Where Are The Bass In This Lake?

[scaleface]

I still think that point on the north side is the best spot on the lake. Its just so obvious that it would get overfished .X marks the spot.

 

[Ozark_Basser]

I still think that point on the north side is the best spot on the lake. Its just so obvious that it would get overfished .X marks the spot.

 

Good looking spot indeed, but do you think that is where the most bluegill would be? I don't know much about pike, but I would bet they frequent that point a lot if they hang in the deeper water.

[scaleface]

Pike are foreign to me. I have zero experience with them. So you may be right about them controlling that spot . I wouldnt know.

[Ozark_Basser]

Pike are foreign to me. I have zero experience with them. So you may be right about them controlling that spot . I wouldnt know.

One thing I would assume. If this lake were pike free and held smallmouth, that point, the one across from it, and the embankment to the west would be some good spots.

[basscatcher8]

With further information I think I would be finding the inside weed edge and fishing it with anything blue gill colored. My experience with pike very little as it is has been they like to lay in the top of weed beds and ambush. I saw this quite a bit on Delavan lake last year pike laying in the tops of weeds like snakes. I believe that southern bay that follows the shore from the dam would hold the most blue gill as it is the most protected area except from a north wind. As well as the deeper water extends back into it so the fish are able to reach deeper water easily. I would call the north end the early spawn area for sure but I would think the majority of fish would move south as the year went on. I'm sure they stack up on the rip rap wall for the dam as well at some point in the year too.........Thats just what I see with the further information given as well as the satelite image.

 

 

This is fun Paul I'm enjoying this.

[Robert Riley]

Is there a culvert or a channel on the southern end? If the water temperature is cooler down there, I'd say that's a good place to hit in the summer. The place marked with an X earlier is still the first place I'd fish. I'd fish there and then work my way south and hit the small bay south of the X on my way there. 

[Don't Tell The Wife]

This is fun Paul I'm enjoying this.

 

 

Good stuff guys.  I love hearing all the different view points of how people tackle a lake or particular situation.

[Paul Roberts]

Finally getting back to this. You know, life just happens. Back to the fun stuff...

 

Was fun to see people’s responses. Lots of really astute responses; No surprise there. Hope it got you all thinking, especially those new to thinking about what’s gong on below in our bass waters.

 

OK, let’s pry the lid up on this lake a bit and take a peek.

 

These data represent 30 mature (2 to 5lb; avg 3.5lbs) largemouths that were followed by telemetry for 24hrs once a month for 4 years. Each fish was located 6 times per tracking day. That data was then pooled to create seasonal snap-shot images. The summer data are from single 24hr periods in June, July, and August, repeated over 4 summers. I guess we could call this “A Day on the Lake” from the bass’ perspective.

 

As one might expect, distributions of fish were not random. In the following image I’m representing the tracking observations using a bass or pike icon on the locations frequented by each species. Each image represents a cluster (>10) of observations. These clusters show where activity was concentrated. From here we can speculate as to why. The drawn lines encircle multiple observations that appear to be related to the clusters, possibly hunting activity. I ignored locations with less than 4 observations (most were single observations sprinkled about the lake) since: it’s known that some individual fish travel more than others, and that our interest lies in seeing where fish were most apt to be concentrated during these 12 24hr periods over 4 summers.

 

Again, these were mature quality bass averaging 18” and 3.5lbs ranging from 2 to 5.25 lbs, with two breaking 5lbs.

 

 

There's a concentrations of bass on the north milfoil covered point (with the humps you can make out in the depth map now buried in milfoil). (everyone pointed that one out. It's the most obvious structure piece in this little lake). Bass use -likely feeding activity- continues up into the north end milfoil flat. Notice that there is some patchiness to the weed density there, with an irregular weed line and open patches (W side of flat) that would give bass a hunting advantage on bluegills. (A-Jay had called attention to this important aspect of fishing weedlines -important to both bass and anglers). There are also some irregularities in the weeds at the inside turn at the base of the point on the E side. The tip of the point, and the clean lip where it drops off into the main basin, has a collection of observations too. Some individuals in this cluster were actually out past the clean lip and almost certainly suspended; a classic resting location.

 

E, there is a concentration near the boathouse that sits perched over a deep slot coming up out of the basin along the N end of the dam. There is also a point and ridge at the boathouse with a deeper pocket just north. This is an interesting area and some bass use it. (I believe senile1 called out this spot). The bass there may be crayfish hunters at times, and/or keeping bluegills at bay under the boathouse. I wondered if anyone feeds bluegills at the boathouse. The slot may also be a resting location.

