Big Indiana Bass

Algae and Its Aftermath

The algae issues on our central Indiana waters just keeps getting worse. Here is the latest from FOWR as well as several news links following:

"An algae bloom in Hamilton and Marion counties, first reported on July 12 by members of Friends and others who live on the river or use it recreationally, is continuing to impact water quality. The free floating algae species first observed south of Noblesville has spread throughout Indianapolis, and is thought to be the reason as many as 1,000 dead fish have been reported since July 17.

The species initially impacted were a variety of suckers, with larger carp and catfish now showing up, especially in the section between the Broad Ripple dam and 30th Street. We asked representatives of state, county and city agencies responsible for monitoring the river’s water quality to meet July 29, and discuss the many unknowns surrounding the event. (See Algae are killing fish, but how is a mystery, The Indianapolis Star.)

The algae problem is expected to continue until a sustained rain event flushes the waterway. Its occurrence 10 years after a chemical discharge killed millions of fish between Anderson and Indianapolis again illustrates the role advocates for the waterway can play in sounding an alert. Our organization also continues to advocate for a reduction in non-point pollution, such as from fertilizer run-off, which can create conditions leading to algae blooms and otherwise degrade water quality.

Friends encourages those who observe conditions on the river that are out of the ordinary to call the state’s “Spills and Kills” line at 888-233-7745. Calls are answered 24/7 and automatically logged into an emergency response system that tracks their number and area of origin."

• Algae are killing fish, but how is a mystery
• Algae bloom apparent cause of fish kill
• Algae found at 2 central Indiana reservoirs
• Algae found in two local reservoirs
• State Reports High Levels of Blue-Green Algae at Morse and Geist Reservoirs
• White River fish kill was caused by algae bloom

ICAST 2009 Report

It is amazing how one can spend all day standing in a bass boat and not complain. But spending a few hours walking around a large trade show will do terrible things to your feet, knees and back. Luckily it was worth it.

Knowing there are many resources, both online and in print, that report on the new products introduced at ICAST each year, I tried to focus on smaller manufacturers that are often over shadowed by the Berkleys, Strike Kings, etc. I looked for the smaller booths that often harbor the real innovators. The following are a few of the things that caught my interest:

Culprit - Tailgate Special

It's fun to see how soft plastics develop and change from year to year. A new jig trailer from Culprit call the Tailgate Special is almost a time-line of jig trailer history all in one lure. Pork frogs to the plastic chunk to the grub-bodied flappy-claw trailers - all can be seen in this one design. I for one was never fond of the plastic chunk - never sure whether to impail them on the jig hook like a pork frog or to thread them on like a grub. The Tailgate Special answers this question by adding a bit of grub body to the chunk. This can easily be trimmed to adjust to differing jig sizes. The Tailgate Special's varied thickness in the flappers along with raised dots appear to be perfect for adding good vibrations to most any jig.

Culprit - UTS

With a number of manufacturers trying to capitalize on the Bronze Eye frog success, the Culprit UTS (Ultimate Top-water Shad) takes froggin' in a different direction. The UTS is a hollow-bodied weedless topwater bait similar in concept to the Bronze Eye or Snag-Proof frogs but in the look and shape of a shad, bait fish or bluegill. It boasts a high quality double hook, durable nose and a walk-the-dog action that should work equally well in open water and the heaviest of cover.

Gene Larew - Biffle-O Jr.

The Biffle-O and Biffle-O Lizard have been out for a while, but this year Gene Larew introduced the smaller 5.5" Biffle-O Jr. In essence it is an extended length tube with the lower half of the tail cut off and the remainder of the tail tapered to a point. Seeing is believing, as they say: I was amazed at the stand-up action of this bait. Forget shakey head worms! Fish this instead... The difference is that with each lift of the head, the concave tail forces a swim/glide off to one side or the other. Shaking a worm causes it to wiggle in place but the Biffle-O Jr. will go side to side! I was impressed and can't wait to give it a try.

