Largemouth population?

[Dan C]

I fish a dominate smallmouth reservoir in NY and have pull out and saw some largemouth out of it. I am wondering how would I determine the population of the large mouth? And how would I target them? Or am I wasting my time just enjoy the smallmouth? I enjoy smallish over the bucket mouths cause they fight much harder. I have always been curious cause I have saw some 5-7 lbs appear. This is a dominant brown trout and smallmouth reservoir that’s is 15 miles long and reaches depths of 150+ft

[Bluebasser86]

Find any shallow cover and fish it. If there's largemouth around you'll find them doing that. No real good way to determine population in a lake that deep though.

[Chance_Taker4]

If I am fishing for fun I would just enjoy the smallies. If I am fishing for money I would try to get a limit of smallies than target the largemouth the rest of the day since they are bigger fish. I would do that the same way bluebasser said to shallow cover or another way is off shore vegetation.

[NHBull]

In my lake it is very predictable.

Shallow

Sandy's bottom

Warmer water Temps

Heavily weeded areas

All the places it is tough to get to

 

[senile1]

If the lake is managed by the New York Division of Fish and Wildlife, you could perform a search online for their assessment of the lake.  Missouri's department of conservation does shocking studies every few years on the lakes they manage and their website provides a rating for each sport fish that is available in each lake (i.e. fair, good, excellent).  I am hoping yours would do something similar.

. . . . and welcome to Bass Resource!

[Dan C]

Thanks for the great Info, I figured it was a shot in the dark but like stayed some big largemouth do appear once in a while. 

[J Francho]

1 hour ago, senile1 said:

If the lake is managed by the New York Division of Fish and Wildlife, you could perform a search online for their assessment of the lake.  Missouri's department of conservation does shocking studies every few years on the lakes they manage and their website provides a rating for each sport fish that is available in each lake (i.e. fair, good, excellent).  I am hoping yours would do something similar.

. . . . and welcome to Bass Resource!

http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/84925.html

 

NYDEC only cares if it's a trout.  The lake is stocked with thousands of brown trout every year. I'd just be looking for fish, and fish for whatever bites.

[Dan C]

2 hours ago, J Francho said:

http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/84925.html

 

NYDEC only cares if it's a trout.  The lake is stocked with thousands of brown trout every year. I'd just be looking for fish, and fish for whatever bites.

 

2 hours ago, J Francho said:

http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/84925.html

 

NYDEC only cares if it's a trout.  The lake is stocked with thousands of brown trout every year. I'd just be looking for fish, and fish for whatever bites.

I have to agree on that, hate how Stingy they are with the waters

[bigbill]

Here in ct the DEEP uses a boat with a shocker. The fish float up. I guess then they do a head count per area. But it doesn’t work in the deeper water.

 

The bass aren’t native to our area. They were hatched in a hatchery here. Once the population grew to where it could sustain itself the hatcherys were shut down.

 

i think the trout are still bred in hatcherys here.

[Fish the Mitt]

I agree with @Bluebasser86 as well. Think shallower when targeting largemouth.

 

As an example, take Lake St. Clair. It in itself is a smallmouth heaven, however, come tournament time, you'll see guys run north or south on the rivers targeting big largemouth. 

 

As another example, take the first B.A.S.S. Elite Series Event on Lake Martin this past weekend. A common strategy was to catch a quick limit of spotted bass deeper, and then run the river (or shallower lake areas [docks being a big go to]) looking for that big largemouth bite.

 

Good luck!

[DomQ]

Seems like every small body of water I fish has a population of about 4-5 bass in them... Really sucks when you try to impress your friends with all the fancy gear and lures you've got and NOTHING bites. ? 

[Chance_Taker4]

44 minutes ago, SemperBass said:

I agree with @Bluebasser86 as well. Think shallower when targeting largemouth.

 

As an example, take Lake St. Clair. It in itself is a smallmouth heaven, however, come tournament time, you'll see guys run north or south on the rivers targeting big largemouth. 

