We were discussing "Turtle Avoidance Syndrome" (TAS) in the comments section of the 'Weekend Observations' post, and I mentioned the research on the one documented case in the literature I came across where a bass might actually avoid or not bite in a particular spot. I have read this comment from numerous people on different boards over the years, so maybe there is something to it. It involves largemouth bass and whirligig beetles. The quick and clean version of the story can be found at this 'Science News' link. For the rest of you wanting ALL the gory details, including big, unpronounceable words, here is the PNAS article entitled, "Chemical defense: Aquatic beetle (Dineutes hornii) vs. fish (Micropteris salmoides)".
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« July 2007 | Main | September 2007 »
August 30, 2007
August 29, 2007
August 28, 2007
Apple Turnovers, and Lake Turnovers
Hard to believe we're already seeing posts about lake turnover. We're still expecting 90 degree weather the next couple days here and surface temps are still well into the 80's. However, September is usually the start of the fall turnover in Indiana and other parts of the country, a largely misunderstood limnological process. The following is a small piece on lake turnover submitted by reader Richard Ziert. I've added a little blurp of my own at the end.
"The universal question of when and where lake turnovers might occur is often made more complicated than is necessary. To back up just a bit to describe what precedes a lake turnover, we have to understand the principle of lake stratification and the set up of a thermocline. Reams of paper have been written upon to define the subject. Rather than kill any more trees, or recreate the wheel, here’s a satisfactory link to read all about it:
I would like to offer a little more localized home grown material that is hopefully in line with seasonal passages and various latitudes. From the fine state of Minnesota we have the following:
As you will see, when they occur, lake turnovers, are water temperature dependant. But, what other natural connections can we see that will tip us off that these turnovers are about to happen? This is where the Apple Turnover comes in. Here is a link in this regard:
The key to bringing these seemingly unrelated items together lies in the natural fact that apples ripen and fall from the tree in September through October, and. the reason they do this is directly connected with Mother Nature cutting off the food supply from the tree. So it is also with the rhythm of lakes, or parts of lakes that thermocline. What kind of apples grow in your neck of the woods? When the latest ripening apples* fall naturally to the ground, your lake turnover is nigh."
RJZ , 8/2007
* If apples don’t grow in your neck of the woods, refer to similar information relevant to growing seasons for your area.
My Blurb - Here in Indiana, the turnover process typically begins in mid- to late September depending on weather and completes around mid- to late October. One way to guesstimate it's completion here is when lake surface temps reach the mid-50's. This is usually pretty accurate. The best laymans piece I've found for an explanation mixing both the science (with graphs) and the fishing comes from In-Fisherman and can be found at the following link. Be sure to read all 6 pages and pay particular attention to the lake profile (temperature) graphs. You'll learn a lot...
August 27, 2007
Weekend Observations
Trips: 72 Hours: 187.0 Bass: 803 No. > 5#: 1
Made it out for a decent day on the water this past Saturday. Another bump of rain had me headed back to the rivers chasing bass. Got to share some water time with a river rat and compare notes. This turned out to be an interesting proposition as several things came to light.
1) Big Baits = Big Fish? Of course, "big" is a relative term, but we certainly found one of the many instances where the exceptions came to the front. Take a look at the picture to the left to see a bass less than 4" long that smacked my 4.5" Spook. We got a good laugh and took the picture the first time it happened. But this occurred not once, not twice, but 3 times on Saturday. And those are just the ones I actually caught. Needless to say that I took a little ribbing over my prowess for catching such juveniles from my angling partner, but did make up for it late in the day with the largest smallmouth of trip on the same bait. So the lesson here is that big baits are certainly no guarantee of big fish, at least not when tied onto the end of my line.
2) Trailerless jigs: The psychology of bass fishing is a pretty interesting trip. My buddy was pitching a jig around some current seams and made the comment that his bait had too much drag. He needed a faster fall. So he grabbed the jig and completely dispatched with the trailer, much to my horror and amazement. You just don't fish a rubber-legged bass jig without a trailer! There is something inherently wrong with that picture...to which my friend laughed. He asked me how frequently I fished a spinnerbait without a trailer, to which I responded "most of the time". So he asked, "What's the difference?" Of course, I didn't have a good answer for that one. So to prove a point, he said he'd fish his jig "sans trailer" the rest of the day until he caught a bass on it. I was feeling sorry for him knowing that he could be out there fishless for a good part of the day (LOL). It actually turned out to be all of about 15 minutes before he stuck a 3 pound largemouth, the biggest greenie of the trip on it. Point made!
Still I struggled mentally with this concept. Everytime a bass would grab and rip a claw off my Paca chunk trailer, leaving me with only one claw, I'd feel compelled to replace with a new trailer. At times I'd struggle through it though, continuing to toss my battle scarred freak of nature. And I did catch a few bass with my 1/2 trailered jig (see pic right), but it was "uncomfortable" fishing it that way, and certainly when the second claw would be ripped off by an aggressive fish, the now clawless trailer would get replaced immediately. Still, it was an interesting look into one of the many psychological "hangups" we deal with as anglers. How many techniques or tactics do you use that are done that way "just because" that's the way everybody does it?
