Team9nine

Scattered storms and showers all around us today, but I guessed we might escape most of it this afternoon after watching the radar, and I was right. Good thing, because I hooked up the boat and took a chance at the local reservoir after lunch. Water level continues to fall despite them saying they aren’t pulling the lake. Water temp also continues to drop, now down to 66 degrees. Things started out good, but after the threat of rain cleared and things got sunny and calm, the bite died. Still managed a limit of bass, plus one, along with a couple bonus crappie.

The Original Spot-Lock…DON’T accept imitations! Don’t use it near as much as I should, but still use it from time to time. I’m more likely to still use an ‘old school’ buoy marker - just tossed one two days ago. I’m set up for backtrolling, so between a buoy and FFS, the anchor has been used a lot less. Pre-FFS, say 4, 5, 10 years ago, it got a lot more use.

Guessing that’s just a poor wording choice in the press release, and that they mean every angler gets paid, with the last places getting $2,000. I’m sure that will get clarified at some point. Last I saw, they pay out roughly $700k per event, so if they did $130k to the winner and $2k to the remaining 49 places, that leaves about $470k on the table. I doubt that is what they meant.

How quickly we forget this sports history, and all the rules/sponsor/format/personnel changes BASS made and flip-flopped on over the years. It’s just part of the business, and no league is exempt. I do like the possible move to just 50 anglers, something BASS talked about doing for years (limiting the field to reflect “Elite” status and focus attention on the best anglers), but never had the wherewithal to actually do it. Also think it's the right move to go back to ‘every fish counts’ given their history and business model.

Almost didn’t go today, but glad I did. Didn’t expect a great bite given the sunny skies, light N breeze, and cool temps, and it wasn’t. But I did manage 11 fish in about 3.5 hours of fishing, including another nice one. Got a school fired up deep cranking and put a limit in the boat in about half a dozen casts - even got a double on one of those casts.

Another fan of the Accent Wheeler original and/or finesse buzzers. Skirt vs toad? I’m more of a traditional skirt fan, but carry and use both. Toads are better for skipping though and give a different profile.

It works. Studies done by Texas Parks & Wildlife showed it gives a near immediate short term boost of oxygen (~40% greater) that lasts between 30-60 minutes depending on livewell design and amount of bass held. I used to always carry a bottle on board when tourney fishing during the hottest portion of the summer.

The level of attention to small details by the Japanese professional anglers and lure designers is next level. Anything that opens that window to learning from them is worthy, IMO

Different spool diameters between models. A larger spool diameter can offset a slower speed reel, and vice versa. How much line you spool on can also play a small role, as well as things line line diameter and spool width (narrow vs. wide), though more indirectly.

Returned to the local reservoir this afternoon, but the wind wasn’t blowing, and subsequently, the bass and the shad weren’t moving. Hunkered down and scratched out 8 in the first couple hours, along with some nice crappie. In the last hour, a good breeze picked up as the clouds and eventual rain moved in, and the fish started stirring. Final bass count ended up at 24 today, along with some nice crappie. Boat and motor registrations are on the way, so should be able to branch out to a few more reservoirs over the next couple weeks.

Long but skinny - maybe 18” plus, but honestly didn’t weigh/measure anything today.

Light rain overnight that lingered into the morning hours eventually gave way to clearing skies in the early afternoon. Along with them came a steady E/NE wind at 10 mph, gusting over 20. Wasn’t sure what to expect in the way of a bite. Started on some shallow windblown docks with a jig, but nothing doing. I quickly high-tailed it over to the roadbed and found the bass and shad had piled into the area. Nearly 3 hours later, I left them still biting after landing bass number 50. Watching the forecast closely for a possible return trip tomorrow.

That’s a better pic than what most post, but still hard to make out the little important details. That said, I’m going with what @galyonj posted - coontail/ceratophyllum. Edit: milfoil is like a cooked noodle out of water and doesn’t retain its shape/stature. Coontail does (as does the plant pictured).

Back out on the water after sitting out the weekend along with a couple very windblown days to start the week. Today was heavy cloud cover and dead calm. Water level is dropping, down about a foot, and surface temps have dropped 8-9 degrees since I last visited, now down to 70 degrees. Started on crappie, and actually found a few willing biters. Picked up about 15 from a variety of brushpiles, all on jig. A few had some really good color to them, almost a ‘sexy shad’ like look - lol. Decided to check out the roadbed spot and found the schoolers had returned. Managed 17 bass, most on Ned, but a couple on deep cranks. Only boat on the water today, and starting to see some decent fall colors. Can’t complain…

Not ‘irreplaceable’, but ‘irreparable,’ to the point where the numbers of big fish won’t recover because severe enough restrictions on harvest won’t allow it (won’t be accepted by the public). Look at Minnesota’s history as an example of this, but for a slightly different reason. And there is a big difference between flashers and FFS when it comes to the ability to individually target the largest crappie (or bass for that matter). It changed the entire game of professional crappie angling in just a matter of a few years. It’s not the “live” aspect as much as it is the definition and image created (interpretation). Night and day.

The population as a whole will be fine, but you will see the size structure on many of these lakes change dramatically, possibly to the point of irreparable harm. The crappie crowd was well ahead of the bass guys in adopting FFS, and to a much greater degree. Combine that with a harvest mentality, and fisheries will be changed - my guess is sooner, rather than later.

