What do you use when fishing HIGHLY PRESSURED city lakes?

[Hammer 4]

JFYI...no boats are allowed in park lakes. Also..it Never rains in Cali... ;D

[BassShephard]

Well like I said bodies of water vary lol 

[zero limit]

Live bait like bassShepard mentioned

I caught quite a few bass with ex. large fathead minnows,

Back in late nov. the bass bite was very slow, so I started fishing for crappies and found that the bass bite wasnt slow, they just seemed to want the live bait

[kikstand454]

for what its worth,

i have used a 1/16 oz. beetle spin in many a tough situation and it has never failed to produce bites. big and small, bream and bass. my personal best in fact was on a beetle spin. odd huh?  throw a black and green one along the shoreline and stay low so they cant see you.

foolproof.

[Bass Junkie]

   I agree with a lot of what has been said. First of all, downsizing can be effective, and for more than staying of the beaten path. Think about it. Most pond fish are used to two things specifically in their pray. Bluegill/Baby Bass colors and a smaller profile. The smaller profile is hy you need to downsize, long with th other commonly used explanations. As for the color, this can really be a big part, especially in highly pressured ponds. If you're a person who is used to eating anything and everything black, and somebody serves you say, mashed potatoes, would you eat it? Also, staying ahead of the curve is another thing I agree with. If yu find lures that people have lost at your localpond, what are they? 9 times out of 10 it is one of the more typical lures, such as a 7" Power Worm, WalMart or other cheap sinnerbait, more commonly available crankbaits, ect. When you throw a 4" finesse worm, a smaller swimbait, such as the Storm Wildeye Live Crappie and Bluegill, a frog, or a wakebait, your giving the fish something a lot of guys don't throw. Also, a understanding of how to use the more common lures in a different way, as well as knowing how to get the most out of your lures can really help. Tight Lines!!

[Paul Roberts]

"Some anglers pay more attention and get more mileage out of a year than another guy will get out of a lifetime.  Pay attention to your fishing and pretty soon you will find yourself establishing a pattern automatically." -Rick Clunn

[jaymc]

Bass do learn to avoid anglers and lures. But, my guess is the bait monkey is not your best best.

I'd have to say that timing is most important. There are times when bass are most vulnerable to being duped. Capitalize on the conditions, locations, and positions when bass are vulnerable.

...

I don't think that bass learn to avoid lures. I think all bass either completely ignore, refuse, or are actually frightened by artificials most of the time.

Lotsa research out there showing bass become MUCH harder to catch after gaining experience with anglers. Also, have you ever fished a pond that had never been fished? It's VERY different from one that is fished. The result is a lot more bass that "completely ignore, refuse, or are actually frightened by artificials most of the time."

You wouldn't happen to have a link to any of that research.  I'd really like to read up on that. 

[Hammer 4]

An example...a few city lakes I fish, while throwing Huddelston trout swimbaits, mind you these lakes are stocked by the DFG usualy on a weekly basis.

Anyways, alot of times, good sized bass will follow your bait, maybe even nose, or mouth it, but not take it. If you change the cadence, or twitch it..the bas will either just swim away slowly, or get spooked and flee.

As with other places, so.cal is now loaded with guys that fish with swimbaits, I believe some bass can tell the fakes..and will investigate them. It's now hard to get them to hit worms, where before, worms were almost a sure bet to land bass, so I think they become "Conditioned" to lures in alot of cases.

Yes, they will still bite, but it seems to more of a "reaction" type bite for the most part in City park lakes.

Another example is Monday I fished a city lake late in the day...I hooked 6 bass, 2 1/2 to 4 lbs in about 7 mins..3 got off..But, using the Same lure, and retrive late today, I couldn't buy a bite, I tried several different patterns, to no avail..I know, other things could be involved. Just shows how fast things can and do change..

[Paul Roberts]

Bass do learn to avoid anglers and lures. But, my guess is the bait monkey is not your best best.

I'd have to say that timing is most important. There are times when bass are most vulnerable to being duped. Capitalize on the conditions, locations, and positions when bass are vulnerable.

...

I don't think that bass learn to avoid lures. I think all bass either completely ignore, refuse, or are actually frightened by artificials most of the time.

Lotsa research out there showing bass become MUCH harder to catch after gaining experience with anglers. Also, have you ever fished a pond that had never been fished? It's VERY different from one that is fished. The result is a lot more bass that "completely ignore, refuse, or are actually frightened by artificials most of the time."

