FL vs N LM Catchability

[Glaucus]

39 minutes ago, MassYak85 said:

Lol this is how I feel. Super tough year for me here in MA. I haven't even broken 4 lbs this year. Probably my worst season since I started getting into bass fishing. 

Definitely my worst season too. The bite is tough, fish are hard to find, and flooding, muddy water has kept me from fishing as much as I normally do because when I go it's futile.

[Paul Roberts]

10 hours ago, MassYak85 said:

Lol this is how I feel. Super tough year for me here in MA. I haven't even broken 4 lbs this year. Probably my worst season since I started getting into bass fishing. 

One of the reasons I asked about conditions vs. something inherent. Guess floridanus chasers have a double whammy going. When I fished for them in the Philippines, in a deep clear res, the guide said, rather bluntly, "One r-r-r-r-rule! "WORMS!" I thought, "No way. Bass can be caught lots of ways." I eventually did catch some on a crankbait, but that was on a different Pinoy lake, with some turbidity and grass cover. Go easy with those FL bass? Sneak around like Doug Hannon?

 

Thanks, all.

[WRB]

Team9nine referenced report where 91% of northern strain were caught vs 58% of Florida strain were caught during the same controlled study lake sums it up and coincides with my experience Larry Bottroffs report as I recall.

Tom

[Derek1]

On 7/6/2019 at 11:45 AM, MassYak85 said:

Lol this is how I feel. Super tough year for me here in MA. I haven't even broken 4 lbs this year. Probably my worst season since I started getting into bass fishing. 

This has been a great year for me in mass. A ton of them in the 2-3 pound range several 3-4 and a couple low 4’s and a giant that saying between 6 and 7 I think is a understatement. 

 Sorry I dont mean to take this thread off course. 

 

[Preytorien]

On 7/3/2019 at 10:41 PM, CrankFate said:

I don’t know. But the northern strain bass here are beyond difficult to catch. They are pampered. They have more food than they can ever eat and are rarely hungry. I see them literally farming bluegills. In my opinion, for all fish, no matter the species or strain, is that hunger and famine are the best thing for fishermen. If the target fish are never hungry and are always surrounded by bait, they are much harder to catch.

I believe I subscribe to this exactly. I find my hardest time of year to catch (other than ice out) is when the bluegill are on their beds. The bass have no trouble finding them or finding small fry to eat, thus my lures and presentations are pretty much ignored a good portion of the time. You can set your clocks though, when bluegills are off their beds and spawn is wrapping up, my catch rates start climbing again. Back in 2012 we had an exceptionally dry summer and small bluegill and fry died during spawn and the waters significantly receded. I had some of my best catch rates that year since, as you pointed out, there was a bit of a famine. I absolutely killed it on almost every body of water with a Kelly's Pier Boy Special in grape color.