WRB-2.0

Buy the book "In pursuit of Giant Bass" by Bill Murphy. Bill explains how to find and catch crawdads and how and where to fish them. You can also Google "how to make a crayfish trap". WRB

Beautiful pond, cherish it. In small bodies of water with a diverse population of predator fish, the adult LMB can go where they want. If you are not catching many 1 to 2 lb bass, then recruitment or young of the year survival is low do to competition with the other predators...birds and fish. I agree that the young perch are more than likely the primary baitfish and the adult bass tend to cruise the outer weed lines and dominate the major ambush sites. Thank you for sharing the pictures, you have a wonderful place to fish. If the ice can support you safely, try piling up some of the shore line rocks and move them out onto the ice at strategic spots, easy way to make rock piles. WRB

You call this a pond and it sounds more like a small natural lake, is it man made? Does it have a dam or a means of controlling the water pool level; stream in and stream out? Being only 6 feet deep with a muck bottom, decaying matter build up of sediment and dead vegetation, LMB survival may be marginal during the winter period when it freezes over. The springs would be where the bass must locate when the lake is iced over. The best time to locate the bass is during the spawn. If you can't locate the bass or their beds, chances are few resident bass are in this pond/lake. The only reason bass would venture out away from shoreline areas is to pursue baitfish, otherwise the bass should be shoreline cover oriented. Without pelagic bait fish, other than a few crappie, the bass are more than likely surviving on bottom dwellers, frogs and young of the year perch and crappie. The flock of cormorants should be chased away if possible, they can devastate the fish population in a small lake/pond quickly. WRB PS; the only thing old about this reply is me. The cormorants wouldn't be a problem back in the day we no limit on the number we could shoot, the good old days.

The first thing is to determine what you consider pre spawn is. For sake of dicussion pre spawn to me is about 30 to 60 days before the major wave of bass go onto the beds and spawn. Where I fish that means water temperatures at the depth the bass spawn or surface temperatures that are about 55 to 58 degrees for LMB. The smaller buck bass can be seen cruising the banks about 2 weeks prior to moving up and establishing bed sites. When you see cruisers, the spawn isn't far off. Best time is any time the bass are feeding before moving up into the spawning areas. When the bass are bedding, pre spawn is over for those bass and feeding isn't an issue anymore, until they have completed that cycle. WRB

Nanother siteke, you did a wonderful map study of this lake, good work. I would trust in the original lake depths and channel you mapped that shows the meandering channel and points dropping into that channel, to start with. Fishing the 5' to 10' break zone and any vertical 2' drop and points should put you in contact with the larger bass in this lake. WRB

Generally refers to up stream or down stream, where the water enters a lake being upper end and exits the lake being lower end. However it can also mean where a big bay or river arm enters the main lake being lower end and the upper shallow end being the upper end. Big natural lakes it can simply mean north end or south end, north being the upper end. WRB

The In-Fisherman Master Angler Awards listing gives a good snap shot of what this lakes potentail could be. 2 of the bass were caught on a spinner bait by the same angler. This lake must have a good shiner minnow population to support the big crappies. Some of the bass are caught by crappie fisherman and some of the crappie by bass fisherman, the common factor is minnow type lures and worms. The west bank is apparently dominated by rock bass. The main creek channel appears to run from the dam north to Bay point, then swing west by the east side of the island. I still believe this zone; dam to bay point and channel swing by the island is your best choice for quality bass, most of the year. What do you look for; small 1 to 2 foot sharp breaks, isolated rocks along the outside weed line and the creek channel. Most of the bass are being caught during the summer period. The spawn could be as late as May this far north. This lake could be fun place to fish as it gets mostly recreational fishing pressure, the isolated structure areas are more than likely hidden secret spots by the locals. Keep an eye out for anyone methodically working the break lines. WRB

