Weekends vs Weekdays - High Pressured Lakes

[Bartableman7]

Do you think there is physical or mental change to how a bass acts toward lures during a weekend vs a weekday on any given pressured lake?  Do their bodies some how recognize there is more "boat noise" and turn off on weekends?   I'm thinking just...more quiet, more safety...attack a lure more often.  Just plain instinct?  I wonder if they actually get set up in a "life long pattern" and simply lock up every 5 days expecting the fisherman to pound those shorelines.  (2 bass on a Saturday but 10 bass on a Wednesday is a normal pattern for me.)  And don't say "Just go on Wednesdays."  Not the point. 

[BayouSlide]

Yes, to the point that on my fairly small local lake, I skip fishing weekends or Mondays. On the weekend every single bit of structure gets pounded by boat after boat.

 

No need to compete with that.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

Imho their behavior would have to be affected by having less noise, vibration, and lures presented to them.   Every other living thing I know of is this way.   Why do we buy farms if we are forced to live in a city?  Does our behavior change once we scoot off to the hunting camp/fishing camp for the weekend?   Mine certainly does, I go into relaxation mode, and my defenses aren't nearly as up.   

 

Another angle to this is my own attitude and confidence when I show up to a lake and it's either desolate or packed with people.    My golden rule of fishing is confidence.....it's my crutch, demise, and equally my gift.    Seeing lots of people on the water certainly affects me, and my confidence.   If I feel I'm not gonna catch a fish....I manifest destiny 100% of the time.   

[B-Gee]

I've found that you can fish most places from dawn to about 9AM without much interference from paddleboarders, jetskiers, etc. Most of these folks don't get up early.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

5 minutes ago, BayouSlide said:

Yes, to the point that on my fairly small local lake, I skip fishing weekends or Mondays. On the weekend every single bit of structure gets pounded by boat after boat.

 

No need to compete with that.

Night fishing is the ultimate red pill for folks like us I found years ago.    I honestly hate seeing people when I'm out fishing, I wish I didn't but I do.   I'm selfish in that way, I want the peace and quiet more than the fish.  

[Darth-Baiter]

sadly, i work.

 

weekends are my norm.  as a kayaker, i have the added benefit of the non-boating lakes around me, but they still get crushed by pressure on occasion.  as a general rule, i dont mind other people around me.  who else am i gonna annoy by hoisting up a bass in jubilation?

 

i think i do okay even on weekends.  

[TnRiver46]

16 minutes ago, Darth-Baiter said:

sadly, i work.

 

weekends are my norm.  as a kayaker, i have the added benefit of the non-boating lakes around me, but they still get crushed by pressure on occasion.  as a general rule, i dont mind other people around me.  who else am i gonna annoy by hoisting up a bass in jubilation?

 

i think i do okay even on weekends.  

After 5 pm on weekdays is my jam. I actually bought my house next to a boat ramp so I could go often. If I had to wait for weekends I would have gone crazy and jumped off a cliff years ago. Not because weekends are bad, but because I gotta go fishing more than 2 days a week 

[Jig Man]

Week days have about 25% of the fishermen and less than half of the pleasure boaters on upper Table Rock lake.  I would rather take a beating than go on the weekend.

[Tennessee Boy]

Josh Alwine (BR Member) in his book High Percentage Fishing crunched some numbers from various sources and found that the most productive fishing day of the week is Thursday.  

 

I don't have the exact source at hand but one tracking study found the bass move deeper on the weekends.  Probably because of all the strange contraptions moving through the water around them.

[Mobasser]

Weekdays if possible

[Bankbeater]

I work so on the weekends I try to get out as early as possible.

[fin]

I remember reading some study a few years ago about fish off-shore in Nova Scotia. Fishermen thought a particular game fish was extinct in that area. Then some kind of fishing ban was placed on that area for some unrelated reason. They found the fish returned during that time. Fish are not stupid.

 

It’s not just that fish react differently to lures (yes, they are more skittish), they aren’t even there.

 

I’m sure they don’t fall into a life-long pattern, but how long that reaction lasts is impossible to say. My experienced guess would be that after a few days of no human activity at all (Saturday to Wednesday), they are more prone to come close to shore, and the longer the lake is inactive, the better it gets. And it’s not just fishermen or boat traffic that spook them, it’s human activity, period, even people walking along the bank. Or it could be otters, even. Anything that scares them enough to remember to avoid an area.

 

So if you have a quiet weekend, not only will the following weekdays be better, the next weekend should be better too.

[Basser2021]

9 hours ago, BayouSlide said:

Yes, to the point that on my fairly small local lake, I skip fishing weekends or Mondays. On the weekend every single bit of structure gets pounded by boat after boat.

 

No need to compete with that.

What he said

[thomas15]

I live 1/4 mile from a 1000 acre impoundment that gets hammered during the weekends so I don't go there at all during the day, I might go after 6:00PM but that's it. It's a state park and this past weekend on Sunday the park closed at noon to new visitors because the parking lot was full. This is the 10th time since Memorial day they have closed it due to reaching capacity. It seems in the last year most of the boaters are just tearing up and down the lake not actually fishing but I can hear the boats and jet skies from my home and then I don't even want to go fishing in that mess.