You wouldn't happen to have a link to any of that research. I'd really like to read up on that.

jaymc,

I completely agree that bass are not easy to catch, a lot of the time. Just "finding them" is far from the whole game much of the time. But, angling pressure figures in heavy. It may not be noticeable to many anglers since most of us fish "educated" fish all the time. It's the norm now. If you ever get the chance to fish waters that have not been fished, you'll see. I've had such opportunities with both bass and trout. It's...crazy.

Here are some things to chew on. You can also Google using keywords: Angling Vulnerability Catchability, angling/fishing pressure, etc Don't limit yourself to bass. Trout waters in the UK are managed on a strictly catch and kill basis, in large part because of the affects of angling pressure.

First, some quotes from seminal long term studies run by Dr. George Bennett on the ecology of LMB, and related observations on fishing at Ridge Lake, IL. Ridge Lake was a small (18acre) reservoir Bennett could manipulate, and control access to. I only have it in printed form, so I have re-typed some pertinent quotes:

Studies at Ridge Lake showed a rapid decline in the catch rate following the morning of the first day of fishing and continuing through the next several days until it leveled off. To Bennet, this suggested that bass became educated to the more common methods anglers used to present artificial baits.

In 1962 fisherman complained that Ridge Lake contained no large bass, but when Bennett drained the lake the next spring, he found that is contained ninety bass that weighed from 3-1/2 to over 9 pounds. Eleven of these fish averaged more than 6 pounds each. (Ridge Lake was an 18acre impoundment). It was Bennett's belief that when angling pressure reached more than sixty man-hours a year/acre, the bass became educated.

As another case in point he cited Onized Lake. Two acres in size, Onized was small enough to allow an experienced baitcaster to cover all the water within an hour or two. In 1939, 62 legal-sized bass were taken, 29 in 1940, and only 8 in 1941. Bennett investigated and found 275 bass, 45 of them legal-size, with 12 weighing from 3 to 6 pounds.

Manuscripts by Bennett:

http://openlibrary.org/b/OL21039599M/Overfishing_in_a_small_artificial_lake_Onized_lake_near_Alton_Illinois

http://openlibrary.org/b/OL23523721M/Cost_of_bass_fishing_at_Ridge_Lake_Coles_County_Illinois

http://openlibrary.org/b/OL19217045M/Largemouth_bass_in_Ridge_Lake_Coles_County_Illinois

Here's a good one, and you don't have to look too far for this one:

http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/angling.html

Figure 3. Largemouth bass caught per hour of angling related to total hours fished in three small Illinois ponds. Each pond contained 75 bass per acre and each was fished 23 times over 49 days.

Mankin, PC., D.P. Burkett. P.R. Beaty, W.F. Childers, and D.P. Philipp. 1984. Effects of population density and fishing pressure on hook-and-line vulnerability of largemouth bass. Transactions of the Illinois Academy of Science 77(3-4): 229-240.

It appears to be heritable (no surprise there), as well as a learning process for bass:

http://afsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1577/T06-243.1

Selection for Vulnerability to Angling in Largemouth Bass

David P. Philipp*

Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 2009; 138: 189-199

doi: 10.1577/T06-243.1

The response to selection for vulnerability to angling increased with each generation; that is, the magnitude of the difference between the high- and low-vulnerability groups of fish increased with each successive generation. Realized heritability was calculated as 0.146 (r2 = 0.995), indicating that the vulnerability of largemouth bass to angling is indeed a heritable trait.

From Ralph Manns:

http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/smart_bass.html

"Anglers, artificial lures, lines, are "unnatural" problems. Problems to which bass have only just begun to evolve defenses. After about another 100 years and 50 generations of catch and release, I predict we will find many evolved black bass that are "too smart" to bite any moving thing that doesn't behave and look and behave exactly like real food, or with a line and hook visible. These " smart" bass still won't be able to add or predict when the next drought will arrive, but they will be better able avoid the dangers anglers create in their environment.

Heavily pressured bass are harder to catch because they have focused on one or more warning signal produced by anglers. It may be the noises of troll motors, the pressure waves created by a moving boat, visual or vibrational evidence of a line moving through water, unnatural movement of shape of a lure, boat or sonar noises, or a million other potential negative stimuli that a bass may receive while being reeled to a bass boat and netted. At the same time, they easily learn to ignore passing outboard motors and noises from overhead docks that are not immediately associated with the "being hooked" experience. Bass learn to ignore jet skis, skiers, swimmers (I've watched bass underwater as they examined the toes of swimming children and feed while a man hammered to repair his sailboat overhead.) "

[roadwarrior]

Well Paul, my results are totally different.

