500 Bass

[JediAmoeba]

500 Bass.  500 Boulder Bass to be exact.

Last year after talking to someone and making a friendly bet, I made it a personal goal to catch 500 bass in 2019 out of our local community lake, Boulder lake(I call it a pond).  As a personal aside I wanted to catch a bass on as many different types of lures as I could. I really didnt think it would be too hard.  All bass were caught on artificial lures and all the bass were released.  This little lake is highly pressured - from May through September you are hard pressed not to see at minimum 5 people fishing.  Since it is stocked with Trout, on opening day you will see 75-100 people lined up and in canoes.  So fishing pressure is extreme.

 

Boulder lake is small at ~8 acres but is the deepest water of 5 in the community where I live - it's deepest part is about 20 feet.  It has a volume of approximately 25 million gallons.  By comparison we have our main lake which is about 40 acres and its deepest part is only 9 feet with the lake holding about 32.5 million gallons of water.  

 

April and May were hot as I would go out and land 10-20 bass per trip with the best day being 24 at the end of april on a jerkbait. By the end of June I had caught 335 bass.  Things really slowed down with all the fishing pressure, the heat and the fact there just isn't any large bass.

At the end of July I hit 400...then it got tough.  I only caught 64 bass in August.  I stopped fishing at Boulder for a few weeks and managed to hit 500 bass on September 30th.

Now the details of 500 bass out of little Boulder.  Obviously, I probably caught some bass multiple times but the most shocking thing to me is there are no large bass.   Only 4 bass caught were over 2 pounds.  I caught 2 over 3 pounds with the biggest being 3.25 pounds.  

It seems to me our community needs to add some forage baits like Golden Shiners or something that can breed. Overall it was very disappointing to not catch any big bass.  Adding more regulations probably wouldnt have an effect since most people don't follow the current regulations and Pa is really low on enforcement.

 

Notable catches besides the bass; a 26 inch, 6 pound 8 ounce pickerel and a 26 inch Walleye(no one knew any walleye were in this little pond).

 

I ended the year with a total of 552 bass and will never attempt this again. Lol

[skekoam]

That's an amazing number.  Around my parts, I wouldn't feel comfortable betting more than 10-15 LMB for the year.

[jbsoonerfan]

The one thing I have noticed about fishing ponds that have bass that are small is that they are easy to catch. It seems as though they are all fighting for food (hence the small size). Adding forage more than likely wouldn't help with size. Sounds like you should have taken some of them out to help the overall quality of the fishery. Over 500 fish and just 4 over 2 lbs tells me that the pond is WAY over populated. Catching a bunch is fun, but catching some big ones is even more fun.

[JediAmoeba]

2 minutes ago, jbsoonerfan said:

The one thing I have noticed about fishing ponds that have bass that are small is that they are easy to catch. It seems as though they are all fighting for food (hence the small size). Adding forage more than likely wouldn't help with size. Sounds like you should have taken some of them out to help the overall quality of the fishery. Over 500 fish and just 4 over 2 lbs tells me that the pond is WAY over populated. Catching a bunch is fun, but catching some big ones is even more fun.

Most people have a lot of trouble catching fish out of here and claim there are no fish - this is what spawned this whole thing really.  I caught a 6 pounder out of here 3 years ago but 2 dudes ice fishing kept all the big ones last winter - they had tip ups out all night with lice bait.  I talked to them as.they were.coming off the ice and they had at least 20 bass in their bucket which is illegal.  Nothing you can do about that...

[Bluebasser86]

It's interesting to track your yearly totals like this to get an actual idea of how many fish you catch in a year. I did it several years ago and I'm trying to do it again this year.

[kayaking_kev]

I tracked mine this year in my 2nd season of fishing and caught 515, and that's just what I captured with my GoPro, most of them from cast to release. 

[TnRiver46]

6 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

It's interesting to track your yearly totals like this to get an actual idea of how many fish you catch in a year. I did it several years ago and I'm trying to do it again this year.

My cousins used to be in the same line of work as you and used to bring a clicker he had been issued to count people on canoe floats. Every time we caught a fish he would click it to know how many we caught at the end of the day. As many fish as you catch, you will need a TI-83 to figure it up 

[Bluebasser86]

10 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

My cousins used to be in the same line of work as you and used to bring a clicker he had been issued to count people on canoe floats. Every time we caught a fish he would click it to know how many we caught at the end of the day. As many fish as you catch, you will need a TI-83 to figure it up 

I'm only counting black bass (largemouth, smallmouth, spots, and meanmouth), just like I did a few years ago. Been a slow start to the year, only at 34 so far. 

[Way north bass guy]

25 minutes ago, Bluebasser86 said:

I'm only counting black bass (largemouth, smallmouth, spots, and meanmouth), just like I did a few years ago. Been a slow start to the year, only at 34 so far. 

Ha, I wish I could have such a “slow” start to the year so far ?.  One of these days the ice will go away and maybe I can get started then. 

[Bluebasser86]

10 minutes ago, Way north bass guy said:

Ha, I wish I could have such a “slow” start to the year so far ?.  One of these days the ice will go away and maybe I can get started then. 

I've been sticking to only the big fish lake this winter. Haven't been to the numbers lake once where it's possible to catch more fish in a day than I can catch all winter at the other lake, but not a single one will be over 5 pounds and most will be under 3. 10 fish is a pretty solid day at the big fish lake in the winter, which is what I had Saturday.