What are the bass doing?

[Paul Roberts]

On 8/26/2017 at 6:34 PM, FCPhil said:

Paul,

Thanks so much for your input and I have really enjoyed your videos. I have not been able to fish as much recently but I have have unfortunately been skunked for awhile now.

 

Today I got skunked at my normal pond and only saw one bass from the bank the entire time. I fished early morning and hit just about all the available access points to the water with a variety of presentations. I ran into a kayaker who confirmed what I had feared...they were biting great for him out in deeper water away from shore while there was no action by the bank.

 

I'm going to try a new strategy and I am curious what you all think. There are a few small ponds nearby that I don't fish much because they don't have the best bass population. On the upside, the entire pond can be reached from shore with a long cast. I'm going to try them next and at least I will know that the bass are not simply "out of reach" like they have been at my normal spot.

Hmmmm... Worth a shot, always. In fact, I'll share a quick story. I was invited to fish a pond. Got there and it turned out to be tiny -I mean I could throw a rock across with ease. The owner told me he'd put five bass in it the previous year. I was there so I walked back to it, and counted four 12-14inch bass in the shallows. There was a deep dark pocket at one end however, where I couldn't see bottom. I made a single cast with a grub and found the fifth bass, an 18-incher.

 

I looked at satellite images of your ponds (from your profile) and found this little pond. Maybe this is where you are headed. The whereabouts of the bass is pretty obvious, and reachable, here. Great laboratory to test and hone your approach and presentation skills.

 

 

All that said, unless the habitat is extremely limited -as in the tiny pond in my story- it may be most important to find the best concentrations of bluegills, even on a small pond. I'll touch on this below.

 

Rarely are there no fish on the shoreline in our small waters here. They're just too small for the shorelines to be entirely ignored by bass. But not all shorelines -even most, by mid-Summer. It's not the shoreline exactly but what shorelines provide, and that's complex cover which promotes the food chain. The worst circumstance might be flat tapering shorelines that exclude fish the size of mature bass, and with little substantial cover. This is nursery water that supports YOY fishes and yearling predators. If much of this exists in your waters, you'll want to find steeper shorelines that offer at least 18" of depth right at the bank. I know a pond that has slow shallow tapered shorelines all the way around except one 100ft stretch of bank bounded by willows where wave erosion has cut the bank. That's a place bass can pin bluegills right against that bank. And they do! It's a great spot. It also helps that there is some small wood (hard cover) -just willow stumps and snags- mixed in with the veges in there too.

 

The other part I think can be the heat and sun. Tough to separate the two in terms of effect on behavior but I think heat plays a role from some things I've seen. Regardless, the bass just seem to disappear under high heat and sun. Usually the two come together, esp here in CO with our 5000ft elevation "thin" air in which heating (and cooling) of the air are rapid. The bass must bury into cover, or drop closer to bottom, making shoreline and upper water column fishing pretty much dead. 

 

You'd asked about the topwaters in waist deep water. In my experience, I've found bass unwilling to approach the surface under such bright hot conditions. I think they are too concerned about aerial predators (and the list of them on our CO waters is long), and that the heat/prey vulnerability ratio is not conducive to aggressive hunting activity. These are my best educated guesses at explaining why under such conditions I have all too often wound up “beating a dead horse”. Basically, it seems they won’t move. They won’t chase. They won’t come up 2ft (!) to take a topwater, spinnerbait or swim jig. 

 

What to do? 

 

-Head for deeper water. Mature bass appreciate deeper water and expanses of it. So a lot of bass wind up away from shore in summer as you suspect. But not all bluegills do so not all bass do. There are almost always shoreline areas that attract bass. If hoof’n, look for reachable deeper water, or get a float tube! I saw a good one at a used sporting goods place here for $50. I have also done well trolling a shallow crankbait through main basins. Hit a fish then stop and cast. Summer bass are rarely alone. Just got to find them. I’ve done this from a float tube and from shore if shoreline that will allow it.

 

-Pray for rain. That is, fish under the darkest coolest conditions if possible. Timing is always key, but especially so in Summer, as papajoe222 wrote about above. (He’s someone to follow, btw.)

 

-Hit dense overhead cover areas. These may or may not be near deep water. (Cover and food can trump everything.) The more complex the cover (wood, rock, depth changes, substrate changes, vegetation changes) the more attractive it will be to bass. Complex cover promotes diversity and surface area for food chain development, creating micro-habitat space for a variety of critters. It also gives bass tactical advantage on hard to catch prey (bluegills) and room to chase. I say “overhead” cover bc solid dense weeds, although may allow bass to sleep, does not provide the best hunting. They need space to move underneath. Dense veggies may or may not be canopied -have a mat on top with some open water beneath. So do some exploring and be choosy about where you spend your time in dense cover.

 

-One important thing I do -before I start flinging lures- is to actively look for concentrations of bluegills. I talk about this a bit in my video “Crankbaits for Fall Bass Fishing in Milfoil”. The bass are where the bluegills are. This almost always pans out. Several spots may look alike, but only one has bluegills, and bass.

 

You’d PM’d me about lures and I’ll respond here (I hope that’s OK) as I don’t have any secrets. I use two presentation types: horizontal and vertical. Horizontal asks bass to chase. Vertical stays in place and catches (or tempts) the non-chasers.

 

If I have a standard GoTo horizontal bait on our weedy waters it’s a swim jig. You’ll see them in many of my vids and I talk about them a bit in my upcoming Late Summer video -uploaded next week I think. I also like crank baits (also in the Late Summer vid) and in Summer, especially, triggering is important, such as crashing and ripping off cover. Spinnerbaits are great bass catchers. I always said, give a kid a spinnerbait and you’d better teach him some good conservation ethics along with it. Many other great baits too… Pick some and learn how to get the bass to bite them.

