Paul Roberts

I'm well East so I don't know those waters. But, there's a decent internet community that you might be able to tap into. Also, you can gather some info from the DOW (Dept of Wildlife), although compared to many states, CO's warmwater program is in it's infancy and not as well supported. But I believe there is some interest within DOW in changing this.

I'd love to fish with you Muddy. But do you really want to see those 150 things?? ;D Thanks, Muddy.

Hey Muddy Actually, we are pretty far south, latitude-wise. But, my ponds are at 5500ft. There, it's about 2 weeks ahead of western NY. We get full seasons here. Up where I live at 8500ft, it's about 3weeks later than "down below" on the plains. Where I elk hunt at 10500ft, 10inches of snow has already arrived, twice. All this lies inside of 40 miles, as the crow flies.

First, realize that rapidly falling temps and slow to moderate erosion of temps are diff animals. Average the nighttime lows and midday highs to get a rough estimate of near surface water temps. With nights in the mid 40s and days in upper 50s your water temps are likely in the low to mid 50s. Water column is probably isothermic too (nearly same temp into the depths re-heating just not as apt to happen now. Unless you had a precipitous drop from recent temps following a real serious cold snap, then I'd not worry too much about winter retrieves yet. It isn't winter yet. 50s sounds pretty normal for Oct at your latitude. Barring really rapid temp drops, in the 50s bass are still capable of chasing. Horizontal retrieves should still interest bass. In fact, oftentimes it takes some speed, or at least erratic retrieves, to trigger strikes. In the upper 50s bass can really go. At the lower 50s somewhat slower retrieves and/or longer pauses help bass commit. Into the 40s and slow becomes the ticket. Keep at it. In fall, bass (well distributed in summer) may begin to bunch up more and you have to do more looking at least that's what seems to happen in the natural lakes and weedy ponds I fish. Don't let slow periods get your eye off the ball. Start with moderate and/or erratic horizontal retrieves. If no go try slower, but, my guess is you have to find em, and they should still be chasing at temps you describe. Jerk baits are GREAT at this time as they can cover water pretty well, but can really be varied in speed (and pauses) to dial in to your fish. Also, slow-rolled single-spins/Chatter baits and not too buoyant cranks should find you some fish too.

Swim jig. It's not necessarily slow, and very versatile. I like that one too.

Yeah TT, they were pretty fish, and fat. They were shallow in very clear water (>4ft visib), cruising a small cove full of still green coontail, under or at the edge of the shade of some shoreline trees. I don't mind the pale ones myself. When healthy, they're all beautiful.

That's a great photo. It's those eyes!

I had a similar experience the other day. It's a fall thing. Bluebird skies following a front that brought snow. But, I found bass cruising in hunting groups like there was nothing wrong. Obviously there wasn't. I caught three good ones on an X-Rap. They were a bit sluggish in the 52F water, but moved for the lure and hit hard. Look at that sky. Any other time of year and that would spell rough going, especially in the shallow ponds I fish.

Ditto. I've done the same thing. Feels kinda cheap somehow, but I do have to protect my interests in some waters. Otherwise, I end up with lots of big splashes in front of me that can be seen all over the pond . I also have specific areas where a big fish lives, (sometimes easily accessed) that requires the right presentation, or angle. The actual spot can be quite small, or the fish susceptible to certain things. I wait until no one is around before I catch her again.

They can also change to roughly match backgrounds. I kept a bluegill in an aquarium for a while. When i changed the water in the tank I would put the 'gill into a small white plastic cooler and that bluegill would turn very pale and lose all markings. When algae built up in the tank (needed cleaning) the 'gill would be dark and heavily mottled.

That was going to be my next question...

