Big Indiana Bass

The green, green grass of...winter

One of the best areas you can fish around this time of year if your lake has it is the remaining green vegetation. Several of our central and southern lakes have some submerged vegetation, including Summit, Hardy and Patoka. I've heard of some deep grass at Brookville, also. There are probably others.

Even in this really cold water, certain species of grass will still be green and thriving. Two of the last to go are cabbage and coontail. In the pic above, that's some coontail that Jacob pulled up out of a 35-acre pit he was fishing last weekend with the rattle bait he had tied on. On the right was the 6.1 lb. reward for his efforts. For some tips on fishing lipless baits around vegetation in the winter, check out these tips from Alton Jones.

There's not a lot of time left to fish open water around these parts, but if you venture south or west to a lake with grass you'll be able to apply this information this winter. These same species of grass will be some of the first to come out of hibernation and green up in the spring, where again lipless baits will be one of the strongest patterns.

A couple interesting tidbits to throw in...

• In the last Bassmaster Classic this past February, Kevin VanDam won throwing a Red Eye Shad around green coontail he found in Beeswax Cr. with water temps in the mid 40's. Other top finishers found the same pattern and area.
• Up until just a couple years ago, Lake Waveland had a good bit of coontail in it.
• The last IBF tourney I fished down on Patoka in mid-August 2003, I sacked a limit of bass for a 2nd place finish, all by cranking a couple patches of deep coontail I found that apparently nobody else had. It's probably still in there if you look.

Invasive Vegetation Presentation Available

Over the past couple years we've covered things like snakeheads and asian carp, all considered invasives. I received a new presentation to share on the site which I have added to the 'Reports' section (lower left sidebar). You can also access it and download at the following link:

Why Should I Care About Invasive Plants

If you live in Central Indiana and are concerned about exotic, invasive plants, you may want to attend a meeting at the Hamilton County 4-H Fairgrounds on March 2nd from 2-3pm.  A regional group of conservation professionals (SWCDs, RC&Ds, DNR,etc.) are beginning to establish a cooperative weed management area in Central Indiana.  The first steps to establishing this group is to know what is out there, where priorities should be, and what the public knows/cares about.  If you want to learn more about aquatic, invasive species, you should make plans to attend this meeting.

For more information, contact Shaena Reinhart with the Hamilton County SWCD.

A New View Of Cover

An interesting piece of research recently published had a different perspective on a traditional habitat approach. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Grassbed Treatments as Habitat for Juvenile Black Bass in a Drawdown Reservoir by Ratcliff, et al. looked not at how planted habitat benefitted adult fish or forage, but instead how well it could attract juvenile fish when properly arranged. Fluctuating water levels, especially during or after the spawn are believed to be a big contributor to poor year classes, partly due to lack of cover options (vulnerability) and feeding oportunities for YOY and juvenile fish.

In the above study, researchers placed man-made grassbeds at strategic elevations so that regradless of water level, some cover was always available. They compared this to no cover as well as planted natural grassbeds whose appeal might be partially determined by existing water levels at any given point. Turned out the artificial grassbeds were about 230 times more attractive than no cover and significantly more utilized (4X) than even natural grassbeds.

How do you make an artificial grassbed?

"Artificial habitat treatments, constructed of polypropylene rope and artificial lawn (Astroturf), were placed in 15-m2 patches (335 m) at each site. Each artificial grass habitat patch was composed of 15 units made of 1-m2 pieces of Astroturf wired to a welded rebar frame on the perimeter. Artificial stems were created by attaching 195 sections of yellow, three-strand polypropylene rope (20–25 cm long, 1.5-cm diameter) through small holes in the Astroturf. These rope sections were knotted on both sides of the hole and were unwound above the Astroturf to mimic grass. The number and length of stems per unit were based on previous measurements from planted grass treatments."

Got Cyclotella meneghiniana?

An update and detailed information from Lenore Tedesco and our friends over at the IUPUI Center for Earth and Environmental Science concerning the various troublesome algae blooms we're experiencing this year in central Indiana.

Yellow-Brown Algal Bloom Makes White River Water Brown and Foamy and May Be Responsible for Fish Kill

Algae Information Resources

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

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

Geist's Toxic Algae Returns Early

Several news reports on the return of toxic algae to Geist Res.:

• Channel 6: Hazardous Algae Already Growing In Geist Reservoir
• Channel 13: Central Indiana reservoirs already showing algae problems
• IndyStar: Algae concerns grow around reservoirs

Once at the sites, you can click on additional stories within the article to view video and pictures from the reservoir and related to the reports.

Weed ID Primer

Seems like fishermen are always looking for a good guide to weed identification. I want to pass along a nice and simple website that you can bookmark for future reference. Lake, Lawn and Pond is a website hosted by the SePRO Corp., distributors of Sonar (fluoridone) and several other commonly used aquatic herbicides. The link above will take you to their weed ID page. Simply click on the class of weed you want to ID (emergent, submergent, algae, etc.) and you'll be taken to a page with all the common varieties of aquatic vegetation in easy to decipher pictures. Feel free to also browse other sections of the website while there for some great information.

One thing I do want to specifically mention though. One of the biggest "mistakes" I see anglers make all the time is believing their lake is turning over every spring when they find all kinds of floating chunks of stuff on the waters surface. This typically occurs with water temps in the upper 50's to low 60's, but can vary from lake to lake. What you are seeing is not the result of a spring turnover, but a unique characteristic of a type of algae. Check out the pictures and description of Pithophora algae. This is what you are seeing, and it has nothing to do with your lake turning over.

