Come over to Bass Pro Shop for lecture

Gus and I will be lecturing at Bass Pro Shop in Concord as part of their Spring festival of events. We will be providing tips about fishing Lake Norman with emphasis on jigging for bass and perch. lectures will be delivered on Friday Feb. 22nd at 6:30pm and again on Saturday Feb. 23rd at 1:30 pm.

New Study Validates my Findings about pain in Fish

An Australian blogger named Martin Salter, recently published a fine blog,  illustrating the results of recent studies by a research team from the University of Wyoming. This latest study, once again showed that fish do not feel pain. In one of my early books, "Freshwater Fighters", which I published in 2009, I included my studies, using some of the early work of Prof. James Rose. My book concludes that the absence of the brains neocortex, in the brain of all fish, prevents the fish from feeling pain. Fish do have nociceptors, as do humans, that detect pain in the nerve endings. In humans this information is transmitted to our brain and our neocortex processes that information telling us that we feel pain. The absence of this neocortex in the brain of fish, prevents that feeling from ever being realized.

Prof Rose and his expert team of researchers, completely concurs with these findings. In addition,in my book I described the work of a British team of researchers, that tried to validate the belief that fish do indeed feel pain, as a farce. The test methodology that was used in that study, bordered on fraud.The latest studies also validate my conclusion on that study..

PETA (people for the Ethical treatment of Animals) has been arguing for years about the pain issue. Their objective is to have all fishing banned as a casual sort. I commend Dr. Rose for his work.

Successful Testing of Hydrowave

A little more than one year ago, the manufacturer of the new Hydrowave sound attraction unit asked me to perform a complete set of actual test of this unit to obtain an independent view of the effectiveness of the equipment. The scientific concept behind the Hydrowave is that it generates a series of sounds that are transmitted into the water, that simulate the sounds of large bait fish schools. There are a series of different sounds that can be selected that represent different activities of these bait schools. The theory is that is these sounds are transmitted into the water, predator fish like bass will get excited hearing and feeling these sounds and they will become stimulated to bite actively. Kevin Vandam, the nationally know professional fisherman is one of the figureheads behind this equipment, and it was through his organization that I received the request.
I received a complimentary unit in December of 2011 and started testing immediately. The unit is compact and relatively simple to install and operate.
The primary objective of the Hydrowave is to assist bass anglers to catch more fish and the technique usually used by these anglers is casting of artificial bait in relatively warm water conditions. Obviously testing in the winter months was not exactly the conditions for which the Hydrowave was designed, but I felt that it would provide valuable data over a broader spectrum of conditions. Through 25 days of testing and more than 90 hours of operation in cold water, the results indicated that my catch rate increased from 1.30 fish per hour to 2.11 fish per hour when the unit was actually operating. These results are shown in the next illustration.

The warm water testing conducted in the spring and summer of 2012 showed even better results with the catch rate increasing from 0.79 per hour to 1.80 per hour, an increase of more than two to one. These results are also shown.

I carefully designed these tests so that various elements that could alter the results were eliminated such as weather, pressure, water temperature etc.My conclusion was that the Hydrowave does indeed excite the bass for a more aggressive bite. The report that I submitted to the Hydrowave organization was summary in nature but the file of data collected during these tests was extensive, including photos of the fish caught and also photos of sonar images at the time of the catches.

On Saturday, 9 December 2012, I presented the test report to Kevin Vandam at the 2012 annual Ryan Newman fishing tournament at Lake Norman, North Carolina.

                                                   Winter Catfish Are a Great Catch
Some folks think that when the water temperature drops into the 50's that the  big catfish disappear for the season. My friend Mac Byrum just proved that to be wrong. Mac was on an early morning Sunday trip by himself. The weather was cold approaching 32 degrees with a slight breeze. Mac saw his closest planer board take a dip and the rod indicated a hard hit. Mac grabbed the rod and started the retrieve and he new instinctively that he had a big fish. The rod loaded heavily, then there was nothing, the big cat was gone. Mac didn't even have a chance to take in the line to check it when his longest line planer board dipped and the rod nearly hit the water. Putting down the first rod Mac grabbed this rod and he knew that he was about to have the fight of his life. The fish headed for the bottom but Mac's years of experience and properly set drag paid off. After a long fight, he got this 50 pound blue catfish into the boat. The fish was 49 inched long with a girth of about 30 inches. Mac rushed to a friends house to weigh the fish and take a photo before returning it to the lake. Mac told me that he saw the image of this fish on his sonar before it hit the garlic flavored chicken bait that he was using. The image was exactly like the image of a big cat that we had included in our recent book :The Catfish Hunters", looked like a log sitting about 1 foot from the bottom. Don't believe those stories about cold water catfish hiding from the cold.

Vertical Jigging Working Well

There are so many bait fish in the lake right now that trolling live bait, although still effective, is giving way to vertical jigging. The bass are so used to seeing bait fish swimming horizontally, that they seem to go crazy when they see a jig being moved up and down in the water column. using a 3/4 ounce chartreuse jig, is catching more fish than the live bait.Of course you will need a sonar to find the fish unless the lake is calm and the bait fish are visible on the surface. if you find the bass, they will often hit the jig on the first drop. Using a light rod and reel, this is a very exciting way to catch a lot of fish in a short time. I have found that it is not uncommon to catch 10 bass in an hour of fishing.

                                                 
                               Be Careful With Ethanol During Boat Storage

This is the time of the year that boaters often put their boats into storage. Now more than ever there is a danger when storing boats. The E10 Ethanol additive put into fuel creates fuel separation when the fuel is not used for 60 days. The Ethanol attracts water vapor to your tank and when you try to run your motor in the spring, you will have water problems. Some additives will help if added while filling the tanks, but most additives contain alcohol and actually complicate the problem. The best way to prevent the problem from occurring is to completely fill the tank before storage.If there is no open space in the tank for moisture to accumulate, water vapor cannot be created. Tanks can also be completely drained but this is a much more difficult process. Your best bet is to use ethanol-free gasoline which is still available at a few stations and at some boating facilities.

Jigs Working Well Now

Bass are very active in Lake Norman

After a terrible late summer of fishing in July and August and on into early September, the fishing is finally getting better. The water temperature has dropped into the high 70.s and the bass seem to sense the oncoming fall and winter months. They are in all of the coves and channels, following the massive schools of shad and schools of small fry that come to the surface in late afternoon. Fish finding sonar equipment is exploding with image after image of large bass moving into these bait schools to gorge themselves on the small fish. When you hook one of these one to two pound spotted bass, they will spit up their latest meal as you retrieve them and often will mess your boat with partially digested bait fish. There is no better time to catch these nice fish than when they are in this pre-winter feeding frenzy. I have been regularly catching 15 to 20 nice bass in two hours with live medium golden shiners, chartreuse jigs and my favorite number 7 split shad rap crank bait lure. Shad schools that for many years contained between 2000 and 4000 fish are now much larger due to the disappearance of the Stripers. I am seeing shad schools with upwards of 8000 fish in each school. (these are my estimates). A typical shad school image on a sonar is almost always the same and they look like the one shown below.When you see a school of shas like this, circle the scholl and you will eventually catch fish.