One tough lake

[cart7t]

I once again I went fishing at Perry Co. Lake today.  I've been hitting this 120 acre lake pretty frequently the past 4 years or so.  Caught my PB there last year at a little over 8lbs. but this year has been brutal.  

Perry county has a little bit of everything. Rocky banks, lots of submerged timber, humps, brushpiles in deeper water, lilypads, milfoil, a decent inflowing creek.  One other thing it has which I believe is screwing with the fishing are numerous aerators in the lake.  There are pumphouses on shore with pvc pipes running into the water, these feed around 15-20 aereation heads (sorta like bubble stones) out in the lake. Most of these are in roughly 20 - 23ft of water.  This lake is usually offcolored but it never stratifies.  There is no "deadzone" so to speak, in the lower reaches of the lake where the oxygen content is too low to sustain fish life.  Consequently, bass, and any other fish are free to roam the entire water column.  In the summer the shad ball up around the aeration heads and the fishing is usually just lights out.  Merely move from aeration boil to boil and cast shad colored crankbaits and you'll catch fish.  I've also had success with jigging spoons around the boils to.  

Unfortunately though, when the aerators are running the bass don't hold on traditional cover.  In fact, when the aereators are running and the shad aren't around the boils finding bass or catching them is darn near impossible and the problem is is they've been running them continuously almost all year.  I've graphed fish suspended all across the water table the past few trips.  Often suspended in open water in the middle of the lake holding on nothing.  I've attempted numerous times to catch these fish but to no avail, they're not catchable.  It's gotten to the point where if the aerators are running I'm almost tempted to just pull the boat out and move along to the next lake.  I hate to do this because I know this lake holds large fish, I know because I've caught plenty of 5 + lb fish out of here.  I'm attempting to get the conservation agents number who looks over the lake to see if I can find out ahead of time if the pumps are running or not.  5 hours on the lake today and one small dink,  last week wasn't much better.  

[dink]

What kind of water temps you got over there, Cart?  Wash Co is right around fifty degrees on top and they are still killing "the blade".  Yesterday, while waiting for a buddy to go crappie fishing, I caught three keepers 1.5, 3.0 and 4.5 in a little over an hour.  PM me if you want more details.

dink

[cart7t]

Around 52 last weekend.  Water was pretty muddy from some really heavy downpours.  I caught one dink and got some looks on a rat-l-trap but nothing else.  I'm fishing next weekend with Mike on Sunday at Kinkaid.  I may put the boat up for the season after that, I haven't decided.

[dink]

I'll be at Wash Co all this weekend.  If you get the inkling to come out this way, look for the little blue boat .  I'm on Coffeen next weekend... Saturday with Mike and Sunday with my buddy Gary.

[GAMEOVER]

Could the cold weather be slowing the feeding down pretty drastically as it does in most waters? If a fish is hungry or you tick it off enough to get a reaction strike itll take the bait.

[cart7t]

Could the cold weather be slowing the feeding down pretty drastically as it does in most waters? If a fish is hungry or you tick it off enough to get a reaction strike itll take the bait.

The problem on this lake is finding the fish. With the aerators running as they've been all season the fish are all over the place.

Basically, the aerators concentrate the baitfish into about 20 distinct spots on the lower half of the lake. The bass need only cruise to the aerators if they're hungry. When the fish aren't feeding, I'm finding them suspended throughout the water column. They're not holding on structure but just sitting out in the lake often with 100 yds of an aerator. I've attempted fishing for these fish w/o success.

When the aerators don't run it forces the fish to move to more typical structure in order to seek food.

[boondocks]

This may sound a little atypical for bass fishing but its worth a shot if nothing else is working.Try long lineing some cranks at different depths.Troll where ever you are graphing fish.It works for walleyes.Might work for bass.Could be just a matter of covering water,weeding through the non biters.If they are scattered all over the lake at different depth, trolling might be the answer.

[cart7t]

This may sound a little atypical for bass fishing but its worth a shot if nothing else is working.Try long lineing some cranks at different depths.Troll where ever you are graphing fish.It works for walleyes.Might work for bass.Could be just a matter of covering water,weeding through the non biters.If they are scattered all over the lake at different depth, trolling might be the answer.

Actually something I hadn't thought about but certainly worth giving a shot.  I've also been considering getting a cast net and trying my hand at live bait fishing with shiners on this lake.

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

For what it's worth, when I went up to visit Redtail in Mass., his lake has a pumphouse and a pipe that runs from it directly out to the deepest part of the lake.

The minute I noticed this, I asked Bill to stop the boat and explained how that pipe is probably a huge fish corridor.  They can hide on either side of it as they make their way from deep to shallow to deep again.

This theory was VERY correct!

Maybe next year, when those pipes are more of an established piece of their world, they will prove to be a gift from the gods, ESPECIALLY with all that oxy coming out.  Sounds like the lake is just in a huge transition from the upgrades but I would bet it's just growing pains, hang tough, a dream could be in the making

Plus, hopefully other anglers are getting "turned off" to the place this year.

[cart7t]

Well, they put those in there to help with the crappie.  They've been in there for quite a few years. (The lake was originally impounded in 1971).  

[Low_Budget_Hooker]

Even better, more bass vittles

[GAMEOVER]

Could the cold weather be slowing the feeding down pretty drastically as it does in most waters? If a fish is hungry or you tick it off enough to get a reaction strike itll take the bait.

The problem on this lake is finding the fish. With the aerators running as they've been all season the fish are all over the place.

Basically, the aerators concentrate the baitfish into about 20 distinct spots on the lower half of the lake. The bass need only cruise to the aerators if they're hungry. When the fish aren't feeding, I'm finding them suspended throughout the water column. They're not holding on structure but just sitting out in the lake often with 100 yds of an aerator. I've attempted fishing for these fish w/o success.

When the aerators don't run it forces the fish to move to more typical structure in order to seek food.

Well thats got to be a pretty tough lake to fish on, take a lake like that and you could probably take most lakes.

I actually remember seeing a pro (forgot his name) on ESPN2 fish a lake that sounds exactly like that. He'd fish top water along shore and then when the generators turned on he headed toward the water that was getting disturbed. His theory for doing it was that fish would come up off the bottem and be feeding heavyly. There was a another type a fish in the lake eating everything at the top while the Bass sat right under them eating all the leftovers. I believe he caught his on a fluke, he didnt catch very many fish that day which bring me back to the starting comment of this post, good luck man.