Singing the Praises (Again) of Water Willow

We're pretty fortunate here in central Indiana to have several bodies of water that are blessed with an abundance of Justicia americana, also known as water willow. If you only talk fishing lingo, you may have frequently heard it referred to as 'Geist weed' or 'rock weed'. We've spoken of it before a couple years back in THIS POST, but a soon to be published paper from some of those same authors came across my desk today and I thought it would be a good topic to revisit.

The research is titled "Effects of American Water Willow Establishment on Density, Growth, Diet, and Condition of Age-0 Largemouth Bass in Kansas Reservoirs", again by Strakosh, et. al. If you read his doctoral dissertation the first time around, you'll have way more details than the linked abstract will provide. If not, read the abstract and see if it sounds interesting, then revisit the links in the original post to get lots of good details, including a lot of practical applications to bass fishing if you 'read between the lines' like I do. After doing so, there should be no surprise as to why 'the factory' (Geist Res.) is such a good fishery.

At present on the lakes you'll only find a bunch of dead and brown weed stems left over from the winter. But within another month or so you'll start noticing some new root nodules forming, along with a greening of shoot tips. Then it's off to the races as the plant grows pretty fast and furious as things heat up. By that time though you should have already popped some nice sacks of bass out of this veggie.

Grass Carp, Hydrilla, and Santee Cooper Res.

The Aquatic Plant Management Society (APMS) produces their own scientific journal entitled "Journal of Aquatic Plant Management". It has the most up-to-date research available on all aspects of aquatic plants, most of which is documented on their website. While you can keep in tune with studies being released and published in their journal via contents listing on their site, unless you are a member you can't access the full articles except on time delay. There is an approx. 3 year delay between publishing date and full public access. They just released their 2006 archive and there are two papers which should be of interest to anglers.

A Review of Grass Carp Use for Aquatic Weed Control and its Impact on Water Bodies is a thorough review of most all studies to date involving the effects of grass carp on various water bodies, as well as the biology of the fish itself.

Management of Hydrilla in the Santee Cooper Reservoirs, South Carolina: Experiences from 1982 to 2004 looks at the history of hydrilla treatments of lakes Marion and Moultrie, and the positive and negative effects on the various user groups and entities associated with the reservoirs. No surprise that the bass anglers in general were very dissatisfied with the elimination of the hydrilla, though there were some benefits documented from both a shore anglers perspective as well as an interesting habitat modification (anoxic dead zones). Also interesting is that waterfowlers were unhappy with the resulting elimination of hydrilla.

From the report:

Hydrilla beds may have improved habitat for certain species such as largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides). The benefit of hydrilla to largemouth bass and the role of aquatic vegetation in largemouth bass production is somewhat conflicting (see articles in this journal by Maceina (1996) and Hoyer and Canfield (1996). However, fisheries managers generally agree—aside from impoundments managed for balance (Swingle 1950)—that an intermediate level of aquatic vegetation is optimal for largemouth bass (Durocher et al.1984, Maceina and Reeves 1996).

In summary, hydrilla had both positive and negative impacts upon angling. Despite large areas of anoxic water during summer months and difficulty in boating access, all categories of anglers agreed that hydrilla had been beneficial to fishing effort (Henderson et al. 2003).

One Last Set

I have one last set of links to access more info from Hal Schramm. He wrote a series of columns this year for Mississippi Sportsman online magazine. There was a total of one each month. Some apply directly to MS waters, while others take on generalized subjects applicable everywhere such as cold fronts, fishing license fees, exotic invasives and trophy catfish management. You can find all articles at the following link:

MISSISSIPPI SPORTSMAN

Two New Largemouth Studies

Two new largemouth bass studies are about to be published in the N.A. Journal of Fisheries Management. One concerning stocking of fingerlings into existing fisheries (only highest level of stocking density showed significant contributions to relative abundance) and the other showing no negative effects of spraying endothall to nesting and fidelity.

• Stocking of Advanced-Fingerling Largemouth Bass to Supplement Year-Classes in Lake Talquin, Florida - "Public pressure to stock largemouth bass into existing populations necessitates that fisheries managers have criteria for identifying the bodies of water that will benefit from stocking and the factors that are most important for long-term survival and recruitment in each system. Our results suggest that prior to stocking largemouth bass into waters with existing populations, managers should investigate variability in natural year-class density, hatchery fish stocking size that is appropriate for the size composition of potential fish prey, abundance of suitable fish prey, timing of stocking so that an abundant food supply is available for the fish, and potential hatchery production limitations. Future investigations of interactions between hatchery and wild fish could further reveal the potential for supplementing largemouth bass fisheries by stocking and the potential carrying capacity constraints."
• Impacts of Endothall Applications on Largemouth Bass Spawning Behavior and Reproductive Success - "The results of our controlled study clearly showed that direct applications of endothall were not deleterious to largemouth bass nesting activity and fidelity and had no effect on the size and production of young largemouth bass. These results confirmed some of our earlier observations made at larger field sites in a reservoir (Lake Seminole, Georgia) where there was less experimental control (Maceina and Slipke 2004a; 2004b; Sammons and Maceina 2005). Managers should be able to use the results of our study to answer concerns of anglers and reduce conflicts over necessary efforts to control excessive SAV."