered to the bottom like lakers will.

Deeply overcast with some scary squall lines rolling through, bringing rain but no lightning close enough to chase us off. BP was high-ish and fairly steady over the past few days. Large flocks of starlings in cottonwoods along shore, and a Cooper's hawk showed up too; They follow the blackbird flocks like lions follow wildebeest. Very autumn feeling, and indeed we are slipping rapidly into shorter days now. 72.5F ST, 71F 10ft @ 12:30pm. The surface lost a half a degree by dark. Note that's a loss during daytime. The slow bleed has begun. A fishing buddy, Josh, met me today. We fish together a few times a year. I have mixed feelings about fishing with others. Josh is a really nice guy, a serious angler who notices stuff worth noticing. But, quite simply, other anglers are a distraction. We end up doing a bit too much chatting not a lot mind you, but enough to cause us both to miss things we normally wouldn't sometimes those are hard earned strikes. Where are the fish here?? When Josh arrived I suggested he might want to just go off and fish, as my mapping might get a little tedious. I welcomed the company but knew he was chompin' at the bit to break in his new finessin' rod. I gave him a handful of 1/8oz jig heads and he had bought two packs of Zoom U-Tails. No, I'll come along. he said. He's smart the value of delayed gratification is not lost on him. He ended up with, and commented on, the fact that the sonar gave up spots on this water we'd have never found, or understood, otherwise. On the way out to map a new area I passed over three suspended fish holding over the top of some very sparse brush. Too big to be perch carp? I ran a crank down to em and received a sharp slap bass. I tossed a jigworm back to em and came into good fish a 17+. What are they doing out here over this flat table top bottom?, I thought. WellI'm beginning to get a more accurate understanding of the scale of the picture my sonar is showing me. A 20deg cone covers about 30% of depth -about 3 feet of coverage width at 10foot depth. This means I'm cutting a pretty narrow swath with my sonar. I checked the surrounding area and found the answer. It's an 8ft shelf that juts out from this generally steep shoreline, then drops off into 10.5fow. Across this shelf, and off the drop in 10fow, is scattered brush, the largest about 4 feet tall with enough density to shelter bass and their snacks. I also spotted some, what appeared to be, medium sized fish around a denser patch of brush. Josh got hung on this brush, and when he kicked over and loosed his jig, he proceeded to pick up a nice sized crappie. To complete this picture we have to factor in the weather the deep overcast that brought bass out of the brush, to suspend (and likely hunt) nearby. Now, I was too busy right then to take a pic of the sonar screen, but, found this in the background of the pic of the captured bass above. So, here you go, some bass that had crawled out of cover to find some dinner. I'll leave you with a related, cool sonar shot at the end. In the new area I wanted to map out I found a nice boulder strewn shelf with a 7 to 11foot drop off. This made a turn out onto a long narrow finger bar with boulders on top and sides or likely it was a long pile of boulders left from construction. It was 5.5ft on top and 7 and 11 ft off opposite sides. There was brush off the deep edge in 9 to 11 fow See the big boulders, and a fish (likely a bass or perch), on top of this shelf. The little blue bumps that appear to be on top of the boulders at the right are more boulders at the edge of the cone. Remember a sonar screen is a 2D image of a 3D cone with as much as 90deg coverage all around (depending on sensitivity setting), with 30% focused coverage in the center of the cone. That fish could be a little one in cone center, or a big one off to one side. If it's off to the side, it's actually shallower than it appears on the screen. Off the edge of the bouldered shelf in 10fow, where the shelf turns (creating a U-shaped inside turn), a small hump with brush on top appeared on screen. I assume the 18 high hump was the root mass of the shrubbery. I ran a crank over it, ticked the top, and felt a tug a slap -then nothing on a couple more tries. Out came the jigworm and up came a bass, a fat 16. Josh asked at one point, Do you think there are bass over 5lbs in here? I answered, Yes -looking at the good numbers of bass in the 3lb range we catch here, and their great body condition. They should continue growing if adequate food is consistently there. I suppose that's the problem with most waters a food bottleneck that weeds out larger fish. And 5 lbs is quite a jump from 3, much more, 6, 7, or . If there are only a very few that have made this leap, then we aren't likely to see many. With all this exploring and mapping I'm doing, I'm hoping to home in on the best shots at mature fish. We'll see, better and better, what this water can produce. We could up-size our lures, and accept a lower catch rate, but this mapping still needs to be done to make best use of that. Shortly after this bit of conversation (during which I missed a bass >) I caught this 17in on a jig-n-craw, on the deep side of the finger bar, and said, This is just the kind of thing we don't want to see a senescent (old) fish on her way out, and only 17inches. Often I see pond's that have lots of small to medium sized bass, but the largest are thin and on their way out'. She might recover, but this is not a good way to go into winter." Finally, after mapping, Josh and I kicked over to the big shoal. I told him our catch rate would DEFINITELY pick up there. We jig-wormed the east side where I'd been catching them the last few times out, but we drew a blank! :-? While I patiently worked my way around the shoal, Josh said, I'll bet they're by the hump, and made a beeline to the little hump about 100 yards away. In short order his new rod was doubled and I watched a good bass spinning him in circles in his tube. It was a very fat 15. He was into another almost immediately, this one kept him busy for a while longer and then leapt clear. I want a picture of this one! he called out. Biggest fish of the day a fat 18+ (3½lbs -both our calibrated scales corroborated ). On such a little jig, Josh commented. This IS a different year than last. Lures Sometimes match the hatch rears its head, and this was true in this pond this year. This pond had a huge bass hatch and we had to adapt. (See the finessin' parts of my thread Some More Fishing: Crankin' and Finessin' for more details about this). http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1248500205 Chuck-n-wind regular-sized crankbaits just didn't interest fish as easily as in the past. This year, if the crank doesn't make contact with cover/substrate no go. Hit something and maybeor often I'd just get a slap. In past years, when bass were keying on perch I believe, the big cranks took fish very well chuck-n-wind through open water. This year, while little hatch-matchers like tiny 1/16oz paddle-tail grubs on UL worked like a charm, wrestling chunky bass on UL gear gets tedious after each bass has made his 6th circle around your float tube. I opted to give up some bites by going up to 8# on med spinning tackle and 1/8oz jigs. This doesn't preclude cranks they can be such excellent precise tools. I just need to understand the playing field a bit better before I can get the most out of em -especially this year. I got one on a crank at dusk, a 15" that struck on the initial descent up on the shelf (6fow). We were also using 3/8oz Arkie/football style jig-n-craw's on 12 to 14lb line for bottom scratching (feeling) the deeper (7 to 11ft) brush and rocks. This little res happens to also have LOTS of crayfish. RedShad Hula jig head, *** skirt, and Yum Craw Papi trailer. On the way out, at nearly dark, I saw on my sonar screen what I've seen in fisheries from the great lakes, to large lakes, to ponds: the sudden appearance of fish all over the screen at dusk. These here are probably perch and bass, having come out of hiding, probably brought out by bottom-up food chain activation. In large lakes it's zooplankton that rises up under the protection of low light. This is possible here too, to some degree, but there was also a midge emergence and a strong caddis emergence (Glossosoma Short-Horned Sedge). Little fish were blipping all over the surface. At my take-out spot at shore, the little bass fingerlings were ripping into those caddis likewellbass!