 

As another example, take the first B.A.S.S. Elite Series Event on Lake Martin this past weekend. A common strategy was to catch a quick limit of spotted bass deeper, and then run the river (or shallower lake areas [docks being a big go to]) looking for that big largemouth bite.

 

Good luck!

St. Claire was the exact water I was thinking when I wrote my post. During events I normally get my limit of smallies on the lake and then run to the Detroit River to cull largies.

 

BTW 2K Jigs are top notch.

[WRB]

I caught LMB in Canada and my father in law never knew they were in the lake after fishing the lake for decades. I didn't know the LMB weren't there so I fished for them.

The LMB were on a reef 100 yards off shore at the mouth of a big bay, not in the shallow backend of the bay where you would expect them to be. 

My suggestion is use LMB lures with more natural colors in lieu of Smallmouth lures with brighter colors. Agree with what was suggested earlier start shallow but also work deeper structure wherever baitfish or crawdads are located.

Tom

[Fish the Mitt]

32 minutes ago, Chance_Taker4 said:

BTW 2K Jigs are top notch.

They're the only jigs I throw (excluding bladed jigs).

[J Francho]

7 hours ago, Chance_Taker4 said:

If I am fishing for money I would try to get a limit of smallies than target the largemouth the rest of the day since they are bigger fish.

I'll toss this in the mix: that the LMB are the bigger fish isn't always true.  I used to beat the snot of guys in my club on Erie that would not venture out to the big lake, favoring largemouth "harbor rats."  Best limit of LMB I ever saw there was 12 lbs.  I generally came in with 17-20 lbs. of SMB. I'll bet that because the environment doesn't favor largemouth where the OP is fishing, they aren't going to be bigger than the smallies.

[RPreeb]

2 hours ago, bigbill said:

Here in ct the DEEP uses a boat with a shocker. The fish float up. I guess then they do a head count per area. But it doesn’t work in the deeper water.

 

The bass aren’t native to our area. They were hatched in a hatchery here. Once the population grew to where it could sustain itself the hatcherys were shut down.

 

i think the trout are still bred in hatcherys here.

Trout are bred in hatcheries in every state I'm familiar with.  Historically here in Colorado it's been mostly rainbow, but they do others too.  I do know that they have done some stocking of warmwater species, but I don't know if they grow them here or get them from somewhere else.  The most recent stocking of largemouth in the 3 or 4 lakes in my area was 2015, as far as I've been able to tell from the P&W website.

[bigbill]

Talk about fishing in small bodies of water. A new mall was built. My misses goes to the gym there. There is a man made drainage pond there about a acre and a half. She was feeding the ducks there and noticed fish eating the bread too. So we went fishing there. The bass were dinks the first year, the second year they were half a pound. Each year they grew. Within five years we had 3 lbers. Mixed with smaller bass, there is plenty of little panfish for them to feed on. The growth rate matters on what food is available.

[Chance_Taker4]

4 hours ago, SemperBass said:

They're the only jigs I throw (excluding bladed jigs).

Tell Dan to put blades on the Deposit. He did it for me about three years ago. 

 

4 hours ago, J Francho said:

I'll toss this in the mix: that the LMB are the bigger fish isn't always true.  I used to beat the snot of guys in my club on Erie that would not venture out to the big lake, favoring largemouth "harbor rats."  Best limit of LMB I ever saw there was 12 lbs.  I generally came in with 17-20 lbs. of SMB. I'll bet that because the environment doesn't favor largemouth where the OP is fishing, they aren't going to be bigger than the smallies.

I will admit that when I fish an even on Erie I will only target smallmouth and when I see the weigh ins for the Great Lakes Largemouth Series the bags are not very big. If I had to stay in St Claire I would probably only target Smallies but since I'm allowed to run into the river systems in my events that favor Largemouth I can tend to cull the majority of the smallmouth out of my boat.

[Fish the Mitt]

1 hour ago, Chance_Taker4 said:

Tell Dan to put blades on the Deposit. He did it for me about three years ago. 