 

For vertical presentations I tend to use soft plastics, although jigs (killed, shaken,..) are good, and lipless cranks can be fished somewhat vertical (from a boat) when ripping weed edges. I like two soft plastics the most bc they spell FOOD to bass and are unobtrusive and not off-putting. They are stick-worms (Senko types) and smallish slim straight-tail worms. They can be T-rigged, drop-shotted, or jig-wormed (“Shaky”). Another good option is the Ned Rig, which is more horizontal but can work well anyway as it's subtle and unobtrusive

 

Then there's topwaters which tend to work best under dark, light-attenuating conditions. An exception can be weedless "frogs" over dense canopied vegetation. Buzzbaits and wind rippled surfaces go together like...PB&J...in my mind.

 

Summer tackle, since we’re talking lures: With vegetation up you’ll need some power. I shift up to 12 to 20lb lines by midsummer. I also have a finesse rig handy for bright sun. I use 8lb unless there are more veges, (esp Chara), when I go to 10lb. Although in ultra-clear water with little cover I may use 6lb or even 4lb.

 

Hope this helps. This is some of what I do, and it’s always interesting to talk with other fishers to see what they’ve come up with. Let me know how you make out.

[FCPhil]

So I tested my strategy of fishing smaller ponds where I can reach the entire pond from the bank and was successful! But not the way I thought. I caught two bass at two separate ponds:

 

The first bass I caught was 2 pounds and 17 inches. A great bass for me. I caught it slowly shaking a wacky rigged finesse worm along the bottom. It was early morning and I caught it on a heavily shaded bank near a small inlet and a small log. 

 

The second bass was also by the shore. It was later in the morning with calm water and clear blue skies. The bass was clearly foraging on baitfish near a fallen tree. I caught it on a shallow running jerkbait. This bass was 1 pound 15 ounces but only 15 inches long. It was the fattest, football shaped bass I have ever caught. The picture is attached but it doesn't do it justice. 

 

Here is what I gleaned from this trip and I'm curious what others think. The larger pond that I have been unsuccessful at for the past few weeks is practically a forest of milfoil. A kayaker reported good fishing in the deeper center of the pond while I got skunked on the bank. It seems like the bass are heading out for the cooler, deeper water and hiding in the plentiful vegetation. This pond offers other cover and structure far from the shore as well so the visible cover near the bank is not the only option for the bass. 

 

The ponds I had success in today are very different in that there is hardly any submerged vegetation. My guess is the bass are still hanging around the visible cover on the bank because there is no other option for cover. I want to fish the deeper center of these ponds more thoroughly but I ran out of patience this morning (which is usually my problem when fishing open water with no targets to aim at and entertain myself). The bass are clearly have no trouble feeding themselves judging by their fat appearance. 

 

Between the heavy fishing pressure and hot temperatures, the bass head out to cover further from shore if they can find it. Finding water that doesn't offer the bass this option seems to keep them closer to the bank and looks to be key for me this time of year. 

 

Thoughts?

[Paul Roberts]

Nicely done! The skunk is off. And you are definitely "on to something".

 

I fish a pond that lacks cover in the main basin. ALL the cover is along the shorelines. In fact, that pond is in my video journal "Bluebird Blue" where I describe how to fish coverless "swimming pool" ponds, and under brilliant blue skies.

 

I don't spend much time talking about it but the key there is shoreline cover. In fact, the CO Warmwater Fisheries Unit sampled that pond earlier this summer, and I was there while they pulled the gill net they'd placed the previous day. They ran it right down the center of that barren basin, and the net was empty except for one crappie. As they pulled the boat out I told them there are indeed a good number of bass in that little 2 acre pond, but that they are glued to the shorelines. I've counted up to 50 mature bass walking the shoreline. And they are there all year round, except in the very dead of winter.

 

One interesting thing that telemetry has shown us about bass behavior is how commonly cover can trump any supposed "preferred" temperature. Bass are known to sit in high temperature water, even though cooler water exists, because the good cover is in hot water. And, usually there is prey associated with such cover too. This last is definitely the case in my little "swimming pool" pond.

 

Those bass you caught are doing well -the second one in particular. Tough to tell by the photo (lens distortion) but it appears to have a small head which can be an indicator of good growth, that bass able to put on some frame length at a relatively young age.

 

Good presentation choices you made too. And the "heavily shaded bank near a small inlet and a small log", and the "fallen tree", are both "complex cover". Such places exist in the larger pond too, but they would require more time to find, especially under all that milfoil. And, very likely a lot of bass are using the main basin, and the cover edges surrounding and throughout it. The best time to really get to know such waters is in early spring after the vegetation has died back. Water clarity is highest then too so you'll have a better chance at figuring out the details of the bottom make-up and any complex cover elements. But I wouldn't write off the big pond, from shore, yet. Be observant, and patient. There are opportunities there you've most likely simply walked past. Some pithy advice: Don't ask the fish to come to you. Take it to them, like you did in the little pond. Don't worry about all the water you can't cover. Focus in on spots with potential and fish them patiently. Running and gunning too often results in a good skunking, unless the bass are running and gunning too, and that tends to require an alignment of conditions and circumstances. 

 

Again, well done. Those little ponds will teach you a lot. The same needs, behaviors, conditions and circumstances exist on the little waters too, but in an easier and quicker to discern package.