 

The main story for bass in this lake during summer however is not in the main basin at all, as neat as it looks, but in the shallower south channel, in particular its’ southern most end. (Toad Mode, Roger, and T9 had called this out). The milfoil beds in the N end had comparatively few observations and the researcher suspected that the milfoil beds were so dense that bass had difficulty hunting there, and there’s a lot of research that supports this idea. My experience with milfoil has been that bass love it. But patchy broken areas are easiest to fish and presumably make for more effective hunting there for bass. The researcher said that the telemetered bass generally avoided the dense milfoil areas. It’s possible that oxygen deficits overnight within the beds moved fish out, or made it unstable enough to be reliable summer habitat. Milfoil needs a lot of light and I’ve seen dark overcast summers kill it off enough that decaying milfoil could be an issue at times.

 

The researcher suggested that the south channel held so many bass because of the presence of longleaf pondweed. He suggested that it was the complex form (the open understory) of the pondweed that made this area good for bass as they likely could more efficiently hunt bluegills there. The irregularities in the pondweed probably allowed space for a greater diversity of vegetation as well. This area may be where the majority of the bluegills live as well as good hunting grounds.

 

There’s another potential factor here. The headwater inlet just happens to contain a spring. (Robert Riley suggested this possibility). The researcher felt that the spring didn’t influence the area the bass used but I would want to take a temperature profile to rule that out. He had reported only surface temperatures. The researcher also stated that summer surface temps never surpassed bass tolerance limits.

 

This spring acts as the major thermal refuge for the lake’s pike population during summer. Pike selected temperature over depth and cover there, with the greatest concentrations found well up the inlet channel (outside the map). There were also pike in the main basin and they dominated the depths of the basin. Bass were excluded from the main basin either by presence of large pike, temperature (possibly even a thermocline), or both. (Several of you guys were onto this as soon as the word "pike" was mentioned).

 

This is a great general observation:

 

...

I still say the shallows above all else due to the fact it's a small body of water where bass rarely ever seem to leave the shallows compared to larger reservoirs. ...

 

In small waters, the shorelines offer the vast majority of food shelves. In big waters, food shelves may be unattached to the shoreline, but they serve the same function as shoreline-attached shelving. Also, the fact that small waters tend to offer littoral prey species rather than pelagic prey keeps bass hovering tighter to those shallow shelves.

[Ozark_Basser]

I think the north end will hold a good deal of bass, but the south end is the best due to what appears to be multiple types of grass with numerous small openings and transitions. It also looks as though it would look better underwater than the north end as far as within the cover goes, and it would hold more bluegill. The rest of the lake I'd leave to the pike.

Yep I was pretty much dead on with this one. Where is my prize? Haha just kidding. Do you have any more of these, Paul? This is probably the best learning tool I can think of other than on the water experience, and still this has some advantages over that as far as learning how bass relate to an entire lake over an extended period of time.

[RoLo]

Knowing the 'whereabouts' of the main biomass is important, but knowing WHY is even more important.
If you know 'why', then you'll be able to apply that knowledge to other lakes.

 

Weeds are the first love of largemouth bass in 'any' waterbody, be it natural or manmade.

But the kicker in this lake was learning that northern pike share the waterbody.

In lakes where the two gamefish coexist, pike tend to dictate bass location,

particularly in lakes that support pelagic prey like ciscoes, herring and smelt.

These are high-fat migratory fish that grow big pike fast.

Every year, I used to target northern pike in Lake Huron's Georgian Bay. Despite its northerly latitude,

Georgian Bay has a surprisingly strong population of largemouth bass, as noted under 'Favorite Lake'

on my face page (dead to the left). Although bass grow substantially larger in Florida, the 30,000 Islands

provides substantially higher quality fishing for largemouth bass (my secret for years).

 

In fall, the key depth for northern pike in Lake Huron is 15 feet, which represents the outer cabbage line.

Those broad sprawling pondweed beds in Georgian Bay extend for thousands of acres into the lake.

Nevertheless, I don't remember catching any largemouth bass in water deeper than 8 or 10 feet,

which were basically confined to back-sloughs.

 

Roger

[hawghound]

Hmmm, I am usually a find cover and fish it kind of guy.  I would, I guess I have to be truthful, start in the top right orange/yellow area. If they weren't there I would fish the edges of the light blue and dark blue, especially on the left where all the color depths are close together.  Now that I say it, I think I would start there first.