Brilliant Blue

[Paul Roberts]

I have a love hate relationship with brilliant blue skies mostly hate because blue skies can make for tough fishing. Some fishing theorists believe that barometric pressure, virtually by itself, controls bass behavior. But I think there's a lot more to it than that. There are known cases where BP affects activity level in some other species, mostly saltwater, so, the case is far from closed in my mind. BP may allow fish to predict better hunting opportunities, but I just haven't seen anything related to BP in my fishing that couldn't be explained by a good layer of clouds.

The problem with brilliant blue appears to me to be two-fold: First, bass are known to have a sight advantage over bluegills in attenuated light, and will press that advantage. The morning/evening activity pattern is something universally recognized in fishing, and fish behavior research. High visibility conditions compromise that advantage. Secondly, under bright lighting it's harder to hide the fact that lures are fakes.

One theory states that after a good dark front passes, the rapid change in lighting intensity that follows makes fish inactive. Some blame the lighting, others claim full bellies; likely it's some of both. On the day after a good dark front it CAN appear that the fish are asleep and I believe many are. After a day or so of this, the bass appear to acclimate to the lighting some, or get hungry, and hunting activity resumes. This is the theory anyway -especially likely to be more true in shallow water.

I do see bass hunting under bright lighting brilliant blue -so they can, and will. I will say that I do not see the breaks and rushes of bass surging into prey fishes nearly as often as I do under lower lighting. But bass can hunt a number of ways, and the tactics they seem to resort to under bright light are ambush (or something akin) and habituation.

Habituation is slow non-aggressive cruising, looking for an opportunity to get close to an unsuspecting preyfish (who can see the bass coming pretty well under bright light I've watched this play out enough to know it's real), or one caught in a bad position. Mature bass seem to know, or have learned, when to strike. Lab studies have shown bass have a high prey capture rate and the decision of when to strike is what most greatly affects the outcome.

Ambush is not something I can watch in the wild. And it's not really true ambush from a fish behaviorists view. It appears that "ambushing" in bass is done by resting fish or those hunting by habituation, inside of cover. These are the fish that flippin' targets so well. And brilliant blue is one sky condition when a flippin' stick can be save your butt.

It seems to me that fishing under brilliant blue has three big strikes against it: Bass that are hunting in an energy conservative manner, our especially fake looking lures, anddid I mention spooky? Give me dark clouds and I'm often happy to let a lure splashdown near my fish, sometimes it even draws em to the splashdown the main reason behind the advice to let a topwater rest before starting the retrieve. But under bright sun, splashdown, the line landing, even the lure zipping through the air over shallow fish, turns em inside out. It's no wonder at times the only fish we can catch are in shade, under cover, or under a wind rippled surface. It's also no wonder that light line and downsized lures are so often advised. The other option is going deep where these limitations are somewhat relaxed. I do wonder just how spooky deeper fish are. Shallow fish, the ones I can see, are skittish under brilliant blue, and in clear water paranoid.

So, given the choice, and wanting to catch a bunch of fish, I'll choose a good dark oncoming front. But, there's the curious skeptical side of me too, that has me choosing to fish such days on occasion to play around with the above mentioned ideas on just what's really going on down there. Yesterday's fishing trip was, however, not one of those days. I've had so little fishing time this summer that I've had to take what comes, and yesterday brought me brilliant blue. So, I reluctantly crammed on my curious-skeptics hat, a thick coating of sunscreen, and hit the water.

The pond I chose to fish has no appreciable weeds, and precious little wood; generally, no place to hide. It's a fishery with a food chain based on plankton, followed by yellow perch and largemouth bass. The bluegill population is very small here lol.

Weather Trend:

Second day of brilliant blue amidst a mostly dry week with some afternoon puffballs all the T-storms gods could muster this past week. The day of, and the day prior, were absolutely cloudless.

As you can see BP was high (Friday), and doing its afternoon oscillations eroding either from atmospheric moisture (cumulus) development (the T-storm gods at work).

Despite a cooler than normal summer, and some record low nights, water temps have held up with surface temps peaking at 77F, and 71F at 12 feet. Nights are still too short to counter the day, but that is now changing rapidly.