Thanks for added map. So there is a dam just left of the gaging station, did see that! Gaging station should have been a clue! The dam/launching area, the island and Bay point just right of the island are the obvious areas; man made rip rap, shoreline structure/cover and break lines. Shouldn't take more than a few trips to discover where the bass are located. How old is this little park lake? WRB

Haven't looked closely at this map for the reason stated, no elevation lines or depth sounding numbers to go by. I'm not sure what I'm looking at; small natural lake with a man made water level control levee/dam? Doesn't look like a reservoir of any classification to me. You can make your own map using a good sonar/GPS in a few days and that would be valuable to you. The lake is too small to have a pelagic bait fish population, although crappie could fill that niche. If bass are the primary predator, no pike or musky, then they would locate where ever they wanted, otherwise the bass will be cover oriented in this lake. Spawning seasonal location; bays and wind protected areas. This is basically a shoreline lake that may have a few off shore humps to locate. Any stream channel may have been long slitted in. Any rocks will be high % areas. Any man made isolated cover like brush piles or Xmas trees should be located and fished. WRB

Great reply Paul and thank you sharing the piture and scketches. Mentioned on another thread was the difference between pelagic and demersal bait fish. if the body of what where you fish doesn't have pelagic bait fish, then the predator fish have no reason to persue offshore deep water, unless the demersal bait fish are out there. Sculpin, gobies and suckers may be out on deeper water, close or on the bottom, if the lake has those types of bait fish. Threadfin shad, gizzard shad, herring, smelt, golden shiners and sometimes crappie are pelagic bait fish that spend most of the time offshore. If the lake doesn't have those types, then near shore or near the bottom is where you should spend your time fishing. WRB

Most state records require the bass to be officially weighed on certified scales and examined. The days when fish were caught and eaten, both officially weighing and examination was easy, the fish was dead. Today the majority of bass anglers tend to catch and release their fish and this makes it difficult to validate a live fish. The fact that today's bass anglers are better skilled and equipped then before should support more record fish are caught and released before being officially validated as a record; lake, state or IGFA. Just look at California's state record for example. WRB

Bass fisherman should study the baits that are predominate where they fish. Threadfin shad and crayfish are the predominate baits below the Mason-Dixon line or snow belt. There are good studies with pictures available on the Internet. Before the 60's out west we didn't have threadfin shad as a bait, they where introduced around the late 1950's. Bass stayed near shore because the prey source was located near shore. Threadfin shad changed that, they are pelagic bait fish and the schools move out into deeper water as the sun gets higher and go deeper in the cold water period to survive. Threadfin shads lower water temperature limit is around 42 degrees. If your lake has only demersal bait fish, fish that live near shore or on the bottom, then you need to concentrate where those baits live. You might not want to know any of this and just go fishing and that's OK. WRB

Catt has a ton of structure fishing tips on this site, all appropriate for heart land zone of bass fishing; hill land and high land class reservoirs. In-Fisherman is a good source for natural lakes. As mentioned Bill Murphy's book on Pursuit of Giant Bass is well written for deep structured lakes. Bill Siemental promotes fishing the total water column; top, middle and bottom; In the Zone. I have written a few In-Fisherman articles that can be shared via email; Rare Chance at a World record Bass and Horizontal jigging.

Cold weather keeps the water cold, they will wait for you. WRB

Fish where they are and they aint there, then fish where the aint and they are there. That's what the old timer told me back in the 40's when I started fishing. It only took me about 25 years to figure out what he was saying. Just remember bass can't read and have the brain the size of a pea, shouldn't be too hard to catch them. WRB PS; the deepest bass I have caught (smallmouth) was around 100 feet deep from Crow Lake, Ontario Canada fishing for lake trout. Crow lake is just north of Nestor Falls and is extremely clear and freezes to 6 feet of ice, cold deep lake. What a bass was doing that deep in July is any one's guess.