MegaStrike

This appears to be a huge year for MegaStrike. Bobby Uhig has gone all out. In a year that many manufacturers are slimming down and tightening their belts, MegaStrike introduced an innovatitive spinnerbait design along with an entire line of soft plastics. Besides being unique in design, all of the soft plastics will have the added advantage of having MegaStrike fish attractant cooked in to each bait!

The StrikeBack Spinnerbait
 
The most obvious feature of this spinnerbait is the articulated head design. The head is actually two pieces with a hinge point similar to many swimbait designs. Bobby claims this 180 degree of movement reduces the ability for bass to throw the bait during head shakes and jumps. Bass naturally jump and thrash to expell spinny-backed forage such as bluegill that have been inhaled tail first preventing the bass from swallowing. The same reaction often occurs when the bass is hooked by an artificial lure. The hinged head on the StrikeBack spinnerbait removes much of the leverage and absorbs these forces meaning the angler has an advantage when using the StrikeBack. The free swinging hook also means that no matter what angle a bass attempts to inhale the bait, the hook will be the first to swing towards the fish insuring more hook-ups.

Other features of the StrikeBack include bright red 3-D eyes and a uniquely faceted, two-tone willow-leaf blade behind a standard Colorado Blade. The StrikeBack will be available in 5 color combinations and in 3/8, 1/2 and 3/4 oz. sizes.

The MegaStrike WingDing

Soft stickbaits have proven their effectiveness ever since the original Senko was introduced by Gary Yamamoto. Most anglers either Texas-rig or wacky-rig a soft stickbait. The new WingDing combines these two techniques! Basically it is two stickbaits molded as one. Texas-rig the WingDing and you now have a wacky rig that can be fished in the thickest cover! The possibilities are endless... Rig it weightless or with a slip-sinker. Swim it on a Carolina Rig or even on a jig. The WingDing caught my interest and I'm guessing it will catch the interest of many bass!

The MEGA-Bug

This little 4" bait looks to be a cross between a twin-tail grub, a beaver-style bait, and a lizard. It is a compact bait but with six tweedlie appendages that put out a ton of fish attracting vibes. This bait looks to be good for a variety of techniques including flipping, punching and swimming. I am looking forward to giving it a try.

The MEGA-Tube Craw

Tubes have long been a part of bass fishing. What sets the 4 inch Mega-Tube Craw apart is the fine crawfish detail molded into the body of the tube. Extremely life-like in appearance this detail may just be the difference between getting bit and getting ignored, especially in clear water.

The MEGA-Dog

The MEGA-dog is another version of the popular beaver-style baits. But the MEGA-Dog's variable thickness flat tail is oriented 90 degrees from it's body. Rather than a flat horizontal tail it is vertical. Although it doesn't have the look of the standard swimbait, I am guessing it may replace many of the soft swimbaits in angler's arsenals. Versatility is this bait's forte. It can be rigged weightless and cause quite a commotion on the surface similar to a toad-style bait. Or rigged with a belly-weighted hook it becomes a swimbait. Fished as a jig trailer or Texas-rigged it is an excellent bait for flipping heavy cover or punching through matted grass. No matter the situation, I believe this MEGA-Dog will hunt!

One other note about these new designs: Each one was designed to be a great addition the MegaStrike e2 Shakey Head Jig. Take the technically designed e2 and add any of these new soft plastics from MegaStrike and I'm guessing Bobby Uhig has developed a winning set of MegaStrike products!

A couple additional notes...

Although I have not been a big fan of Berkley Gulp Alive, mainly due to its need to be stored in liquid, a new set of containers by Plano developed specifically for Gulp products may go a long way in helping anglers deal with the popular Gulp products. But for now I am still happy with Berkley Power Baits.

The second day, I had the pleasure of speaking with Aaron Martin about drop-shotting, Michael Murphy about the Ima Flit and a Jackel rep. (I've misplaced his card - I think it was David). He was willing to spend time with me and I got a 45 minute personal lesson on the Jackel Flick-shake. As many of you know, I have been a big fan of wacky jigging - now, even more! But I must keep some info in reserve for my own use. :)

Along with running into old friends and acquaintances, I also was able to meet a number of people/clients I have worked with over the years but have never before met face-to-face. And one 3.5 hour dinner on Thursday evening proved to be worth the price of the trip alone! Italian food and good fellowship that just kept coming, course after course!

