Holiday Weekend Report

Not many places to go and get away from pleasure boat traffic on a 4th of July weekend. Given the light breeze and the bite, I opted to head back out to Waveland this afternoon. Not much fishing traffic today, at least not in the afternoon. Plenty of recreational craft and campers though, along with quite a few jet skiers which you usually don't see a lot of at this lake. Plenty fishable none the less.

They've started to whack the weeds with chemicals from the reports I've received. Not many frogging mats left, which was fine with me as I'd rather structure fish. Figured I might get them good due to the lack of pressure, but didn't turn out as hoped. Still managed around 50 bass though, it was just that the schoolers were taking over lots of the structural elements. Most small fish I've caught out there all year. I think a lot of the larger bass are starting to vacate some of the grouping areas and filter throughout the lake. You can now graph the deeper areas and see fish scattered over most every part of the lake. This wasn't the case as recent as last week. Shad are growing and moving out into the open water more also.

Here is a neat graph pic to show you one of the situations I was seeing out there. Many times when I'd start sliding off a drop I'd drift over a school of bass. That is what you are seeing in the pic to the left (click to enlarge). These fish were typically in the 10-15' range. When you saw this you could pick up a jig and pitch it right ahead of the boat where you just drifted over. Let the bait hit bottom, then hop it a few times and you'd frequently get a nice pop. I did this quite a few times. The other effective tactic was to continue drifting off the group and make a long cast with a deep crank back over the drop and the school of bass. When you got the crank  deep and back down through the school you'd frequently load up. Sometimes, like in this next pic, you'd get two at a time. When they're grouped like this they are there to hunt. I'm not sure if they are following schools of bait, roaming breaklines in a wolf pack or just sitting stationary and waiting for a school of shad to cruise through. Either way they are definitely catchable.

Water temps were still holding in the upper 70's, a little stained from all the boat traffic. Lots of weed pieces floating throughout the lake from the treatments and the propellors. Light NE breeze at about 5-8 mph, just perfect. Partly to mostly sunny skies and highs in the low 80's. 

Comments

[Paul Roberts]

Nice.

Have you ever been there, on this post-spawn/early summer pattern, after a good cold front? (post cold front defined by weather not by fishing results LOL)

[Jason McGowen]

That lake can be crazy! The best day I had there (3 years ago)I caught over 100 fish in 3 hrs. in 47 degree water temps!

[Big Indiana Bass]

Not really that I can remember. We were under a weak frontal system the other day, but nothing too drastic. Like Jason mentioned though, cool water (insert most any other weather condition here) has never been a hindrance on this lake when the population is high. You have better days than others, but when they're shallow the bite is usually good. That should change shortly thoguh.

I think the pattern is starting to fall apart. I have a friend who is supposed to go back out there later in the week, so I'll get a better idea how things are holding up then. Would like to get temp and O2 readings next year if possible through this time period. You had mentioned about doing that a couple weeks back. The difference on the graph from last week to this week is dramatic. When the grouping was strong, everything was graphing a little more solitary and in the top 12' of water or so. This past weekend I could graph fish throughout the entire water column and literally just scattered throughout the lake.

Two weeks ago you never saw a fish graph on the deep stuff. This weekend there were fish graphing on top of and down the sides of the deep stuff. Not to mention all the suspension going on. I should have gotten good graph pictures of the same area to compare in a time sequence. Mental note for next year :) Makes me wonder about your thermal theory.

[Paul Roberts]

I think there is something there.

I believe the shift to summer comes when surface temps reach 85F (80F@10ft) -about mid-July here. My waters are shallow though (<15) mostly <10. Deep water isn't an option.

In Ontario CN, a summer "doldrums" doesn't happen.

[Paul Roberts]

So maybe they are ready to go deep but temps in the depths won't allow it? How deep is Waveland? I mean, how deep are summer quarters for bass?

[Big Indiana Bass]

Waveland is a pretty shallow lake compared to most around here. Max depth is about 28 feet. In Indiana, the typical summertime depth of fish is largely dictated by the thermocline in combination with available O2, regardless of maximum depth available. On many of our waters, you'll see max. depth utilized now in the 18'-22' range. As summer progresses, thermoclines develop more distinctly and available O2 gets restricted further, you'll see fish being forced up into 12'-18' of water depending on specific lake involved. This is just a good generality for around here.

There are a couple potential variables at play here, I believe. One is a thermal one which may or may not play a big part. Is there really a layer that is too cool for them at this time of year that they prefer not to enter? And if so, what would the biological basis for that reluctance be? That theory seems a little less likely to me regarding largemouth. Another possible theory is food availability, or lack there of. With shad, bluegill, crappie, carp and whatever else spawn all taking place in the warming shallows, there is a huge abundance of food in the littoral zones of most lakes. Perhaps bass don't want to go deeper because that would isolate them from much of the available food supply? I mentioned the huge difference in graph readings between now and 10 days ago. It's like everything has made a move to expand out suddenly into the watery environment.

I'll keep graphing and try and get a few pics posted concerning what I'm seeing. I'll also work on getting the tools to do some homegrown research next year (maybe sooner) on O2 and temp profiles in combination with what we are discussing. It would be interesting to see if I could correlate what I'm seeing with some physical parameter. I usually tend to side toward an answer of complexity in these things that doesn't allow for the quick/easy answer, just the opposite of how I tend to approach my fishing (LOL).