I worked in a big tackle shop for a while and people lied about broken rods often. We could usually tell just how the rods were broken by the rod type, and looking at them. We never bothered, we just replaced 'em. The thinking in retail, at least in larger outfits, was, "You'll gain more by sucking it up and just replacing the item, than if you don't bend over backwards to make the customer thrilled to be your customer." Most mass produced rods are pretty cheap to make, in the volume they make them. I remember the going story was that Berkley Lightning Rods cost almost nothing each to manufacture, and that most of the money for a rod went into marketing, and likely, warranty. Anyway, our store manager HATED this "bend over with a smile" policy, and his disdain could silence the entire 6000sq-ft store >. He could be one ornery guy. Always thought he lost at both ends with his policy: Suck it up and throw a tantrum. Great guy he was, and right. But, man, the customer (and everyone else in the store) knew he knew what really happened with that rod. Feeling stuck in the middle, when I sold a rod I always gave a little friendly lecture on rod breakage -how they are apt to break (different with different rod and method type), where they break, and general care. I was kinda pointed about this info, letting 'em know it's possible to break a rod, and mis-use is easier than one might expect. Ugly Stiks sure do have a place in the market. Shakespeare was brilliant in this strategy. BTW: We were instructed NOT to demonstrate the "bend the US into a circle" thing -'cause the rod will likely break. In making that photo for the advertisement he said they broke a bunch of Ugly Sticks.

Yeah, it is neat. Not only can bass adjust their coloration to their surrounds, but individual bass can be different. I saw one unique female last spring that was so gravid she was almost round. She was also so buoyant the male pushed her around like a balloon. I assumed she was buoyant with eggs although I've never seen another female this buoyant. Anyway, she also had pale longitudinal zig-zaggy stripes and looked like one of those little round striped watermelons. I had to chuckle at the sight of her.

Brilliant blue here in CO, following the first snow of the year. Fished a small jerkbait, and dragged a creature, where I know there are bass. I didn't even see a bluegill! I even spotted a good-sized moth crash onto the surface and sit there fluttering for 5 full minutes without being sucked off the top. It was pretty dead here.

That color is SO hot that I bet by the time you get to it the birds would have pecked it to pieces. Buy another and keep it outta sight of every living thing, except bass. Manufacturers really need to put a "Keep out of reach of children" label on those things.

Yeah, nice pics. You guys look...happy.

Cool! Neat shots. Lion sightings have been reported in just about every state for a long time. They reached bigfoot status in much of the northeast. But, it's true that their range is expanding: USA TODAY 11/30/2004: ... But the mountain lion is moving east again, expanding its territory for the first time in a century. More than two-dozen mountain lions have been killed or photographed outside the animal's normal range since 2000. Examples: In eastern Nebraska last week, Elidia Valdivia found a mountain lion asleep in a tree as she loaded her kids into her minivan for a ride to school. A conservation officer killed the animal in South Sioux City. In Iowa, three mountain lions have been killed since 2000 the first cougars confirmed there since 1867. In Illinois, a train killed a male cougar on July 15, 2000, in Randolph County, near the Mississippi River, about 70 miles south of St. Louis. It was that state's first documented wild cougar in more than 135 years and the only confirmed mountain lion east of the Mississippi River, excluding Florida panthers. It's unclear why the mountain lion is moving east. The cougar population appears to be growing in the West, and young males are seeking new territory, says David Maehr, an authority on mountain lions at the University of Kentucky. Nebraska, Iowa, Louisiana I can believe. But I used to live in upstate NY and the lore there goes back a long way. And I've been one of the skeptics. There were just too many sightings, and no verifications. People in eastern lion circles often talked conspiracy theory. But that never made any sense, and the people I knew and worked with at NYS DEC would have been thrilled to verify lion sign. I myself once spotted one of the black lions that were reported in the 60s and 70s, and possibly before. It was crossing a snowy field, and was WAY too big to be a house cat. My heart was pounding! I decided to stalk closer and realized that because of the lay of the land it was actually much closer than I had realized. It was a house cat. I also found a set of very large cat tracks in the mid 70s. This was obviously no house cat, but I've since found that a large male bobcat (they can reach 40lbs) has mighty big feet, that overlap in size with young and female lions. I now live in prime lion habitat in Colorado and can say this: Although calm, cryptic, and stealthy, lions are not ghosts. Sign is easy to find. They make scrapes all over their territory, they scratch trees, and when they mate they carry on caterwauling like giant alley cats. When males fight over territory they can scare whole towns with the racket they make. Dispersing juveniles get hit by cars and appear in people's yards. They eat pets cats and dogs. Lions actually hunt through towns and take dogs off of porches. Twice in the past year in my immediate area lions have peered into people's windows at their pet cats. At one place my wife lived, a few of years back, she lost 9 outdoor cats in 2 years. The last two she named O.B. and L.B. for Owl Bait and Lion Bait. Lions regularly kill and eat big things, and we find lion killed deer and elk often. When they make a kill, they create scat piles to bury their blood-filled feces. These piles are not easy to miss -they look like a giant litter box with large blood (black) and hair filled droppings. A friend of mine puts trail-cams at kills and gets LOTS of pictures of lions. I guess what I don't understand is why, with such enormous whitetail populations back east, there wouldn't be plenty of evidence, especially with so MANY sightings. I don't think there are any cover-ups going on. The DNR people I've known would be thrilled to report verified sightings. It's the verified part that's the hold-up. Around these parts, lions is easy to find!