Oh yes, one other observation. The Gary Yamamoto booth... In contrast to the huge Pure Fishing (Berkley), Strike King, Zebco, Shimano. etc. booths with all their lights and glamour, Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits had a simple 10 foot booth with a backdrop and a table with three people seated behind the table. The interesting thing about the GYB booth was the line of media and buyers waiting to ask questions and make orders for the 2010 season! Amazing how a great group of products just keeps on being great! Late on the second day, I had opportunity to sit down with “Chief” George Braswell with GYB and talk fishing. I was amazed to see that what he was excited to talk about was what I had always thought to be a little Indiana secret: Rigging a Senko on a Charlie Brewer Slider Head. I guess the secret is out!

ICAST 2009 is now history and I look forward to next year.

Rod Yoder
RedShad.com

Living the Good Life, For the Past 20 Million Years

A new study out by Collar, et. al. suggests that largemouth bass have changed little over the past 20 million years since optimal feeding development occurred. It seems natural selection stopped after bass developed their large mouths and well balanced shape which allowed for higher order food chain dominance. You can read more at the two links below. The first is a good one-page article in layman's terms from EurekAlert. The latter the actual research paper out of UCDavis which contains a cool 'family tree' of centrarchids, along with the standard 'science talk'.

• Freshwater fish at the top of the food chain evolve more slowly
• PISCIVORY LIMITS DIVERSIFICATION OF FEEDING MORPHOLOGY IN CENTRARCHID FISHES

Potomac River Bass Tourney Kill?

If you haven't been following the latest "big tournament" fish kill, I've included links to a series of news events sort of timelining the event which occurred over on the Potomac River in Maryland after a host of tourneys. It is a good reminder that a single "slip" on the part of tourney organizers can create an unfortunate PR situation, even in small local tourneys here in Indiana. I've witnessed more than once this year dead bass floating after weigh-ins held at Lake Waveland.

• 7/2 - Hundreds of bass found dead on Potomac
• 7/3 - State probing large bass kill on Potomac
• 7/12 - Working to remedy state's troubled waters
• 7/12 - Mueller: Big tournaments, big problem
• 7/17 - LETTER TO EDITOR: Bass impasse - Charlie Evans (FLW) Response
• 7/23 - The Washington Times - Maryland DNR Update

Wide Open Summer Jig Bite

 

I wasn't expecting a great day of fishing on Sunday. Weather forecast was for mostly sunny skies with temps creeping above 80 degrees. Couple that with it being Brickyard weekend and all the accompanying extra boat traffic on the water. Then there was the bass tournament held that morning on the lake, and finally the sustained 15+ mph winds. Did I mention the slowly rising barometer?

It should have all added up to a tough day on the lake. And that was what I prepared for in the little tin boat, setting up a dropshot rod just to play around with some finesse stuff in the coves out of the way of the main traffic and hopefully the wind. The first spot I pulled up on seemed to reaffirm that call. Pitching the dropshot to the edge of a slight drop along a line of boats, I quickly popped three bass in a matter of minutes. I went to move around the corner to the next line of docks, and was quickly met with the strong winds. It was simply blowing me along the line of docks too quickly to be able to effectively fish the dropshot. So I reached down to pitch a 1/2-oz. jig around the docks until I hit the next calm area. This was when things got interesting.

A couple pitches in along the docks and I pop a bass on the jig. Unhook the fish, pitch back to the dock and get popped again. After releasing the second bass, I'm blown past that dock on to the next, so I pitch along side it and hit another bass. I'm starting to see a pattern now. So I start working with the wind covering water and pitching docks. This is pure power fishing...1/2-oz jig and pig, 17# fluorocarbon, 7' MH rod. The dropshot rod never got picked up again the rest of the afternoon. I started the day around 1pm, and when I finally get off the water at 5pm I've boated nearly 50 bass, the largest pushing the 4 pound mark. Turns out to be the best jig bite I've had all year for numbers and quality. I never would have guessed it based on the conditions.