I think the main reason is choice of lures/

baits. Bass don't get use to Senkos, Fat Ika,

Kut Tail, tubes or jigs.

8-)

[Paul Roberts]

Well Paul, my results are totally different.

I think the main reason is choice of lures/

baits. Bass don't get use to Senkos, Fat Ika,

Kut Tail, tubes or jigs.

8-)

So...you can go to any pond and catch any of those bass at any time? If a pond has say...50 mature bass in it, you will catch them all? If not...why not?

Why do people complain so much about "cruisers" being so tough to catch? I've always maintained that if we could actually see what we are NOT catching down there, a lot of us might just hang it up in disgust.

Here's a cool quote from tnhiker44, I clipped:

"I witnessed a really cool fish shocking event on Watts Bar Lake many years a go. The DNR closed off a small cove with nets and invited a few fisherman (one group at a time) to fish inside the nets. I think they were given 20 minutes each group. We were not chosen, but we watched nonetheless. They weighed and measured all the fish that the fishermen caught, which wasn't many. A group or two got skunked. They then went in there with the shocking equipment and the amount of bass that were in there was simply amazing. The whole experience did not make me feel like a better fisherman, probably just the opposite, but it taught me to not be so quick to give up on a fishy spot."

[roadwarrior]

I'll probably catch all of them twice if I get

to fish it enough. I have caught five DD on

the "most public" pond I fish. I suspect that's

all there are...it's not very big.

On another, smaller public pond, I've caught

most of the 5+ and have taken several BR

members, too! You may remember a post on

a PB rondef caught a couple of months ago.

I've caught THAT FISH several times.

That's why I was able to tell him exactly

where to cast.

Here are the basics:

http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1158577137

8-)

[Paul Roberts]

To put angling pressure affects into perspective: Few of us get to fish unfished waters. So "educated" fish are the norm. Given that normalized playing field, angling pressure is not the main issue confronting anglers. From there I would argue that conditions that affect both fish activity level and perceptive capacity factor in the most. New lures (that fish haven't seen) can help but are not primary. Ask Catt.

You are right that some lures are more difficult for fish to learn than others. I've seen that. The Senko is one. But individual fish do vary in vulnerability to angling. There are extremely aggressive individuals that may be caught repeatedly, and there are some that have been deemed "immune to angling". These are the extremes. In between we have the rest of the lot, and yes, over a long enough period of time an experienced angler could stick most of them. But...some will be much more difficult than others.

One more question: Why do you prefer to fish minnows to an artificial for your smallies? Is there a catch rate difference? Why? Are there conditions that alter the vulnerability to lures? What are they?

[Raul]

Well, I 've read and reread this thread several times so it 's time to add my grain of salt.

I 'm lucky enough to have private waters for my personal use, many of my realtives are farmers and they have water containment ponds for the irrigation systems, ponds that are not big, les than a half acre in size, those ponds have bass in them and there can 't be that many fish that inhabit the pond simply because the pond can 't sustain a lot of fish.

¿ Do the ponds get pressure ?

Yes, from me, not now but some years ago I had a lot of spare time and I fished them in a daily basis, specially when I used to work at the dairy farm, they got pounded by me daily.

Bass can learn ?

From my observations, to a certain point, yes, bass can "learn" to avoid a bait presented in a certain way after a while if the bait is presented to them in a continuous fashion, however, change the presentation and the fish responded positively to the new presentation even if the same bait was used, then after a time and not preciselly years you presented the bait as you first used to and the fish responded positively to the "old" presentation.

With such a small population numbering a few hundred fish in practical terms most of the fish  sooner or later were caught and released, let alone being able to see their fellow fish being caught because the water is extremely clear.

If what I observed in the pond ocurred ( and to me a bass is a bass here and in China ) then there 's no reason for me to doubt that the same thing could happen in a lake.

Well, there are several small lakes near my hometown that also get pounded on a daily basis, being so close to the city it 's not that difficult to reach them, unless there 's lousy weather conditions you can go to them and see that the shoreline is crowed with people fishing, twice the length of a regular cast is the distance between an angler and another.

I 've fished those lakes since I arrived to reside in this city ( August 2010 is going to mark my 30th anniversary as a resident of Leon ). Yeah, I 'm a tackle junkie, yup, I 've always got the newest and hottest new scream in fishing tackle, but that doesn 't mean I fish with it all ( 90% of what I 've got has never touched the water ), you take a look at my t-box of today and to my t-box of yesterday and 80% of the baits you see in today is what you saw yesterday.