Very nice! Love those dark skies.

I find that intriguing! Here in Florida I'm far removed from Missouri, yet our bass are also behaving as though we're in the fall period. We were out just today, and you couldn't help but notice that the lake was alive with activity (both baitfish & bass). In spite of the activity though, nothing was really working for us, and I told my wife that we should be doing much better. She then tied on a spro aruku shad and quickly boated two bass. As soon as we gave up finesse fishing the action went from boring to red hot, and I also noticed that every bass gave us a hard fight (much jumping). This is not the rule in August, especially on this lake. I'm still mulling this one over, but I believe it's related in some way to the inordinate rainfall of late, and pool levels higher than we've seen in years. Roger Roger, what are your water temps now? Seems much of the south has been typically scorching from what I've assumed from some posts. The cool weather in the north. Is that so? Are you normal? Or Cooler? Lately?

Well, that's a start. The areas you mention are ballpark. Now you gotta find the bases. Not surprising about the map. A good map will show you the ballpark. Sounds like you have a map of the stadium!

Thanks, cart! You guys are not alone in seeing this.

Curious. What in particular do you believe is weird about this year?

cart7t, what were the dates of that tournament?

They come from weatherunderground.com.

For sonar stuff see the thread "Depth finders, maps, and structure oh my!!" in the General section. Really good links there. CO mountains are spectacular, moreso in contrast to the plains, which are flat to rolling and nearly ecologically devastated. Many of those irrigation reservoirs have good warmwater fiheries. Most are private, more and more are turned over to, or given, public access each year. You should have something decent nearby. I fish a handful of these public waters in the Boulder area. I'm pretty much a homebody and haven't expanded my range much since coming here 9 years ago. Guess, for my interests, I've got my hands full with what I have.

Wow! Amazing day, amazing water. I follow bust and boom periods on ponds. They can winterkill and then have some amazing years...or...they go bust again. Sounds like the pond owner wasn't aware of that and you were first on it.

Dugald (Woodlander/LTbama) has done us all an enormous service with his experiments and sharing that knowledge. Newbs at sonar are not the only people reading; he's had the ear of a engineers from Lowrance and HB too.