 

I just got a pair of chest waders and I'm going to start trout fishing in a local stream just to get away from the crowds. But I'm taking a vacation day tomorrow and will get out in my boat for at least a few minutes.

[WRB]

You all need to learn what high pressures are!

Weekends mean water contact sports like jet ski, wake baits with load boom boxes, water ski, recreational speed boating, along with club bass tournaments all going on simoatainisly on 1500-2000 acre lakes on weekends.

Weekdays during summer are little different except without the weekend bass tourneys. 

After Sept the weekend traffic is reduced a little, except now know one seems to work!

Tom

[fin]

6 hours ago, thomas15 said:

I just got a pair of chest waders and I'm going to start trout fishing in a local stream just to get away from the crowds. But I'm taking a vacation day tomorrow and will get out in my boat for at least a few minutes.

 

That's the idea. The sound of running water in a stream soothes the soul. It's just the opposite of all that other stuff.

[Woody B]

I can usually catch bass during times of high traffic but some days I believe it's just plain dangerous.   

[GRiver]

I think the fish do move or tuck themselves in some where, or just stop biting, when a lot of pressure is put on them.  I know an area where I’ve seen 5 or more boats circling around running trolling motors, have their sonar, fish finders etc….  Most of them are throwing spinner bait or rattle traps, few are pitching the pads, but they aren’t catching anything. I think they see the fish on their gear but with all the commotion they’re not biting.
I’ve went their in the middle of the week and caught fish, all small ones, but I’ll be the only boat in there. I believe too it takes a while to get the to calm down, like bartableman7 said Wednesday is better.

 I’ve read that some of the big bass hunters turn off their gear off when moving into an area where they think big bass are. 

[papajoe222]

“Do you think there is physical or mental change to how a bass acts toward lures during a weekend vs a weekday on any given pressured lake?  Do their bodies some how recognize there is more "boat noise" and turn off on weekends?”  
 

NO  and YES

A fish has a brain the size of a pea, without the ability to reason. They do, however, instinctively react to their environment. Their activity levels are a direct result of external influences (cold water, barometric pressure,  position of the sun and moon, to name a few.  
They can, however become conditioned to those same factors and others like constant noise, or a certain lure. 
Boat noise isn’t one of those.

You can fish a large marina on a busy week-end  and catch fish with the same consistency  as you would during mid-week. I caught my PB at the time, on a July 4th weekend mid-day, with jet skiers and pleasure boats constantly running by me. 
Fishing pressure and certain lures that they see regularly fall into a conditioning response. They don’t recognize a certain lure and avoid it. They avoid it because of the threat it represents.  I don’t normally attribute human reactions to animals, but as an infant, you don’t know not to touch fire until you’ve been  burnt or warned of the danger. 

  

[flyfisher]

I don't fish any lakes that are high pressure but I do fish rivers that have massive amounts of people tubing, canoeing and recreatinally kayaking every weekend and I have caught fish right after they pass a spot.  River fish are different though and not as soft as their lake counterparts

 

[A-Jay]

19 hours ago, Bartableman7 said:

Do you think there is physical or mental change to how a bass acts toward lures during a weekend vs a weekday on any given pressured lake?   

Not sure about the bass really.

And while they have every right, where and whenever I am in close proximity to a lot of this

while I'm fishing,  I am CERTAIN there is a physical & mental change in ME.

 

?

A-Jay

[MickD]

People ask me if I have gotten a jet ski or snowmobile yet.  I answer , no, I've shot at a few but never gotten one.

 

Just kidding.

 

I don't know how the bass react, but it seems logical that it might affect them.   Especially shallow.  I know I don't like the crowded weekends, preferring to being able to go where I want without as much competition for the spots.  Having said this, I have done pretty well in the marina channels at times, catching smallmouths as soon as a boat going through clears.  Under some conditions and places, I think they get used to it.  

[Zcoker]

I was of the same opinion as most with regards to these lakes getting blasted on the weekends by boaters and swimmers and so forth, killing the fishing. Not even worth it, I always thought. Total futility. And I pretty much never fished any of these places. That is, until I was shown otherwise lol. 

One weekend right in the middle of the busy day on a walkway surrounding the lake, and right near the ski lane jump, I was taking a little stroll with my wife, casting as I went along. She sat down on a nearby bench while I was casting out into the narrow ski lane near the jump. As I was retrieving the white spinner bait with not a thought in the world along with a total carefree and altogether bored attitude....KABOOM!!  A friggin 8 pounder! I was in total shock! I could not believe my eyes. I thought it a dream lol.

Every since then, I've changed my attitude. I focus hard. I stay sharp. I take things seriously. With that mindset on the same body of water, I've caught a lot of nice fish on the busy weekends. So I guess the moral of this little story is, at least in my mind, is to never ever underestimate any body of water, weekends or not!

[gim]

1 hour ago, A-Jay said:

 

 

Is that @J Francho?!  Might even be @Team9nine when he was a younger more athletic figure!

[J Francho]

Nah, I'm better looking: