Identified the New Bait Fish

I have done my research and determined that the new bait being sold around this area is called the Black Salty. It is a form of goldfish and widely used in other areas of the country. It was developed by the Anderson Minnnow Farm in Arkansas. They live a lot longer than the golden shiner and will live in a tank for weeks if a bubbler is used. I have had good luck with this species and caught nearly all predators in the lake except crappie. But keep in mind that I normally don't fish specifically for crappie. Anglers that have used this bait indicate that it is better them the conventional shad or shiner. They are very active in the water but should be hooked up through the lips rather than close to the head or eyes. I have found that the smaller ones work better then the big ones but that is only my personal opinion.

The New Bait is OK

Last week I posted an item about the  availability of live bait. No golden shiners are available for some reason that I have not been able to determine. The new bait being sold has been named a "black and white" for some reason since it has no black or white color. The new bait shown below looks more like a carp to me but it has some different characteristics than a carp.

The mouth is more frontal than a carp and to me it has a higher frequency wiggle than a cars, although I haven't seen too many carp this small size swim. I have also had some success hooking the fish behind the dorsal fin and letting it wiggle wildly in the water. When hooking this fish through the front of the mouth it is necessary to make sure than the hook goes through the lower lip and the upper lip very close to the front of the lip. If the hook penetrates too far back in the head, there will not be enough of the hook showing to hook the predator fish and you will get a lot of bites that drop off when being retrieved. If hooked correctly these fish live longer than the shiners did. I have trolled this fish for two hours and it was still very active on the line.

One concern that I have is that continued use of this bait will eventually create a new species in our lake. To prevent this make sure that you don't dump your excess bait into the lake at the end of your fishing. I have contacted the Wildlife people to explore this possibility. I have caught all species of fish with this bait except crappie. I expect that they are too big for the crappie to digest.

A Good Week of Fishing

I had a house guest for the past week and fishing on the lake has been pretty good. Got about twenty fish each day with a good mixture including hybrids. The channel cats were again very active and bigger than in previous years. Also got hybrids in Davidson creek and the bass were larger then usual  as can be seen from the photos. My guest,of course was permitted to retrieve all of the fish both when trolling and when casting with crank bait lures. A few bass were in the 4 pound range. Had some shiners left over from previous week but most days we used the new carp as bait. Most fish were caught in 25 feet of water and a few were hooked by casting the dock areas but non were inder the docks.

New Bait Shortage

The Covit Virus is being used as an excuse for nearly everything that is going wrong in our lives lately. The freshwater bait supply is the latest area effected. The bait being delivered as Bass bait is no longer golden shiners by they are small carp. These small fish are much larger than the normal shiners but they do indeed work. There are three tips t hat I can provide when using this bait. First, try to get the smallest fish available. Some sellers will allow you to pick out your own fish and I do that and try to get the smallest ones available. Second, when hooking the bait on your line, use the front-most area of the mouth, The head on these fish are large and tough and if you push the hook through the head you will get a lot of break-aways because the hook does not set in the fish. The very front of the top and bottom lip is strong enough to hold the fish and still let the business end of the hook be exposed enough to hold the retrieved fish. The third tip is for a very slow troll or still fishing with this bait, you can try hooking the bait fish through the tail. This fish is very active when in the water and the tail hooking increases the swimming movement of the bait. I have had good luck with this hooking technique.

When do the New-born's Start Learning?

I you have access to a dock, take a slow quiet walk out on the dock or peer and look down into the water around the pilings or other dock or walkway structure, you might see a large classroom full of new bass fry gathered around the structure. We are now in the post-spawn period for bass and nature is already starting it education of the young fish. Less than an inch long, I recently watched a school of hundreds of tiny fry rapidly moving from one piling to another as if they were being taught the safety rules of survival. When I moved and my shadow moved, the school of fish also scattered but rapidly returned to a tight school near another piling. When I tapped on the deck, they again scattered and then re-gathered to hide.

My guess is that these small bass were no more than one week old and they already knew the basic rule of survival. Each time they noticed me they would scatter but then they would quickly re-group tightly together, apparently knowing that there was safety in numbers. If the small fish had already learned this rule in less than a month after their birth, can you imaging how smart they will be when they are one year old? And some say that fishing is not a skill!

Working Hard for the Fish

Howie Anger, a former Mooresville resident who moved to Nashville, recently visited me for two days. The weather was grest and there were plenty of fish on the sonar but we really had to work to catch them. Howie did manage to catch a few nice crappie and a dozen medium sized bass. However the fish were not very active, hanging near the bottom. catfish were nowhere to be seen.

With the water temperature around 66 degrees, why were the fish deep. Don't know and I am having trouble finding big schools of bass. The crappie seem to be plentiful but bass are scarce. Medium sized shiners are getting scarce. The supplier had no mediums this week so I attributed the slow bite due to the larger bait fish that I was using, especially with the crappie. Lets take advantage of the good weather this week and get out on the lake to fish.

Social Distancing While Fishing

There has been a noticeable different in lake activity during the virus period this year. With the schools closed the boat and PWC activity during the week has increased significantly and unfortunately many if not most of the added traffic appears to have no knowledge of the rules of the water and the courtesy that should be directed at others on the water.
Fishing has also been effected. I have increased my personal time on the water because it is a great way to practice social distancing while keeping myself busy while the rest of the world has stopped. Recently I witnessed another effect that the virus is having on lake fishing, a serious shortage in live bait. Bait suppliers normally deliver live bait to the local stores on Wednesday and Saturday, but last weekend with the fine weather predicted, must stores sold out of bait in a few short hours after they received it. I had planned to take out my Son and a friend of his on Monday and I expected that i could get my bait on Sunday morning but found that everyone was sold out. I found one distributor that had a few Striper shiners left so I took them, hoping that the larger size wouldn't bother the bass. I was wrong, the shiners were too large and the fishing was very slow. By the time I realized the problem it was late in the afternoon and I selectively looked for the smaller bait to finish the day and immediately got results. We caught several big crappie and ran into a nice school of bass just before quitting. My Son Craig and his friend Mike are shown with some of their catch.

Mike boated this nice channel cat in addition to several nice crappie. Lesson learned,,the size of the bait fish does matter, get the medium size shiners for the best results.