I was having a conversation today with a fellow angler about my home lake and how he felt it has changed over the last few years, the conversation turned to the amount of “pressure” the lake sees with all of it’s tournaments as well as the growth of its popularity with pleasure boating, then I had seen a sort of blog from Jacob Wheeler discussing the same topic so it led me to posting something about pressure and the changes that may or may not come with it.
I admit that my home lake has defiantly suffered some damage from anglers, in part mostly from word of mouth, that being said, the lake which is roughly 10,000 acres does see a crap ton of action, however, I personally am not one to buy into (in it’s entirety) purely the fault of fishing/boating pressure, in my opinion I am more inclined to research other variables that contribute to the lack of active fish that are willing to chance a strike at ones offering, such as but not limited to the amount of available natural forage for example.
The pro side of angling on the other hand brings with it nation wide coverage, yes it does give away “spots” or “areas” not previously known by all which in turn creates added pressure, in Jacobs blog it seemed as if he was suggesting that the added pressure was in part to blame on the media coverage and why the fish catching has taken a significant hit.
On the more popular bodies of water like a Chickamauga or other big time lakes I can see the voice for concern in Jacobs case or at the very least the reasoning for their discussions, It’s a ton of work these guys put in having their own “secret” places, I get it, when it comes to pressure though I am left with the thought of, do these spots really get hit all that hard by others who may or may not know how to fish for them, is it really doing so much damage that it causes the fish to move from the areas? Or develop a case of lock jaw from the wide spectrum of lures being thrown about?
My conversation went in a bit of a different direction, in my area of the country it has not truly seen a harsh enough winter for several years to kill off any significant amount of forage, the added amount of pleasure boating on my home water has without a doubt made it significantly more difficult to safely fish a lot of the offshore areas which in turn does tend to make fishing much more patience/safety oriented, and maybe that was the reason for both the conversation I had with my friend and the thought process from Jacob.
With the amount of technology out there today, information is going to be used to ones advantage, especially by those who tend to skip over the hard work ethic, the additional boating traffic is or at least can be in part to blame in some ways, I am more the opposite frame of mind in which I like to look at the total picture and try to grasp what’s really happening under the surface, thermoclines, amount of forage, water conditions and so on, I tend to learn much more being in a more open frame of mind, I don’t think it is simply due to one single aspect or another that changes the fishery, the singular aspect at least to me would have to be in the way we fish it.