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.

Channel catfish are bigger this year

Last summer I started to notice that the channel catfish that are normally somewhat of a nuisance on the lake but never were very big, maybe a pound or two, were starting to show a little more size. Lately I have also seen that trend continue. Yesterday I caught a channel that weighed in excess of 5 pounds and was 24 inches long. It also showed more fight than a normal channel.
                                                                     

                                                               Not only is it unusual to catch these larger channels but there seems also to be somewhat of a scarcity of the normal smaller channels. I have contacted some other catfishermen to see if they are observing the same situation but I have not received any answer that makes and scientific sense to me. If any reader is seeing the same situation, please contact me with your feelings.

Active bass and large shad schools again

Once again in a three hour trip, I was run out of bait by the active bass. I needed to work a little to find the fish but when found they kept me very busy. With one exception all the fish were god size, around 2 pounds or more.

As important as the fish, and I caught 10 bass, was the large school of shad that was visible near one of the groups of bass.

It was a good three hours. Tried some new hooks and found that some of the cheaper circles do not function as well as the more expensive ones. Had three gut hooks but fortunately they were on perch.

Water in the coves and creeks was clean dispite the week-end storms. 

All Species are Active on The Lake

The recent cooler weather has lowered the water temperature a little. It is now sitting around 65 degrees F and it seems like nearly every species is very active. The bass and crappie are in small groups. They are a little hard to find but when you do find them it gets exciting. Yesterday in a short period of fishing I ran into three groups of fish, mostly bass and crappie. The crappie were smaller than usual and the bass were the standard "cookie cutters" and I had several multiple hits at the same time. They all ran me out of bait in half an hour, despite the variable winds. Boating rules still seem to be a problem with some people but it seems that its worse than ever this year. Get out on the lake and stay safe and healthy.

Family Social Distancing

Took my Grandson Anthony out Thursday. The wind was a little heavier than I desired but we managed to get some nice fish. In two hours he caught 10 nice bass, three crappie, one big catfish and a couple perch, all on live bait. See photos below.

The fish are very active and hitting hard. They seem to be in small groups as the spawn has started. Get out and fish, the action is great.