Same baits for the same place 30 years appart and the results vary little year in year out.

So where 's the difference ? that one day I use a certain presentation and the next day I use another presentation, no two days are alike.

So answer the question: What do you use when fishing HIGHLY PRESSURED city lakes?

The same baits I use always presented in a different matter.

Hot punk, cool funk, even if it 's old junk it 's still rock n 'roll to me.

[Paul Roberts]

Thanks Raul. Good stuff.

How much do conditions and fish activity factor in? Are there times and places when fish are more vulnerable to angling than others?

I guess that's my main argument (not to be argumentative ), in my original response above (pg2), that chasing the bait monkey is not the (major) answer.

[roadwarrior]

Great post Raul!

Paul, the answer to your live bait question

is simple: My partners fish live bait exclusively

and out fish me 10:1 when I'm using artificials.

However, I cannot explain why i don't have

better success on the river.

Generally, my two hours of artificials are fished

when the bite is red hot! I'm still working on it.

Maybe the next trip, huh?

8-)

[Raul]

Thanks Raul. Good stuff.

How much do conditions and fish activity factor in? Are there times and places when fish are more vulnerable to angling than others?

Well, that 's where the fun is, isn 't it ?

Trying to determine correctly where, how and with what, you can have a truckload of baits ( all of them catch fish at one moment or the other ) doesn 't guarantee anything; what differentiates a succesful angler from a mediocre or lousy is not in the baits themselves but within the angler, he 's the one who chooses. Being "in tune" with the conditions can become as hard as finding the fish. What many call luck I call experience.

Know your baits and be creative.

BTW, just got my Bassmasters Magazine for this month, guess what I found in it ? ..... an article about the fluke on a jighead, oh boy, that 's a new one !  :

What 's old is new again, personally guyz, don 't try it on cover, it hangs up on an eyeblink, for heavy cover use a shakey jighead or an underspin, killa technique  , been fishing it for more than two decades ( and nobody taught me that one, I came up with it after wondering ...... WHAT IF ? )

[Paul Roberts]

Well, that 's where the fun is, isn 't it ?

... Being "in tune" with the conditions can become as hard as finding the fish. What many call luck I call experience.

Sho' 'nuff! It's a great feeling when you can start to make your own luck. Beats waiting for luck to find you.

"There's only as much beauty in nature... as we are prepared to appreciate, and not a grain more." -HD Thoreau

Good stuff all.

[Hammer 4]

I have to say....great info. Raul..

One thing re: our city lakes...it is much better to fish them at night, a good percentage of bass, including bigger fish, are caught at night on big baits.

Every now and then, someone sticks a big girl during the daytime. The lake in question is about 1 acer..maybe 5-6' deep at most in the middle, which is out of reach for most folks. This lake has bass, crappie, cat's..a few gar, gills, and is stocked with smaller trout usually 9" or smaller during the winter.

All of us that fish there on a regular basis, Know there's some Big bass in there. It's my feeling that they feel more at ease during the night time vs daylight, other wise we should be able to catch them as easy in the daytime..?

There are times I have spent 9 hrs fishing there, throwing the box at em..using every presentation I know of and then some..only to be wearing my skunk siut home..

One thing about city parks, is they are tough to fish, but If you pay attention, you can learn a bunch..

[roadwarrior]

All of my best fish have been caught

between 10:00 and 2:00. It's the same

story for most of our Big Bass guys.

8-)

[bilgerat]

Do you fish on cloudy overcast days or rainy days ?

If not you don't know what you are missing, besides having the water to yourself.

[Paul Roberts]

A couple more:

http://bassbuzz.outdoorsfanmedia.com/br_news_article.asp?thecat=2&id=257

http://www.in-fisherman.com/content/inside-look-red-tackle-revolution

Keith Jones:

"Bass are highly capable of learning, he says. Being caught is punishment enough to teach them not to attack a type of lure. In our circular tank at the lab, we have a robotic device to tow lures and count the number of strikes from bass. To avoid injury and having to handle fish, all hooks are bent down. When you tow a set of lures past a sample of naïve bass, they jump all over them. But by the third lap around the tank their response drops dramatically, and there's virtually no response by lap 5, even though they're never hooked.

