A few weeks ago, KVJ was hanging out at the qualifier on Brookville when one of the better sticks on L. Waveland ran into him and got to chit chatting. At some point he looked in KVJ's box and saw a certain colored Poes crankbait and mentioned that that particular bait was the "hot" bait over on Waveland right now. When KVJ told me that I just had to laugh. What are the odds that an 18 year old kid just happened to have the "hot" Waveland color of a particularly old bait? Pretty good if he fishes with me a lot - LOL.
Bass fishing is a funny sport. We all like to figure out a secret bite, or a hot color that the competition hasn't quite dialed into yet. I'm no different than anyone else and that mentality is a big driver for why I still fish as seriously as I do. When we do figure it out, however that comes about, we'd like to believe that we've found something new. In reality, much of what we do is nothing more than the old coming full circle and being "new" again.
I started fishing tourneys on Waveland about 20 years ago, and began to get really dialed into the bite out there a few years later. Back when KVJ was celebrating his first birthday and still crapping his Pampers, my partner and I were whacking the competition on Waveland in the days of double team limits and a declining fishery. We were often accused of cheating, but we simply put in our time and figured out a couple bites that the competition hadn't. We also learned the lake like the proverbial "back of our hand".
One of those bites was the deep crankbait bite, and we threw those exact same colored Poe's baits back then. They were the "hot" baits at the time, but others before us that we learned from did very well deep cranking with a particular color Mann's 20+. We were just more specific with our presentations, trying to replicate the approach of one deep cranking newcomer to the national tourney scene, David Fritts. Having been tipped off to this bite last year by others who've fished out there with me, guys getting on Ebay and buying up these "hot" baits now as well as using other deep cranks aren't doing anything but replicating what us old timers knew was a "hot" bite out there over two decades ago. And, of course newer baits like the Strike King series of cranks and Rapala's DT series work well too, it's just that everyone has those baits because you can get them right off the shelf of your local tackle store, and they're new and they're popular. That's one reason why some guys are taking these baits and getting custom paint jobs on them. Still, they do catch a lot of fish right out of the box "as is". I guess my only gripe is with those out there now pretending to have discovered this "new" bite.
The cool thing to me is that the crankbait bite is still just as "hot" in 2009 as it was in 1989. Even cooler is that the specific holes, or more correctly the "spot on the spots" haven't changed over that same time period. Guys try and get all secretive and place brushpiles out there now days, but those brushpiles really just get in the way and detract from what is actually holding the fish there. Fortunately the brushpiles break down and disappear after a few years. In the mean time, they're easy to find and I'll gladly add them to the GPS unit and fish them for bonus bites while they're still attractive to fish.
My long time tourney partner, Bryan Johnson, and Jim Huguenard, his draw partner for a tourney on Waveland today just reiterated the above point. Jim caught his first ever Indiana limit and Bryan was right there with him, the boat combining for nearly 22 pounds of bass today (2nd and 3rd place respectively) fishing some of the same "20 year old holes" I showed to Bryan. The best part for Bryan due to his work schedule is that he didn't need to take any time off prefishing or burn up any weekend time with the family. I simply gave him some lineups and marked a few spots for him and the two went out there and executed. BTW, Josh McDermott ended up popping the boys for the second year in a row out there ;) I showed Josh a few spots out there last year, but from the sounds of it he didn't need much in the way of deep spots as the shallow water morning bite was on, and Josh is a shallow water specialist.
Speaking of shallow water, a lot of guys don't realize just how easy it is to figure out where you need to concentrate your efforts when hitting a lake. Everybody gets all wrapped up in the dock talk and the patterns and get to hopping here and there, but 10 minutes with a graph would be so worth their time. The screen shot to the left (click to enlarge) is one from Waveland today and is pretty self explanatory. When you see shad schools balling up and trails of marauding bass sitting out over the drop and in intercept position, good things begin to happen. The key though is focusing on the depth of all this activity, in this case 6'-8'. Fish aren't pinned down on the break, or slid down toward the bottom of the drop. They're all up and active. This shot was from late in the day when the boat traffic had the shad pushed down, but you can bet it was an even shallower zone of activity first thing this morning before the boats started piling in. Bottom line is that within 10 minutes of hitting the lake, you could have easily determined that most all the good stuff was going to be coming from shallow water today and then adjusted your game plan appropriately. It would have been really easy to fish too deep today and miss out on all that activity if you weren't paying attention. Take home message is time spent idling is time spent wisely.
Is that surface temp for real?
Did the shallow bite continue all day?
What were the shad doing there -big plankton bloom? -bluegill fry?
Posted by: Paul Roberts | June 28, 2009 at 09:02 AM
Brian,
Very cool stuff.
Posted by: Paul Roberts | June 28, 2009 at 09:57 AM
Dock Talk!
The downfall of some very good fishermen over the years. I should write a book on it since it all makes me laugh just listening to it. "They are on the breaks eating jigs". "Gotta fish steep banks". " This color worm is the ticket".
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Instinct my friend, fish what you can see when you cant see! All the talk was that the deeper fish were on fire, limits were easy and numbers ruled. Sooooooooo, Im gonna fish shallow since 28 out of 30 boats went deep right off the bat.
Limit in 18 minutes of which 4 stayed with me until the end. Culled the fifth fish 3 times during the day just adding mere ounces to a 13+ pound bag. 26 keepers over the duration, most of them 14 to 15 inches long. The big fish may not be very smart but they are very conditioned out there already.