You'll regret that purchase in, say, 10 years.

In my experience most small waters have bass. They don't have to be big to hold decent fish.

Vegies and clouds?? Awesome! I start high, a buzzbait or bulged spinnerbait, swim-jig, super-shallow crank, or walking bait. If they aren't there I ply the edges with shallow/med cranks, jigs, jig-worms. If no go I pound the bottom of the cover edges and pockets with a 1/4 to 1/2oz jig or creature. If no go, I go to a 1/2 to 3/4oz jig or creature and probe the interior of the vegetation. With good cloud cover a lot of bass may be up high, above the weeds. One way I check for this is to throw a swimming jig high up over a weedy flat, and watch for wakes of bass chasing the airborne lure to intercept -be ready for strikes right at splashdown. This is most apt to happen on warm days with heavy cloud cover (a summer thing mostly). On bright sunny days (in summer) this same tactic might also produce wakes, but in the opposite direction -away from the lure as those spooked bass bolt! In fall, with sun angle low enough, shallow bass may not spook at an airborne lure as easily. Buzzbaits and sunny days can go together in fall, but I still like a little ripple or chop to the water.

Some years are tougher than others. High temperatures seem to be a chunk of the problem. But, as Krzkev mentions, there are fish to be found. It can be quite a challenge though, and you simply have to suffer low catch rates in your search. (Beautiful fish btw, Krzkev). I once found a small spring in an otherwise overheated pond. I could feel it with my legs (in a float tube) -there was no other indication. I could catch some really nice bass from that area slowly swimming a worm through. It also held a bunch of big yellow perch. Some waters are just plain easier than others during mid-summer. This summer, as things slowed in a couple of my favorite waters I spent time in a pond that obviously received enough groundwater to keep it in the mid to upper 70s during the hottest part of the summer. I only had to deal with daily lighting conditions really. This dishpan pond is not my favorite to fish because there is very little cover or structure to ply. But, the largemouths in it have no places to attempt to hide when hooked, and with temps in the upper 70s, they seemed to have energy to spare. They jumped like smallmouths! Almost every one hooked leapt on it's own, 3 or 4 times, and then bore down like smallies. It sure beat pounding a dead horse, where if I did find a biter, it was apt to just wallow almost pitifully.

Fun! And that was a big 'ol cat (the non-furry one).

Well, I'm confused, and somehow out of the loop here. Sorry...I think...to be so touchy.

I'm the one who questioned whether those might be beds or not. There are no other questions, and very few posters, in the thread. What do you make of Muddy's question? Where was it directed? What does it mean?

Muddy, I've mistaken pale patches with bass on 'em as bass beds before -pale algae or sand patches, or muskrat excavations, that required that I get right over them to be sure. My question was legitimate. It's an interesting topic, and one I've heard of before but never seen, or seen documented in the literature I've read. I was not disrespectful of Brainwashed in any way, and from his response I don't think he thought so either. So, what's YOUR beef? Are you feeling the need to pick on me -again? It's not well disguised by humor. You've chased me around here, on and off, since day one. Is that starting up again? Really, what's your beef with me?