Bass quickly learn to avoid or ignore something after attacking but not receiving a reward of food. And they retain that knowledge for months. Since these test fish aren't cheap, we initially hoped to keep them and reuse them for various experiments. Even after three months, the number of bites on a type of lure was suppressed.

If bass have been tested on crankbaits, we can use them again in worm or jig experiments, but no more with cranks. And bass used in worm tests can be reused in crankbait experiments but not with softbaits. No wonder it can be so hard to get bites out on the lake some days."

[J Francho]

A couple more:

http://bassbuzz.outdoorsfanmedia.com/br_news_article.asp?thecat=2&id=257

http://www.in-fisherman.com/content/inside-look-red-tackle-revolution

Keith Jones:

"Bass are highly capable of learning,” he says. “Being caught is punishment enough to teach them not to attack a type of lure. In our circular tank at the lab, we have a robotic device to tow lures and count the number of strikes from bass. To avoid injury and having to handle fish, all hooks are bent down. When you tow a set of lures past a sample of naïve bass, they jump all over them. But by the third lap around the tank their response drops dramatically, and there's virtually no response by lap 5, even though they're never hooked.

“Bass quickly learn to avoid or ignore something after attacking but not receiving a reward of food. And they retain that knowledge for months. Since these test fish aren't cheap, we initially hoped to keep them and reuse them for various experiments. Even after three months, the number of bites on a type of lure was suppressed.

“If bass have been tested on crankbaits, we can use them again in worm or jig experiments, but no more with cranks. And bass used in worm tests can be reused in crankbait experiments but not with softbaits.” No wonder it can be so hard to get bites out on the lake some days."

I've read this as well.  My question has always been, when do they forget the negative relationship?

[Glenn]

The answer to that and more is explained here:

Facts and Myths About Bass

[Paul Roberts]

The answer to that and more is explained here:

Facts and Myths About Bass

Bob said, "15 minutes, that's it."

He's talking off the top of his head. There are researcher's in fish behavior that would disagree, and have the data to back them.

Here's one:

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/jfb/2006/00000069/00000003/art00011

This one found 8hrs to 15hrs before the bass would even feed, much less strike a lure, much less one similar to what they were caught on.

There's more to this issue than 15 minutes, or "8 or 15 hrs" for that matter.

A couple more:

http://bassbuzz.outdoorsfanmedia.com/br_news_article.asp?thecat=2&id=257

http://www.in-fisherman.com/content/inside-look-red-tackle-revolution

Keith Jones:

"Bass are highly capable of learning, he says. Being caught is punishment enough to teach them not to attack a type of lure. In our circular tank at the lab, we have a robotic device to tow lures and count the number of strikes from bass. To avoid injury and having to handle fish, all hooks are bent down. When you tow a set of lures past a sample of naïve bass, they jump all over them. But by the third lap around the tank their response drops dramatically, and there's virtually no response by lap 5, even though they're never hooked.

Bass quickly learn to avoid or ignore something after attacking but not receiving a reward of food. And they retain that knowledge for months. Since these test fish aren't cheap, we initially hoped to keep them and reuse them for various experiments. Even after three months, the number of bites on a type of lure was suppressed.

If bass have been tested on crankbaits, we can use them again in worm or jig experiments, but no more with cranks. And bass used in worm tests can be reused in crankbait experiments but not with softbaits. No wonder it can be so hard to get bites out on the lake some days."

I've read this as well. My question has always been, when do they forget the negative relationship?

Supposedly, they recorded negative responses still present in some fish up to three months later -from what I remember from his book. Off the top of my head I'd have said that was ludicrous. But I am in no place to judge that.

I'm sure there's lots more to it than a simple answer of 'X' months or hours. But stuff like this, and observations when fishing under a variety of conditions, makes me think that conditions (sky and water) that affect activity (motivation) and visibility, weigh in enormously. Bass can learn (not reason -that's something different), and it's been shown over and over. But they can also be duped; And that's where the "fishing" comes in.

Here's an example:

I like (LOVE) to fish buzzbaits. But, I've learned that I'm most apt to get bit on a buzzbait under low light. Or on a bright day when there is some chop on the water. Sure there are exceptions, like when fish are actively busting prey or with bass, esp smallies, holding deep in very clear water and willing to bust a topwater. But day in and day out a buzzer works best in attenutated lighting.

Lures look 'stupid' most of the time. It takes something special (conditions/motivation) to obscure that basic fact.

The one place I'm most apt to expect such exceptions is on completely naive fish, aggressive highly motivated individuals (those actively feeding or those in high competition with one another), or under attenuated light -probably in that order.