Paul, I was getting 88.5 to 90.1 on my 335c in the heat of the day and 84.2 to 85.6 in the morning.
Posted by: Josh McDermott | June 29, 2009 at 04:17 PM
LOL, right on Josh. I told BJ I'd go shallow for the first two hours regardless. Even tried sending him to the dam first :) Not sure what he actually did though. Any more a lot of this game is fishing the fishermen more so than the fish. Can't count the number of times I've just held back and watched the boats take off and then gone to the least pressured fish, wherever that may be. Works especially well at Geist at times (up or down) as well as Monroe (fast or slow). Deep bite has been best out there later in the day anyway.
From a standpoint of winning a tournament, or at least the easiest ones to win as far as I'm concerned, I think the 3 situations I hope for and at the top of my list are 1-extreme weather (hot or cold or stormy or gale force winds), 2-crappy fisheries (tough bites), and 3-lots of dock talk (anglers already knowing where and what to do before even getting on the lake and fishing the conditions - the moment).
I've also always been of the opinion that you can pretty well judge a bass fishermans overall ability by the time he wants to start a tourney. Seems like it's the worst fishermen who want to start the earliest in these tourneys. To me the morning bite is nothing more than a "crutch" bite for those that can't catch fish after the sun comes up. When I was fishing tourneys I almost never practiced for a morning bite as those were just bonus fish in my book. Same guys also want to drag the damn ytourney on for 9 or 10 hours it seems.
If I had things my way, all tourneys would be 6 hours long and start sometime mid morning, say 8 or 9 am :) Even then I'd probably still be cutting it close come take-off time - LMAO.
Posted by: Big Indiana Bass | June 29, 2009 at 06:00 PM
Thanks for the numbers Josh.
Were the bigger fish caught shallow all day, or was that mostly a morning thing? No shame there -despite what Brian is huffin and puffin about (lol -wish I had one of those stick out the tongue smily's).
Posted by: Paul Roberts | June 29, 2009 at 07:53 PM
I love ready these posts! I done the same sort of things in tourneys at Coon and Cataract nearly every weekend. Guys start braggin about the fish they caught deep and I'd drop the trolling motor in 3ft or less of water. I cashed several checks on both of those lakes w/ fish that came out of 90 degree water, 2 feet of water or less, and between noon and 3 o'clock.
Being different in the bass fishin world can be a really good thing!
Posted by: Jason McGowen | June 29, 2009 at 09:40 PM
Re-read the post. Shallow all day. Mark the activity. Fish that day not the season. Got it. Tongue back in.
Question: Were quality fish (>16") caught all day amongst those shallow shad?
Posted by: Paul Roberts | June 30, 2009 at 08:41 AM
My quality fish were caught very shallow before first light, then the sun got out and it was dead calm and I moved out a ways. To me and my style of fishing, one pass along the dam was all it took. I did make another pass but only caught 2 short fish, even varied the crank I was throwing. Most folks had a buzzbait in their hand but Im not a topwater guy first thing in the morning. I like contact, whether it be with a jig or a crankbait and unless I really feel like big fish are chasing and vulnerable to a buzzbait Im going with confidence no matter what.
Im still sold on the fact that the bigger fish are far less vulnerable this time of the year compared to their smaller relatives on that body of water. I feel that they have been conditioned to feed either at night or later in the day when boat traffic is at its least. Im also guessing that if you can get an extremely windy and/ or cloudy day bigger fish would be easier to get. I would have loved to been out there today Brian.
Jason, I might want to pick your brain about Coon and Cataract since my next two are out there and I have little experience on either body of water. I have done so so at Coon but havet been on Cataract since 1999.
Posted by: Josh McDermott | June 30, 2009 at 10:01 PM
Thanks for the detail Josh.
Posted by: Paul Roberts | July 01, 2009 at 01:06 AM
Josh or Paul Im fishing a tourney tomorrow on Waveland never seen the lake before. Can you give a update or places to start? prefer fishing shallow but I heard they sprayed for weeds recently. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Also looking for a Topo map.
Posted by: Jack Belt | July 31, 2009 at 10:19 AM
Jack,
Don't worry about the weed spraying. I'd start on the dam fishing the weeds and riprap. Almost always the most consistent bite. Make several passes with different baits. Some days they want topwaters, other times its a shallow crank. Don't forget about jigs or worms fished there also. Deepest water along the dam is by the water intake structure.
Should be a lot of schooling activity by bass on the lower end. Should be able to catch a few from those schools if you can get around them quick enough. Pop-R's work good, or shallow shad cranks.
After that fish the breaklines in 5-6' of water. Not really deep. Lots of cover on them if you take the time to find it. Use deeper running cranks, shakey heads, texas rigs or jig-pig. Also keep an eye out for laydowns on some of the steeper banks. They're usually good for a couple fish when you find them. There are about half a dozen areas with them.
As for maps, there are no real topo maps for that lake. You can go to TerraServer though (www.terraserver.com) and start clicking on the US map until you get zoomed in to Lake Waveland. The quad map has basic contours that will give you an idea and get you started. That really long point you'll see extending into the main lake just around the corner from the ramp is a good area that you could sit on for hours.
Posted by: Big Indiana Bass | July 31, 2009 at 10:57 AM