Fishing:

I started my fishing day at noon ( > ) and spent some time walking the shoreline looking for fish 8-). The hordes of fingerling bass were still there but fewer and a bit bigger many had barrel bellies on em ;D. I spied a tightly allied pack of yearlings (~6inches) that took great interest in a northern water snake, following and nipping at its tail as it plied the rip-rap along the bank. I saw several two or three year olds (~9-10) loosely grouped and physically quite active. I also spotted one mature fish of ~15. This mature bass appeared to be alternately sunning (holding very shallow and near the surface), and hunting by habituation very slowly cruising and facing into shoreline cover spots. Sneaky devil, I thought.

Decided this would be a day to peruse deep structure, and continue mapping this pond. I focused my time perusing off one of the deeper shorelines (all of 12.5 feet), mostly dragging a C-rig, crawling a football jig, and running a deep crankbait.

Area 1:

There are two drop-offs here: 8 to 10, and 10 to 12.5. These don't seem like much, but that's what there is in this coverless dishpan. What is important about breaklines like this is that silt is unable to build on sharp drops leaving good substrate (large cobbles) exposed. Such nooks and crannies provide the space for crayfish and small fish to hide. There are good numbers of crayfish in this pond, and this is where they live.

At one place the deeper drop has some larger boulders, including one discrete pile of them. I've caught fish off these, but today I blanked there and again on a re-visit. Lost a C-rig trying to crash the big boulders too. Drop-shot would have been a better alternative with such discrete breaks, but I was rigged to travel and map today.

Screen shot of drop with boulders. The weak (blue) returns across the top are from the turbulence caused by my swim fins I'm in a float tube. No, my legs are not that long (5ft deep!), they are at the outside edge of the cone, and 5 ft from the transducer.

Screen shot of same break but at edge of cone (weaker returns and maybe a small bit of brush), with dudes present likely bass.

Area 2:

A lone brushpile in 12fow off the big bar (Area 4 below). Because of it's proximity to the big bar it holds fish, and I could see them on sonar. They were unwilling to respond to a crankbait and a grub. So I lined up on the brush and banged it good with a deep crank, nearly got it hung, popped it free BAM! caught a bass. Sometimes contact is what it takes. Followed up quickly with a football head-n-*** Scrub but no one responded.

Contact bass.

Area 3:

A lone hump that would be called a point except that it is not connected to the shoreline, being interrupted about 30 feet from the shore. It is tapered though, and runs from 3 to 6 feet deep on top dropping to 7 or 8 at the sides and 10 at the end. There is also a drop-off at one side from 7ft to 11ft running perpendicular to the hump (paralleling the shoreline). The hump and drop always give up both bass and yellow perch. The bass can be all around the hump, and sometimes on top although smaller ones are often on top, I believe because they are more shoreline related and not depth related. The perch are near bottom off the sides. There are scattered larger boulders here and there on top and at one side and along the drop-off.

Today this hump gave up 5 small bass (10-12) and three 8-9inch perch, on a 1/8oz Slider head with swimming worm, and a small shad style crank.

Area 4:

This is a large wide cobble bar, 2 to 5 feet on top dropping precipitously to 7 to 10 feet all around deepest at the end. It is rimmed with a narrow band of dense threadleaf pondweed (Potemogeton).

This is the obvious location on this pond and I tend to save it until I've done my exploring, because I could eat up my day here. I saved it til nearly dusk, and found the kicker for the day a 19+ (3-12) that took the Slider/swimming worm gently about 6ft down, over 8ft, and wouldn't let me see her for several minutes!

Look at that sky. Almost enough to make you want to stay home and mow the lawn.

[Hammer 4]

Nice post Paul..

I'm one of those that will fish regardless of what the conditions are, lighting not withstanding..I fished yesterday, was cloudy, a 8 mph wind, slightly humid, the BP was 29.89 and falling, supposedly a falling bp causes a fishes blader to expand, causing the fish discomfort, anyway, I got skunked, where I normally catch fish. So, does the bp come into play, or did the bass feed earlier, or later that day..?

[endless]

man i love that intertube i would never though to put a depth finder on one.. nice pics and great post.

[Hammer 4]

Bunch of guys here in so.cali have those, complete with sonars, rod holders..pretty much the works..The neat thing is, they can go where boats can't..Sorry for the OT Paul..

