Natural Lakes?

[Captain America]

Here in Michigan, we don't have any large impoundments. I will always be on a natural lake. Does anyone know of any good articles or tips on how bass behave in natural lakes? Most of the stuff that I read has to do with huge highland impoundments, and can't always be transferred over. Thanks. 

[Lund Explorer]

Look for some of the older copies of In-Fisherman.  The Lindner boys wrote a lot of articles based on the strength of their upbringing in Minnesota.  Also a few other Midwest based magazines have articles you may enjoy even though they never seem to measure up to In-Fisherman.

[Scott F]

Go to Amazon.com and order "Largemouth Bass an In-Fisherman Handbook of Strategies". There is also a smallmouth bass version. They were written several years ago, but it is an excellent source of information concerning bass behavior in natural lakes and reservoirs.

[WRB]

As mentioned above In-Fisherman's early study reports are excellent natural lake information source for your region. Lake Michicgan is a natural Great Lake that fishes more like a reservior than most natural Canadian Shield lakes because of it's size, depth, underwater varied terrain and pelagic baitfish.

Smaller to mid size natural lakes where you fish are very old, most dating back to the ice age glacier period.

What this means in terms of bass fishing, the lakes have very little main lake structure elements other than islands and reefs (underwater islands), no man made structures out away from shore. The lakes age by decaying vegetation and soil filling in the deeper water zones, the same aging affects the near shore areas where the terrain is flat. Bays with muck or soft bottoms tend to be weed choked with junk weeds, bottoms with more sand and gravel have less aquatic weed growth. For LMB the transition areas where weed beds and the harder bottom come together are good areas to fish.

To understand natural lake LMB, you need to study weed types and In-Fisherman did a wonderful study report called "Weeds, the key to bass fishing".

Tom

[papajoe222]

Do a search here on northern natural lakes. The information you get about impoundments is just as relevant to natural lakes. With the exception of creek arms and a few other structures, there are a lot more similarities. Just remember that in natural lakes the changes in depth are more subtle and the types of cover may be different, but fish seasonal movements, as well as location in relation to nearby deep water is the same, but deep water is relative to the area you're fishing. Weather factors have the same influence.

Current fluctuations are something you'll likely never encounter, but how bass position themselves in current situations is the same and you will encounter current in natural lakes.

[WRB]

I don't have a lot of experience with northern natural lakes, however have spent a few years fishing lake of the Woods area in Ontario Canada, similar to your area.

Spending most of my time bass fishing deep structured reserviors it took me time to figure out Canadian Shield natural lakes. The differences are; LMB bass tend to be more shoreline oriented and vegetation specific, smallmouth bass behaved like smallies in reserviors. Another big difference was the local resident anglers didn't target LMB, preferring musky, walleyes, pike, lake trout, crappie and smallmouth bass. When you ask about bass they think of smallmouth.

What I also discovered was LMB preffered the inside weed line or the area between the shoreline and where weed beds started. The outside weed line the LBM nearly always located at the base of a pocket in lieu of at the outside points of weed pockets. Reefs more than 100 yards off shore were not good of LMB, smallmouth and other predators dominated those areas.

Lures you can fish in and around weeds like coontail and cabbage, lay downs worked best. Deep diving crankbaits for example were good for smallmouth, poor for LMB.

Your small natural lakes don't have Shad or any other pelagic baitfish that bass target. White fish, Cisco and adult perch are too big and both musky and pike dominate outside open water structure.

Fresh water leaches, chubs, minnows, young of the year bluegill and crappie, worms, crawdads, grubs, frogs, mice, rats, Mayflies, dragon flies, etc., make up the LMB prey sources.

Boat docks, hangers, swim floats, anchored boats, weed beds, lay downs that are near shore are your best locations for LMB in natural lakes.

Thanks my limited experience.

Tom

[Catch and Grease]

I'm gonna have to look into these In-fishermen's on natural lakes... Sounds like it would be well worth the read.!