This is why I said, there is room (for studies) to support arguments on both sides of the issue. This study basically concludes no difference between LIS and non-LIS users, but you can’t just take the outcome of a study as an absolute without paying particular attention to the study details and specific results. The study had several limitations and undefined criteria, which isn’t unusual. It also had an embarrassingly low catch (amount of data - IMO) on which to base conclusions on. But, at the general population level may be an accurate representation of what is occurring. I have no doubt that if a different study tried to replicate this experiment, but utilized persons with a wider (better defined) level of LIS experience, up to and including professional crappie anglers, you’d see a wildly different set of results. With avid users (but not professionals), my guess is LIS users would greatly outdistance non-LIS users, but size difference between the groups would be minimal. With professional crappie anglers, their size difference would be significantly greater, but the numbers caught between the groups likely wouldn’t be. My guess is we’ll see some conflicting outcomes from future studies based on the difference in setup and input variables, then with targeted use by both sides to support their personal biases.

Watched this one a few days ago, shortly after it came out. I thought it was a very good discussion, as I share a similar opinion on a lot of the specific aspects discussed. I do take his comments on state agency studies with a grain of salt because of his past inflammatory remarks in that area. I’ve seen/read a handful of studies put out by several states on the subject, most all showing no detrimental effects at this point. Further studies will surely be forthcoming, and it will be interesting to follow. It’s a much broader subject than it might appear at first glance, as @gimruis’s comments allude to, and there is room (for studies) to support arguments on both sides of the issue.

Apologies if my comment came across as directed at you. Disappointed that NCWRC published that in their effort to ‘inform’ the public, as even some of their linked studies in that online pamphlet don’t support the argument. It’s an attention getter, but not fairly representative of the data that I’ve seen. The Alabama bass issue is a serious one in some waters, but that just came across as overselling the threat to me. Just my $0.02.

That’s a very misleading graphic as there is a lot of study data that contradicts this, not to mention the inherent variability between any two individual fish.

Saw the last section of the new lake today. Overall I’m thinking this is going to be a very seasonal or weather specific lake. It just doesn’t set up as a good all-around lake from what I’ve seen. I need to spend a full afternoon doing nothing but fishing docks though to make sure I’m not overlooking the primary pattern out there. That said, I went back to the one good structure spot I found after spending an hour down near the dam and caught another dozen bass in about 2 hours of fishing. Nothing big again, but having a blast with this one area - it’s produced nearly 45 bass in the past 3 days. Today, half were cranking and the other half on worms. Also have to credit the FFS unit for making fishing these type areas so efficient. This fish is pretty typical of the bass I’ve been catching in this area. And this is the price you pay for banging a balsa crankbait over a roadbed for hours, and catching a lot of bass in the process. At least it broke near the boat where the bass was able to be netted first.

I’m close, but actually now in upstate SC. I’ve come across some of the study data from that time, along with a bunch of news articles lamenting the demise, and speculating as to the cause. It was a largemouth only lake for the most part from what I’ve read, and baitfish populations, primarily threadfin, were low and variable. NC-DNR had conferred with a fisheries specialist from GA, and that's where the spotted bass suggestion first arose, but NC biologists were hesitant and chose not to go that route. Anglers eventually took matters into their own hands and transferred them themselves. Similar to the introduction of alewife/herring around the same time, I believe. Most of the press suggests everybody loved the spots catching on in that lake, but we didn’t have the level of understanding/knowledge about DNA analysis and/or population level effects that we do now, so there was no way of understanding what the outcome would be. As anglers, we also didn’t have the ultra level of finesse or appropriate equipment to handle it in any meaningful way in those days, so the light line and weightless techniques they were using back then were pretty much the standard for finesse in those days, except for maybe pockets of specialists like in CA, TN or the Ozarks.

It’s a good observation, as I just moved here myself and have found the water much clearer than expected so far, so I see your point. In regards to the lake and the fishery back then, though, it was bad and getting worse, and I don’t think the techniques played that much of a role in the lake giving the lake its bad reputation. If you look two years earlier in 1992, Stanley Mitchell won on Norman with just over 46 pounds of bass, a smidge over 11 pounds per day. His final day stringer weighed only 8-07. His primary baits were a floating worm and a Pop-R, so very appropriate clearer water techniques. Two years later, at the same time of year, the winning weight had dropped to 39 pounds, less than 10 pounds per day, and two of those pounds were added in a fish-off. Then the fall of that year produced the 23 pound, 4 day winning weight. Studies at the time had consistently shown Norman to be the least fertile large reservoir in the state, both in terms of water quality (phosphorus, etc) as well as fish (poundage per mile/acre). Point being, most of the baits and techniques used back then seemed ‘finesse appropriate’ for the conditions:

Day 3 on the new reservoir. Went uplake to check out what I was hoping would be another roadbed, but if it was ever there, it’s buried in silt now. Found one hard bottom area I want to check out later, but from just driving around, this section looks like a strictly shallow water dock bite. Since I haven’t found my jig boxes yet from the move, I ended up going back downlake and fishing the roadbed area from yesterday. Blue skies and a light ENE breeze at times isn’t helping the bite in this clear lake. For whatever reason, I couldn’t generate a bite on bottom with Ned. Messed around with a few other options, and found out that I could trigger bites with a deep crankbait (DT10 that runs 12+ ft). Triggered a couple groups of bass on the roadbed with this tactic and was able to land 16 bass. No big fish today, but had more than a limit of fish that ran up to 17 inches.

That one dates back to 1986 and Dr. Loren Hill, the Color-C-Lector guy, but he also had many other patents related to his studies, some of which involved Doug Hannon. Bass Forget Worms article