FLW

[kjackson]

On 4/26/2017 at 11:09 AM, J-Doc said:

Never fails. When they come, unseasonal conditions occur.  This one seems to be extremely this year.  

 

From what I saw Monday afternoon, everyone is bank beating.  Which was unwise.  Too much is changing from debris, water level, etc.  Food sources will move and change conditions.  

 

My assumption:

Ledges and deeper structure is less affected by rising water.  Fishing open off shore structure would be less effected.   It will take a pro who is great at fishing structure like Mark Rose to catch them consistently on that pattern.  You can bet he will be fishing on Sunday if he's in the tournament. 

Interesting that Cody Meyer lead Day One with 16 something he caught keeper smallies deep and finished with largemouth shallow.  His California experience may help him now.

[Notropis]

7 hours ago, TrophyFishR said:

Lets say the fish have been spawning at 1110ft & the lake rises to 1130ft, will those fish stay on the beds & be fixed at that depth? 

I see the water temps crashed to 54 from 72 last week. Thats gotta prolong the spawning phase. 

I think the answer to that depends on how clear the water is.  I remember reading a study done by a professor in Missouri who found a correlation between water visibility and depth of spawning nest.  It indicated that the species he was studying (crappie) were cueing in on sunlight penetration to determine how deep they would spawn. In extreme muddy water the fish would spawn in just a few feet of water, in clear water the depth would be much deeper. My guess is that the fish instinctively choose a depth that will favor the right water temperature for hatching success after the eggs are deposited.  As I've mentioned before, the fish are adaptable to changing water conditions and will abandon poor spawning depths for shallower or deeper levels to spawn in depending on conditions.

I agree with you regarding the drop in water temperatures delaying the spawn until conditions are more favorable, I've seen spotted bass on the nest in late May and even early June during unusually cold Springs.

[J-Doc]

21 minutes ago, kjackson said:

Interesting that Cody Meyer lead Day One with 16 something he caught keeper smallies deep and finished with largemouth shallow.  His California experience may help him now.

Yeah but Cox seemed to have done well shallow.  I'm surprised the weather was so nice yesterday. That has to have helped a ton. 

[Champ188]

2 hours ago, kjackson said:

Interesting that Cody Meyer lead Day One with 16 something he caught keeper smallies deep and finished with largemouth shallow.  His California experience may help him now.

For the most part, the brown and spotted fish will remain deeper in flood conditions ... often along the original shoreline. The green ones, meanwhile, will flock to the newly flooded shallows. The key to catching them is to find areas where you can get all the way to the bank. You won't catch many sitting out and casting to the new treeline or bushes.

[bferg]

2 hours ago, kjackson said:

Interesting that Cody Meyer lead Day One with 16 something he caught keeper smallies deep and finished with largemouth shallow.  His California experience may help him now.

I read an interview with him where he said he caught a bunch of post spawn smallies in one spot that were long but skinny then basically lucked into a couple of decent largemouth fishing his  way back to weigh in.  He seemed to have zero confidence that he actually had a pattern or ability to back it up today.  Said he had one small mouth spot he caught all the fish from.  Unless of course he was sandbagging but does that sound like something a professional fisherman would do?

[bferg]

FLW posted this picture this AM.  Most days I would trade places with a pro angler in a heartbeat... but this office is looking pretty good today.

[Guest]

Notropis, thats good stuff.

What Im hearing, is that deep clear water fish stay down deep & dont move up to spawn when it floods. The river fish would have to abandon those beds because 15ft of muddy water over the bed would hurt the spawn, so they make new beds up shallow. Im going to assume the river arms will stay muddy for quite some time. Those river fish arent going to leave the river to go seek out the mudline, but they simply move up shallow into the newly flooded brush. This can only help the spawning river fish. They will have plenty of cover & very little fishing pressure since most folks avoid muddy water fishing in clear water lakes. 

 

[Old plug]

TrophyFishR  I have a notion that some of the pros will fish shallow in buck brush with jigs. You can about be assured if you see the Hibdon's down there they will be pitching and skipping jigs into  the buck brush at least part of the time. Sometimes that situation creats a big feeding spree. Bait fish will go in there for all the bugs and worms etc the situation creates and the bass follow.

[Stump bumper]

That is one good example to set, fish through the thunderstorm. These "professional" fishing tournaments did so much good during the 80s and 90s to further catch and release and good sportsmanship but now I feel like they have gone the way of the WWF and it all about money now. I guess if they get someone killed it will just increase viewership.  

[Blll]

Hats off to the FLW fishermen who caught thousands of bass in really tough conditions. Too bad most of the non-fishing events washed out. I went to test ride the Evinrude G2 on Saturday but they didn't show up. I was disappointed that while watching the live feeds (its raining what else could I do?) that several of the "pros" tossed their used plastic in the lake. Wanted to reach in the screen & shake em'. People emulate them and it was a bad example.  Our dock partly broke loose. Electrical out, walkway in 20 fow. Grrr...Better days ahead.