August 23, 2007
Flood Effects on Fish
As I mentioned, Indiana finally got a good shot of rain this past week with more expected by weekend. I took the time to get out on a creek and do some fishing with a friend, and the conversation at some point got around to flooding effects on bass spawns and populations in general. So I've gathered some research and compiled it here for your reading.
Our drought conditions this year have resulted in great spawns for river bass of the brown persuasion. Lots of YOY running around all over the state from all the reports I've gathered. But heavy rainfall in certain parts of the state have prompted flood warnings, and the question becomes one of what will happen to those good spawns. Research suggests we need not worry too much at this point.
- Susceptability of Young-of-the-Year Fishes to Downstream Displacement by Flooding
- Critical Stream Velocities for Young-of-Year Smallmouth Bass in Relation to Habitat Use
It seems that there is a critical period of growth that fish need to get through in order to successfully cope with flood waters. Any fry much under 1/2-inch are extremely vulnerable to flooding. As those fry grow from 1/2-inch up to the 1-inch range, they quickly gain swimming ability. By the time they have met or exceeded that 1-inch size, as all have probably done easily by now, they are quite capable of fending for themselves. So this is good news.
There is also some nice research to show that another issue might be tied to sudden water temp changes. The warmer the water the better fry and fingerlings can swim. Warm flood pulses would actually increase the ability of YOY fish to survive. Cold pulses will slow down their ability to swim, but probably not to the level of being a disaster.
- Effects of Temperature Acclimation on the Swimming Ability of Smallmouth Bass Fry
- Swimming Performance of Three Warmwater Fishes Exposed to a Rapid Temperature Change
And if research on trout is any indication of a basses ability to cope, it takes a major catastrophic flood to negatively affect adult populations. Even so, in this worst case scenario trout were able to effectively rebound and repopulate all decimated stream areas within 3-4 years, sometimes actually exceeding pre-flood populations. Additionally, growth rates for the newly populated improved due to the lack of competition from a large population of fishes.
- Response of a Brook Trout Population and Instream Habitat to a Catastrophic Flood and Debris Flow
- Effects of Floods on Trout in Sagehen Creek, California
In the end, I'd like to think that our bass are just a bit tougher than those trout ;) and that we'll have some really good years of fishing ahead of us to look forward to.
August 20, 2007
Ramblings on Rainfall
Finally! For most of the day we've been getting some much needed rainfall. Typically by this time of year we average about 32-36" of precipitation. So far for 2007 we're sitting at 26". In fact, in my area, we've only had 2" total in each of the past 2 months. It started early yesterday evening out by me, albeit briefly. A 15 minute downpour. So what did I do? I ran out and got a couple water samples.
Have you ever wondered what the temperature of rain is? How about the pH? Do bass even know that it's raining out? So these are some more of the questions that run through my mind. As it turns out, the temperature of rainfall generally is about the same as the local dewpoint, which is not necessarily the same as the outside temperature at the time. Keeping this in mind can sometimes lead to good catches as you compare incoming rain water temps to current lake water temps. This is especially so in the spring. Of course you also have to take into consideration the temperature after running over ground and off roofs and pavement, etc.
How about pH? Most people would probably guess 7 since that is the pH of water. But it turns out that the generally accepted standard for rain in the U.S. is 5.6. This is because rain reacts with carbon dioxide in the air and actually forms a weak carbonic acid mixture. For a short paper on this read "The pH of Rainfall in the Southern Plains". And for a good visual of pH scale including effects on fish, check out this graphic from the USGS.
So if the normal pH of rain is 5.6, how come Indiana lakes tend to have surface pH values in the 8.0-8.7 range? There are a lot of different factors that come into play, most of which I won't go into. One interesting one though is because of our geologic history. Indiana is blessed with a huge amount of limestone deposits. All the little circles and stars in that picture link are either existing or abandoned limestone quarries. If you remember your high school chemistry, limestone's principle composition is CaCO3 or calcium carbonate. So what you say? Check out this link to the TUMS website. Yep, the active ingredient in TUMS is CaCO3. Turns out Indiana is largely composed of one giant slab of antacid which easily buffers any mildly acidic water. You won't find many problems with acid rain in our state.
And finally, this last cool question...Do fish even know it's raining? I could easily hear it pouring out last night as the rain pounded my roof and everything else outside. But what about the sound rain makes hitting water? Check out this cool NASA explanation entitled "Listening to Rain". It turns out that different size rain drops create different sound frequencies. Some are very high pitched and some are lower. But according to the research, that sound range starts around 1kHz and goes up from there. Turns out that the 1kHz range is probably above where a bass loses its ability to hear high pitched sounds. In fact, their hearing is best around 100 Hz with a max around 600 Hz, much lower than the sound of rain shown in the article. And their lateral line is only geared toward even lower pitched sounds, down in the sub-20 to 80 Hz range. So there is a good chance that bass don't actually "hear" the rain hitting the water, or at least certainly not to the degree that we'd be aware of, as human hearing has a broad range from around 20 Hz up to 20,000 Hz.