OK -noticed something else cool about those close-ups: In 2008 you can see the lower arrow not only points out a pigment spot, but a tiny scar too. In 2009 there are two more small scars just caudal (right) of the 2008 scar. Anyone know what these might be from? I think I do. Ah....the supense builds.... I believe they are from a male butting/nipping her during courtship. (Anglers have called this behavior "loosening up the eggs" -but I doubt that's the function.) The scars are in the right location. Some males are very aggressive with this. This tells me this bass is indeed a female, and is likely to grow bigger.

Hemi6677 wrote: You are in good company. This is EVERYONE'S problem. But it's not just that they can see you, although this CAN make a BIG difference, but that bass are difficult in general to catch, much of the time especially those that have been fished for. If anglers knew just how many bass ignore their lures on a given fishing day, they'd probably hang it up. Ignorance can be bliss. You were right on in saying CONDITIONS make fish vulnerable: Sky and water conditions, and others like exposure to angling, competition, hunger, and prey availability/vulnerability (often directly related back to conditions) are your BIGGEST obstacles. You were right on in saying LURES are not food. And food is hard for bass to catch most of the time. Those bass weren't chasing all that real food out there were they? They can't! Bass are super-athletes, but so too are their prey. Lures have to do something special for a fish to try to eat it. Conditions help. Under the very best of conditions there is little you need to do beyond chuck-n-wind. Here, all the 'magic' needed is in the lure. But realize there is NO lure that will accomplish this under all conditions and circumstances. Banish that expectation. Some lures are better suited under the variety of conditions you'll face. But, it's what you do with that lure that counts, by far, the most. If bass are not aggressively chasing vulnerable prey then you have to make it happen. Bouncing off stuff, as you tried, is one way. There are lots of triggers to draw on. But, like lures, when and where you apply them matters. I call it finding the in'. Just because you bounced a lure doesn't mean a fish was in position to take advantage of it. You gotta keep doing it, from all angles. Angles can mean everything. Really knowing a spot is often more about divining the best approach and retrieve angles. For this you need the proper tools (the proper lure tethered to the proper line) and the proper angle of attack the in. Depth and Speed are the primary controls, action is often next, often followed by size. After this, color, isdown on the list most of the time; usually related to conditions, and more rarely, to specific prey. One more thing: To start, don't spook em, or put em down these are different. Spooking them is easy to avoid for all but the most clueless -under most conditions. Putting em down is how you approach and fish. Here are some things that can put em down, or off: Just seeing you (esp if they have any experience with angling), loud splashdown, heavy line splashdown, line cutting (singing) in the water, too heavy a line tethered to your lure (varies with lure and what you can get away with here varies with conditions). Hope this gives you some things to chew on.

Fun read. Probably more fun than livin' it lol. Awful nice fish though. Sounds like they weren't having such a bad day.

Hi Tony, I did some research before I bought. First, I went with Lowrance bc, from what I'd read, provides less filtering and thus wider coverage. Since I'm mostly in shallow water, I wanted coverage. I went with Lowrance over Eagle bc, and this may not be accurate, the sales guy at BPS claimed the Lowrance is made with higher quality parts; the Eagle 'skimps' here and there. I went with color for two reasons: A quicker read on bottom density, and, more importantly, the color units have a higher vertical pixel count (320) in the compact units. I obviously needed a compact unit on a float tube. If a compact unit (pretty small package) isn't such an issue I would seriously consider the larger high res units. HB makes the highest pixel count (640) in a b/w unit. That could be really nice too. That's as far as my research took me, and I'm happy with the unit I have for it's purpose.

Updated my last post. ^ ^ ^

I feel like I was there! Fun read.

You know, I don't know shad very well. I find in my ponds that tracking bass and the larger bluegills is almost one and the same game. Although a fish species has it's physiological limitations and general behaviors (like leaving the shorelines in summer and winter -big 'gills do this too), how things play out in each water body can be different: structural layout, productivity, food sources, competition, ... . Things change year to year too, sometimes drastically, which'll make you have to adjust. In any water, I'd be thinking similarly: I want to know the prey species, the population age (size) and strength (numbers), and I'd want to know their seasonal and daily habits. With shad, is there a low light response to plankton migration? What depths, where do they meet bass habitat? Your "boiling shad" I wonder if you are seeing spawning shad, or shad sucking air for buoyancy, a good sign that they are possibly meeting a plankton movement, or taking advantage of fry availability. Again, I don't know shad really well. This stuff can be very local in time and place. It does help to know what questions to ask. You could start a thread asking about shad behavior on member's home waters, separating threadfins from gizzards (they can be diff animals). All this make chasing preyfish as interesting as chasing bass -often it's virtually one and the same thing.

Depth and speed are primary; Gotta have that down. After that, action matters.

;D Very nice post. Mottfia wrote: Actually neither had I...I don't do this with all my fish! ;D Mottfia wrote: Me too. My hopes are up for next year, in a number of places. Again, it looks like we're having an exceptional growth year here.

That's a very nice bass.