 

More Cataract Cranking

More cranking and winding from Cataract Lake today. Had a pretty stiff breeze all day as you can probably tell from the background in the pic above. It made crankbaits the bait of choice. Had a couple solid keepers throwing deep, and was able to add a couple more on jig by finding some areas out of the main brunt of the wind. Water clarity was pretty decent, but lots of mudlines forming from all the wind and weekend boat traffic. The area also received a decent bit of rain this morning including one pretty strong storm that had leaves and limbs scattered all over the road leading to the ramp. That heavy rain kept us off the lake until noon, so missed any chance at a morning/topwater bite today. Some summer time melanosis on the head of this fish also which is a little less common from a purely observational standpoint. This was the only fish of the day that had the condition.

Shad Schenck On BassFan

Hometown boy done good, former Purdue grad and founder of the Purdue Bass Club, FLW Tour angler Shad Schenck is featured in BassFan's main story today. Shad qualified for the FLW Cup out of Pittsburgh and is considered to be one of the favorites in the field. Get a look into his thoughts on the championship as well as a little background on his Indiana fishing roots in the following article:

Schenck Sets Sights On Three Rivers

I Missed This Story from Last Week (White R. Algae)

Algae blamed for White River clumps in C. Ind.

Filth on White River is algae, official says

Floating Clumps In River Algae, Not Sewage

Algae raises concerns on White River

Q. Are We Not Men? A. We Are D-E-V-O!

Well, perhaps we're not, but it seems that threespine stickleback fish might be. An interesting piece of research from last year documenting 'reverse evolution' over in Lake Washington where the sticklebacks morphed back into a less evolved phenotype displaying more body armor as a result of increased water clarity and subsequent increased predation from the lakes predators.

Researchers document rapid, dramatic 'reverse evolution' in the threespine stickleback fish

Deep Cranking Made Simple

Made a run again out to Cataract Lake on Sunday. The plan was to continue whacking on some crappie, but the crappie had other thoughts. Still graphing tons of fish, but again it was a deal of catch several right off the bat on a new spot and then struggle to get more. Schools are smaller and seem to be on the move. Can tell you though they are chowing down on little shad right now.

Anyway, after about an hour of that I got a little bored with the whole thing and pulled out a bass rod, one of two I had brought with. Decided to throw some deep cranks to see what would happen. Cataract has always been a good deep cranking lake going way back due to its lack of shoreline cover or submerged weeds. It's all clay and rock out there. Ended up catching 8 bass over the next 2 hours, 5 of which were keepers and only lost one bait in the process.

Deep cranking is one of those bites that seems to have been somewhat forgotten recently, probably because of all the focus on new baits geared toward shallow water fishing as well as a host of new "structure" baits such as shakey heads and football jigs. Doesn't hurt my feelings any. I think part of it is also because guys just don't really understand how to go about it, so lets make it simple and hit the basics.

Step one is to learn how to read a graph. You're simply idling around looking for structural elements such as points, breaks, ledges and creek channels. You don't have to get all fancy when starting out and worry about things like bottom content transitions and such. Keep it simple. Once you find a structural element, keep moving around and graphing it looking for either cover or fish, preferably both. The picture above was from Sunday showing a long flat that breaks off quickly from 10'-15' and then tapers out into even deeper water. It has a nice piece of cover sitting right on the side of the break, and a bunch of fish relating closely to the cover or the drop. When you see that, toss a marker buoy out to keep a reference point.