Research Physoclistous swim bladders. WRB

Catt, I asked Don Iovino about fishing outside structure at El Salto when he first starting guiding down there. Don told me that the best fisherman he guided at El Salto came from Texas, usually the the Toledo Bend area because they understood what he was doing. Almost all his other clients wanted to fish the shoreline with everyone else, until he showed them pictures of all the 10+ bass he was getting off of mid lake structure. TB must be a fun lake, big bass and lot of places to fish without the traffic. Our small CA lakes can be dangerous with recreational boaters not watching where they are going. WRB

It was a common belief 15 years ago that crayfish hibernated the mud. In fact I wrote an article in In-Fisherman back in 1976 & 1995 making that statement. I was wrong; crayfish don't hibernate. They do burrow in the mud and will also go very deep in the deep cold water lakes, providing bass a prey source year around. Back in the 50's California's DFG flash froze rainbow trout and air dropped the frozen blocks of trout into high elevation lakes as a means of stocking those remote lakes. They no longer do that due to laws against stocking non native fish. Trout evidently can be frozen in water and survive. If bass had to swim down into deeper water from shallower, more than 15 feet deeper, quickly and stayed down, they need time to add enough air bladder gas to be able to suspend and would in lay on their side when not swimming. The bass will usually find deep weeds or wood if available to rest in, until they get the air bladder adjusted. I don't think the statement is too far off, this happens with fizzed bass. WRB

You are right to a point; water gets less dense or lighter at 39.4 degrees F. 3 factors to consider; spring water, current and the affects of convective heating from the earth. The earth is about 60 degrees at 6 feet or so below the ground, within the basses normal range. The cold air cools the surface water and slowly falls down through the water column, saturating the warmer water below, until it reaches a depth where warmer water neutralizes the colder water; if the lake is deep enough and has current or springs. If there is enough DO at deep depths, the bass go deep to find the warmest water available to survive. In shallow natural lakes without springs, current or convected heating; 39.4 degrees is warmer than 38 degrees or 32 degree ice and is deeper. WRB

The reason bass have air bladders is to be able to suspend at whatever depth they have acclimated to. The "air" in the bladder is gas created by the basses digestive system and it takes several hours to add or subtract "air" (gas) in the air bladder. Have you ever watched bass float suspended in a large fish aquarium? the bass are suspended, ideal air bladder pressure for the depth they are in. If you take a balloon filled with air and submerged it down 30 feet, the balloon would shrink in size and return to it's full size when brought back up to the surface. The same thing happens to a bass air bladder. The amount of pressure in the bladder to suspend the bass at 30 feet will expand the air bladder when the bass come up to the surface and shrink back down when the bass returns to 30 feet. If the bass swims down to 60 feet, the bass needs to add more gas pressure to the air bladder to suspend at that depth, otherwise the bass must swim to stay up right. It takes about 24 hours for the bass to adjust it's air bladder pressure for each 15 feet of depth. Bass can generally move up and down within a 30 foot range, without the air bladder expanding beyond the basses ability to return to it's neutral depth. If you catch a bass that has neutral air bladder pressure for 60 foot depth and bring it to the surface, the air bladder expands like the balloon and the bass can't swim back down on it's own. Poking a hole in the air bladder releases the gas pressure and the bass can remain up right, but must continue to swim or it will sink, no air bladder pressure can be developed until the hole heals and any water is absorbed in the bladder. The deeper the bass goes down, the more difficult it is to pressurize the wounded air bladder. Try to avoid fishing any deeper than 30 feet. Even at 30 feet, you may catch a bass that raised up from deeper water to strike your lure and will have air bladder problems if not returned immediately. When this happens you can insert a heavy torpedo sinker (8 to 12 oz) in the basses throat and lower the weighted bass down on a line to 30-40 feet, then lift the line and weight will pull out of the bass. How deep bass will go depends on where the warmest water is during the cold water period and where the prey is located. Warm water with a good prey source; if that is 28 feet, then that is deep enough. If that is 60 feet, that is too deep for me to target bass and I will look for bass at 30 to 40 feet max. WRB PS; it's common for largemouth bass to be 60' to 90' deep in the local lakes and they are safe from me catching them.