So the next time you're stuck fishing out in the rain, you might think of some of these interesting little quirks of nature. It will at least pass the time between slow coming bites.
August 18, 2007
Wind From the East...
Trips: 70 Hours: 179.0 Bass: 780 No. > 5#: 1
Fish bite least, or that is supposedly how the old fishing saying goes. But it turned out to not be true today. Maybe it was the cooler weather this morning that actually dropped our surface temps by 5 degrees and made us struggle to reach a high just over 80 degrees. Or perhaps the constant 7-10 mph wind all day, even if it was from the east. Or the slightly dropping barometer. Whatever it was, it had the fish feeling a little better about themselves and actually feeding a bit during the day today.
Didn't start until well after 2 PM and finally called it at around 8 PM. Started with the shallow crank which got my first good fish at 3 pounds (click pic top left). Also caught quite a few other fish on the bait, including some white bass in unexpected places. Tried some worms without a bite. And the topwater frog in the little bit of left over moss went untouched, though I did catch one bass on a buzzbait. Picked up the deep crankbait and had a real nice little stretch of fish biting that. I really need to get a plug knocker though as I ended up losing 2 good baits on deep stumps...I hate that. So switched back to the shallow crank late in the day and caught another nice fish at 3.25 pounds (click right). All told I managed 21 bass today which is quite a bit better than what they had been doing.
Got a call from a friend while I was out on the water and he had struggled in a Glenn Flint tourney today. The winner had 4 fish going better than 10 pounds which included the big fish at 4.5 pounds. Those were all caught off worms from a single stretch of bank. His partner back-boated him and got 4 of his own for just under 9 pounds on crankbaits from locations all over the lake. My friend only got 1 around 2.5 today. Can't win them all...
August 16, 2007
My 'Reasonable Facsimile' Theory
Match the Hatch? Bah Humbug!
Most everything in nature is colored to either stand out as a warning or blend in as camouflage. As such, I've never been a huge fan of those exact photo-finish baits, though I try a few on occasion. I even still have an aversion to all those sparkly glitter cranks that became so popular for a while. I believe contrast, size, form and motion tend to be the more critical parameters when it comes to choosing lures for bass. For some of the science behind this see the following articles:
That said, I'm always on the lookout for regurgitated items in my livewell, or dead fish floating in the water. This past week I was out on a local reservoir when I came across a floating (but dead) shad. He looked like he was a fresh kill, probably from one of the many white bass schooling attacks that would occur throughout the day. So I scooped him up and set him next to a couple baits that have been producing well in the past couple weeks (click pic to enlarge). You'll see what I mean by getting my baits reasonably close yet sufficiently different. Keep it in mind the next time you're out on the lake.
August 15, 2007
Those Mysterious Bubbles
Trips: 67 Hours: 171.5 Bass: 752 No. > 5#: 1
If you hang out at the BFHP at all, you've probably seen the ongoing discussion about graphed bubbles posted by LTBama. He hangs out down at Lake Wedowee in Alabama. During certain times of the year, that lake tends to release lots of bubbles. LT started graphing these and the debate was on as to what is causing them. Seems like nobody else had experienced the level of bubbles emerging from their lake like LT had, at least until today (LOL).
I was out on a small reservoir today; Dead calm, no other boat traffic, and hot. Water temps in the mid-80's. I was cranking a bunch of main lake structure when I noticed some bubbles coming up to the surface. After moving around a bit, I started to notice that no matter where I was, if I just sat still and watched, sooner or later I'd see more bubbles. So I graphed them and got a few pics of the bubbles (click to enlarge) and posted them out on the BFHP. Still not sure of the exact underlying cause, but at least LTBama now knows that he has some company in Indiana.
If you want to get up to speed on the discussions, here are a few of those original BFHP bubble posts:
Breaking News
Hey, we all need goals in life. I may or may not reach that particular one this year, though the good fall bite is just around the corner. I've also learned quite a bit this year that I'll be able to apply next year. But this story just came across the news wires in the past day and caught my eye. A much better write-up with lots of pictures can be found at this CBS 21 link.
Who knew they kept records for such feats? I'm guessing there are lots of anglers that catch 1,000 bass a year and just never track that info. or knew a record existed. Probably a good majority of the higher level tourney anglers easily reach that level every year. Heck, I'm already over 800 for the year myself and now have a new goal to accomplish before years end. At this pace I think I'll break 1,000 this year. I'm sure I've done it before and just never realized it because I didn't track such things. It really has to be an intentional thing. In the second story link I got a kick out of the picture with the counter that I wrote about earlier this year. Not too keen on his measuring technique though. I also found the comment about the 8 - 100+ fish days he's had over 25 years an interesting stat. I had a 104 fish day in September 2005 that is my personal one-day bass record. None of which is neither here nor there, but just thought it was a neat story to pass along.
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