Changing Water Conditions

One winter pattern was to find fish hold off of a deep bank on the deeper side of a lake. It worked consistantly for a few fish on successive outings. In the prespawn, and part of the spawn I found fish consistantly holding in moderately deep pencil tulies near shallower water, and even spawning in the tulies. This also worked for several outings.

We are definitely post spawn. In fact we had such a a good day a week and a half ago when out fun fishing that I figured we were into our summer bite. The water was very high, and we caught fish up in the deep cover on the banks.

The last two days we sucked. Hammer and I only caught four fish for the day, and they were all 13 1/2 inchers. One was a nice smallie off of a rock pile that I setup a couple weeks ago, it was the only fish there though.

I went out again yesterday for some fun fishing with John Apple. We didn't eveng get bit that I am sure of. The only thing I can pinpoint as a problem is the water level. The last couple days it has been going up and down through out the day. That is a pretty normal condition for this area at any time of year. The water level is affected by irrigation demands at any time of day and year. All of the farms in this region have a year around growing season so water demands can change drastically through out the day. Water releases are changed hourly at Parker Dam to meet down stream demands. I believe there are two diversion dams between Parker Dam and the water held back by Imperial Dam that will also affect our water levels if water is drawn off for irrigation. Even the water demands downstream can make it difficult to figure the water flow and level changes. High demands with low release from above can cause the water to drop quickly, and matching upstream releases can cause it to drop slowly, but with a very fast current.

Obviously there can be patterns or fish locations calculated during all these changing conditions because there are a couple teams that consistantly weigh in good bags and a few more teams that aways catch limits. They are also very closed mouthed about anything. To a certain extant I think they may simply have superior catching skills as I have fished behind a couple of them using identical and also different techniques depending on my mood and watched them bag fish while I am not, but I can't believe its all a matter of individual skills at catching.

Any ideas?

Warren ;-)

-- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com

I think you might want to try fishing in front of them : -)

Seriously, I had a day out with Harry where we both sat on a bank on the susquehana river and used the same exact crankbaits, I nailed smallie after smallie while he couldn't get one to bite for his life. IT could be something so slight that you might not even notice, a slight jerk on the retrieve, a pause, a different retrieve speed. All could be contributing factors to why somebody would catch fish while someone else would not.

I believe it was Steve Huber that caught big fish in the SC by popping a secret weapon spinner bait when it hung some grass on it. Would he have caught that fish without the pop? Maybe, Maybe not. Someone else posted in here about retrieving senkos fast and killing fish on that fast retrieve instead of the usual do nothing approach. But analyzing what might work as opposed to what might not work can cause you to over fish, especially when you see other people catching fish. So relax, have fun and experiment, keeping a log is real helpful also. Conditions, and lures that caught the fish under those conditions, are extremely beneficial to any angler looking to become more consistent. I was reading a field and stream bass fishing book and the managing editor summed it up great, " Bass fishing is a lifelong adventure in learning. The smart angler never stops his quest for knowledge". So while you continue to seek answers(which is great), continue to have fun, I catch way more fish fun fishing then I ever do in a tourney. Either that or come to the NWC, you can see others not catching fish as well, then again after Florida that's suppose to change this year..... psst bring minnows

Randy-