There seems to be a disconnect between fishing deep water and bank pounding. For the vast majority of bass anglers positioning the boat a cast away from the bank is the what over 90% of all bass anglers fish, who have a boat. The shore anglers don't have a lot of choices and can only cast out away from the bank at some angle. This reduces the bass water to about 30 yards around the perimeter of the lake. Some lakes have a lot of bass located on similar cover, structure and depth as you are catching the bass along the bank. You simply need to look out over your shoulder away from the bank. The best example of what I'm talking about is follow a long tapering point out into deeper water. Fish this deeper water like you do the bank, except you can't see the shoreline line, you fish the break line. Take a look at a good topo map and will may find shallower water surrounded by deep water. If this shallower water has cover or structure that attracts bait, the bass will be there, just like they are near the bank. It's really not fishing "deep" water, it's fishing where the bass are located. During the winter the warmest water may be deep, then that where the bass will be the majority of the time, some may come up to feed shallower, but bass rarely travel very far to go from deep to shallow. During the hot summer days the bass tend to go deeper to find cooler water and move up shallower at night. The shallower at night doesn't always mean the bank, it can also be those outside areas with shallower water surrounding them. The bank fisherman can't walk out to those deeper water areas, boat fisherman can and should learn to look out over their shoulder. WRB

Back in 50's bass fishing was close from Oct 1st and opened May 1st, thus the winter cold water, fall transition and pre spawn bass fishing was unknown. I knew bass where deep because we caught them accidentally lead lining flutter type trout spoons, which was a problem because the bass could not swim back down with air bladders over inflated. Before Buck Perry, Jason Lucas wrote about jigging spoons and weighted lures to catch deep summer bass. Perry's spoon plugging methods opened up structure fishing and changed bass fishing. The fish finder "flasher" was the first affordable tool for the average bass fisherman to locate deep structure, followed by Lowrance's paper graph. Several brand of "flashers were available in the early 60's, the bass fishing paper graph came out in the early 70's. Deep is relative to where you live and fish. Deeper than 40 feet, bass have a major problem with air bladders and our sport needs to resolve that problem. Fizzing isn't the answer. Recreational fisherman can simply lower the bass back down using a torpedo sinker rig. Tournament fisherman must weigh in the bass. WRB

Pure Florida strain LMB have lower water temperature range around 45 degrees. If the core lake water temperature drops below 45 degrees, survival rate for FLMB is very low. FLMB and intergraded with nortern strain LMB have shown better low water temperature tolerance, down to around 40 degrees. Basically if the lake freezes, FLMB or FLMB intergrades can't survive. Transplanting game fish is illegal in most states without permission from the states regulatory agency.

I read somewhere that when IGFA inspected the certified scale that was used, it was found to be reading one ounce high at 22lbs, so his fish actually weighed 22-4. The scale was in kilograms and accurate within 0.1% The conversion comes out to 22 lbs 4.97 ounces. The IGFA rules the weight must be 2 ounces greater, therefor the Kurita bass was determined to be a tie. The problem is the IGFA listed the Kurita bass at 22 lbs 4 ounces, same weight at the Perry bass. When John Doe catches a 22 lb 6 ounce bass, it would be listed as the new world record, because of the 2 ounce rule. Agree it's 2 ounces greater than the Perry bass, but not 2 ounces greater then the actual weight of the Kurita bass. The IGFA doesn't recognize 1 ounce as .97 ounce and decided to rounded it down to 0. WRB

The IGFA should go back to school; 22 lbs 4 oz = 22.25 lbs, 22 lbs 5 oz = 22.31 lbs, not a tie. To make this catch a tie, the IGFA lowered the Kurita bass weight to 22 lbs 4 oz to equal the Perry bass weight???? It's easy to understand why there is confusion. Kurita Bass should be #1, it is 22 lbs 5 oz or 22.31 lbs. and be listed with the correct weight. The IGFA can still call it a tie under their rules and list the weight correctly. WRB