Next, have a good cranking outfit ready to go. A "good outfit" is a 7' plus MH rod with a parabolic action, a baitcast reel spooled with 10#-12# monofilament or fluorocarbon line, and a gear ratio of between 4.4 to 5.1. You don't want anything faster when truly deep cranking. Forget name brands and fancy advertising to start, just buy an outfit that fits the description above. I paid a whopping $100 for my complete setup (rod, reel and line) and would gladly put my numbers of deep cranking fish I've caught over the years using this outfit up against anybody else's who tells you you need "this" special $250 rod or that brand new $200 reel.

Finally, use a crankbait that will run to the proper depth of the breaks and cover you're trying to reach. Again, forget about the special colors or the high dollar baits some guy on the national tourney scene just used to win some major bucks. Pick a Strike King Series 6, a Norman's DD14 or DD22, a Rapala DT-16, Fat Free Shads, some of the old Poes 400's or Bagley DB-3's...doesn't matter. They all work and you're going to lose some anyway! Stay cheap to begin with. In the picture above, the cover and fish are sitting in 10'-15' of water, so I tied on a DD-22.

Now just throw as far as you can and retrieve the bait. Try some different angles and make sure to bump the bottom. Give a spot a good 15 minutes or so and make a couple dozen casts. If you don't catch anything, pick up your buoy and go find another spot. Lots of places where you just won't catch anything. Don't let that hurt your feelings, that's part of the game. This is where the hard work comes in. But by continuing to search and fish using this simple approach, you'll eventually start putting some fish in the boat like the Cataract chunk above and getting more comfortable with the technique. Then you can fine tune and specialize all you want.

Fishing With a Darwin Mentality

This is our weather graph for the past week. The first yellow band highlights trip conditions when I was out Friday evening fishing from 7:30-10:30 pm. There was a small tourney going on at the same time so pressure was a little heavy. Still, I found fish just crushing a Chatterbuzz that evening. Caught over 3 dozen and they were agressive, often hitting the bait multiple times if they missed the first swipe. One of those fun times to be out on the water.

So the next night I adjust and tweak my buzzbait to better fit the night time conditions. Weather is nearly identical (2nd yellow bar) and no tourney, so I can fish where ever I want. I duplicate the pattern in the same general area of the lake and can't hardly get bit. I repeat over some of the better areas from the previous night and again, the bite sucks. I only end up catching about 3 bass.

So what gives? Temperature is about the same. Wind speed and direction is nearly identical. Traffic is lighter the second night. Barometer is rising and slightly higher, but the front had already passed the night before as I had a lower but still increasing barometer on Friday. Same basic bait, same basic water - totally different bite attitude. I guess that's why they call it fishing and not catching.

Still there is a lesson to be learned here. How many times have you killed them in practice, even on the day before a tourney and then struggled trying to duplicate the pattern the day of the tourney? How long did you stick with "the bite" before abandoning it? Did you ever even completely abandon it? It was obvious to me within the first hour on the water that things weren't looking good, yet I kept chunking the buzz thinking things will change as it gets a little darker. They never did. Listen to the fish. If the pattern isn't replicated relatively quickly over the first couple holes, chances are it isn't going to happen at all. You need to change your approach, at least temporarily and try and figure something else out. It's survival of the fittest - adapt or die come weigh-in time.  

Crappie In the Morning, Largemouth In the Evening

Had the day off work Thursday, so took advantage of the time after some morning meetings and went fishing. Hit Cataract for a few hours after lunch with Lee chasing crappies. The fish weren't schooled up nearly as well as last weekend. The bite wasn't near as good either. That said, every time you pulled up on a new spot you could count on catching a few real quick. Quality was still pretty good with not many little guys, and after several hours we were able to put together a nice limit. Hoping to get back there this weekend.

After arriving home and having some dinner, A neighbor called and we decided to head out to the local lake to chase after some largemouth. Overall the bite was pretty decent. We caught a bunch of fish on topwater, though they weren't real large. I did get a solid 3 pound fish on a Pop-R right around dark. Jeff scored nicely though on this trip with the 5+ big bass in the pic which fell victim to a plastic worm. Starting to catch a little bit better quality of fish this year from the lake, so perhaps I'm starting to figure out a few things on these larger fish. I'll be playing more with the worm bite this summer.