[Koop]

Great fish and great post!

I must say I love reading your reports, always very informative.

[Paul Roberts]

Nice post Paul..

I'm one of those that will fish regardless of what the conditions are, lighting not withstanding..I fished yesterday, was cloudy, a 8 mph wind, slightly humid, the BP was 29.89 and falling, supposedly a falling bp causes a fishes blader to expand, causing the fish discomfort, anyway, I got skunked, where I normally catch fish. So, does the bp come into play, or did the bass feed earlier, or later that day..?

Yeah, that's the tough thing about deciphering fish behavior with a fishing rod -was it them, or me, or something else unseen.

Seems fishing theories run the gamut from "determinism" to "pre-destiny" -often on the same fishing trip lol. We all like to have something to latch onto, and in my view, some things are more important, and useful, than others. But I'm careful about latching on too tightly to pet theories. I like to play around with the ideas out there -and get a ballpark bead on their limits. Some things hold up pretty well -like "low light".

BTW: Bladder expansion/retraction does occur and apparently is a real limitation for fish like bass, but most barometric pressure changes are minimal enough in effect that a fish only needs to move up or down in the water column a bit to hit equilibrium again. And from lots of observations by anglers, researchers and divers, active bass move up and down more in a given day than most BP changes bring (a few feet). I think you can safely put that notion to rest.

Here's one (rather dense) article that offers some calculations on this subject:

http://www../bassfish/articles/T199.htm

As to whether they feed when we're fishing, or later: I don't tend to put too much stock in bass "putting on the feedbag". Yes, this does happen, like low light periods, or if prey is somehow made available and catchable (I've seen instances of this, and even created it). But, on a good low light day like you describe, my guess would be you just missed 'em somehow. Nice to have other good anglers on the water around you running different scenarios to let you know what you might be missing. If there is one set of conditions that will most likely make it tough for everyone, that is brilliant blue following a good dark front. (Except during colder water periods) -that can be a different scenario altogether).

[Hammer 4]

Paul, I agree, I take certain things into account, but don't depend on them as an absolut. In the high pressure city park ponds I fish, I think the bass are conditioned to seeing every lure known to mankind, yet on certain days the fishing can be wide open, others you'd be lucky to get 3 decent bass in a 6 hr session.

What I'm thinking about, and correct me if I'm way off base here, is to put more thought into what the baitfish are doing, have done ect. i.e when I see shad slightly boiling, I normaly get fish, no shad boils, it's a hard day. The only thing is...how does a person track baitfish..?

[Paul Roberts]

Paul, I agree, I take certain things into account, but don't depend on them as an absolut. In the high pressure city park ponds I fish, I think the bass are conditioned to seeing every lure known to mankind, yet on certain days the fishing can be wide open, others you'd be lucky to get 3 decent bass in a 6 hr session.

What I'm thinking about, and correct me if I'm way off base here, is to put more thought into what the baitfish are doing, have done ect. i.e when I see shad slightly boiling, I normaly get fish, no shad boils, it's a hard day. The only thing is...how does a person track baitfish..?

You know, I don't know shad very well. I find in my ponds that tracking bass and the larger bluegills is almost one and the same game. Although a fish species has it's physiological limitations and general behaviors (like leaving the shorelines in summer and winter -big 'gills do this too), how things play out in each water body can be different: structural layout, productivity, food sources, competition, ... . Things change year to year too, sometimes drastically, which'll make you have to adjust.

In any water, I'd be thinking similarly: I want to know the prey species, the population age (size) and strength (numbers), and I'd want to know their seasonal and daily habits. With shad, is there a low light response to plankton migration? What depths, where do they meet bass habitat?

Your "boiling shad" I wonder if you are seeing spawning shad, or shad sucking air for buoyancy, a good sign that they are possibly meeting a plankton movement, or taking advantage of fry availability.

Again, I don't know shad really well. This stuff can be very local in time and place. It does help to know what questions to ask. You could start a thread asking about shad behavior on member's home waters, separating threadfins from gizzards (they can be diff animals).

All this make chasing preyfish as interesting as chasing bass -often it's virtually one and the same thing.

[Paul Roberts]

Updated my last post. ^ ^ ^