Haha I'd throw it for sure. A lot of guys with 2k might actually do that if I remember correctly. But it's done on their own accord. 

 

I'm not with them, or anyone, anymore. After the untimely passing of my mother and sister last year, I stepped away from everything. Any company I was with and all series I was signed up for. Decided to just fish and not worry about any of the extra-curricular. Enjoy my time on the water, when I'm on the water, and focus on family when I'm not.

[TnRiver46]

On 2/12/2018 at 3:42 PM, J Francho said:

I'll toss this in the mix: that the LMB are the bigger fish isn't always true.  I used to beat the snot of guys in my club on Erie that would not venture out to the big lake, favoring largemouth "harbor rats."  Best limit of LMB I ever saw there was 12 lbs.  I generally came in with 17-20 lbs. of SMB. I'll bet that because the environment doesn't favor largemouth where the OP is fishing, they aren't going to be bigger than the smallies.

There’s a guide on Wilson/Pickwick lake that was on an episode of scott Martin challenge that specializes in 25+ limits of smallmouth. I feel like his name is David something. He said that when randy Howell won the bassmaster classic

on guntersville with 67 lbs of those “piddly little green fish,” he guided the same three days on Wilson and had 3 limits of smallmouth well over 80 lbs 

[Ratherbfishing]

Up on Lake of the Woods, Canada we rarely caught largemouth but in one location (off a wind swept point) we found a school (and caught numerous fish on lipless crankbaits).  It COULD have also had smallmouth but it didn't seem to.  I don't know what it was special/different about that spot except they took a liking to it and seemed to claim it as their own turf.  Weird.

 

But I'd agree that largemouth tend to like shallower bays with vegetation and plenty of wood.  Any place where water temps are a little higher would probably be a better to place to target largemouth, specifically.  But, again, largemouth seem to be where you find them.

[gim]

The New York game/fish agency only tracks trout populations?  Whats up with that?  Here in Minnesota you can go to the DNRs website (Department of Natural Resources) and look up any lake in the state and see the most recent fisheries survey.  Some of their sampling methods are better for certain types of fish than others but you would still be able to tell pretty quick if its a lake you should be spending time on based on recent assessments.

[Dan C]

13 hours ago, gimruis said:

The New York game/fish agency only tracks trout populations?  Whats up with that?  Here in Minnesota you can go to the DNRs website (Department of Natural Resources) and look up any lake in the state and see the most recent fisheries survey.  Some of their sampling methods are better for certain types of fish than others but you would still be able to tell pretty quick if its a lake you should be spending time on based on recent assessments.

I have even yet to find a trout survey for my area, I know the stocking numbers but that it.

[slonezp]

On 2/12/2018 at 2:42 PM, J Francho said:

I'll toss this in the mix: that the LMB are the bigger fish isn't always true.  I used to beat the snot of guys in my club on Erie that would not venture out to the big lake, favoring largemouth "harbor rats."  Best limit of LMB I ever saw there was 12 lbs.  I generally came in with 17-20 lbs. of SMB. I'll bet that because the environment doesn't favor largemouth where the OP is fishing, they aren't going to be bigger than the smallies.

Sturgeon Bay, obviously known for smallies, also has a population of largemouth. Just need to know where to find them. And, like Erie, the largemouth do not grow nearly as large as the smallies. 

[J Francho]

19 hours ago, gimruis said:

The New York game/fish agency only tracks trout populations?  Whats up with that?  Here in Minnesota you can go to the DNRs website (Department of Natural Resources) and look up any lake in the state and see the most recent fisheries survey.  Some of their sampling methods are better for certain types of fish than others but you would still be able to tell pretty quick if its a lake you should be spending time on based on recent assessments.

They do angler diary surveys, but the focus is on the trout and salmon fishery. It’s big business up here. Bass anglers have occasionally organized so that tree can be heard, and that is how we got catch and release during what was a closed season for decades. For the most part though, we’re lumped in with pan fishers.