Started practicing with one of the Jr. Bassmasters for their upcoming championship to be held in August on Glenn Flint Lake. This lake was on fire about 3 years ago, but has become pretty darn tough since then. No real explanation that I've been able to gather. I keep waiting for it to turn on, but it just isn't happening. It's not just me either. Tourney results on this lake have been pretty dismal, with one fish usually getting a check. There has been at least one or two tourneys where no fish were weighed. There have been a couple good stringers weighed, but it is certainly the exception for most anglers.
We struggled along for a good bit of the day, but finally put something together late. Managed 3 keepers out of about a dozen bass fishing during the heat of the day from 2:00P - 7:00P. Water temps were low 80's and well stained. Neat occurrence of the day was this fish to the left (click to enlarge). He hit cranking a DT10 and when I got I got him in, I noticed he had something in his mouth. Look close in the pic and you'll see me holding a slider head that I removed from inside his mouth. You can even see the red sore in his lip where it had tried to start healing. It was actually hooked in two spots and from his skinniness, might have contributed to difficulty in swallowing prey. He still managed to eat my crank, but you'll notice he was hooked by a single hook of the rear treble.
This is the first fish I've caught on the DT Series of cranks, and this particular lure had the Sure Set trebles. Ironically enough, he was hooked on the long EWG hook of the set, on the back treble. Would I have caught that fish if the bait had standard round bend hooks? It will take a lot more fish to see how the pattern evolves, but I'll be certain to be tracking which particular hooks I catch fish with when throwing this bait in the future. Might make for an interesting report in the future.
As for the title of this post...We ran across this bald eagle sitting in a dead tree in the very back end of a little cove. Truly awesome birds that we don't get to see around our parts much. I can now add this lake to my list of ones where I've seen bald eagles in Indiana (I'm up to 5).
I'm about to get up on this here soap box and broad stroke my comment with a lot of sloppy thick red paint on the brush.
Why does a lake turn off? Historically, heavily fished new impoundments have a 2-5 year run at above average fishing. The aforementioned should be at the head of the list of evidence. Catch and Release? Catch and release, coupled with tournament and increased pressure from weekend fishermen? Nobody that I know (most poignantly the bass fishing industry and die-hard bassers) wants to believe this-wants us to believe this, and will go out of their way to find threads to make the fabric of their endeavors appear favorable to themselves and others. Do we need to rudely awaken ourselves?
Other than that, what changed? The environment/The ecosystem/The political venue? Or does it keep coming back to fish evolving based on fishing pressure with its ramifications on and off the water? My guess is it’s a little of all these things. The only way to improve the situation is to increase awareness and build integrity within. This takes time. Based on the bad side of human nature, the situation may well be irreparable. But, if we fail to try the good in us, we will bleed out much, much faster. While band aids may be necessary short term, they just won’t be enough when dealing with arterial damage.
Posted by: Richard Ziert | July 20, 2008 at 08:21 AM
Interesting comments Rich. Part of that larger web of life that we can't truly comprehend as mentioned in your previous comments. I would love to see a comparison done on lakes around here (specific ones I suggest) to see what type pattern exists. We have some lakes that hold up incredibly well to the pressure, others that run through phases because of it, and some that end up never being one extreme or the other. The obvious factors to me that would need to be included would be recreational harvest vs. recreational C&R, tourney affects, bass reproduction and recruitment, and initial bass population. Perhaps add prey availability. I think an answer could be surmised from that group of characters based on the what I now of the specific lakes I would have included. It would certainly make for an interesting discussion at some point with the right resource professionals involved.
Posted by: Big Indiana Bass | July 21, 2008 at 01:12 PM