Big Indiana Bass

Just another quick graph from the ShareLunker data. This one probably won't come as any surprise, but the best month to catch giant bass from Texas is March.

This is right about the heart of pre-spawn time when the largest majority of big bass are probably their most catchable for the average angler. Keep in mind that the program doesn't currently accept fish from May-August though that data would be interesting. I'm guessing you wouldn't see any big numbers then, but you never know. As for translating this to Indiana waters, I'm guessing this far north would probably coincide with about the 2nd week of April through the 1st week of May in the Central and Southern part of the state. I know I'll be focusing hard around that time frame trying to capitalize on the accessability of big bass.

You can also check out this article on the subject: March offers prime-time shot at largemouths

Is an I.G.F.A. certified scale for weighing these big bass. So I did a little research and ended up buying a scale last week, and it just arrived Friday. There are lots of choices when it comes to scales. Here is an article that goes into all the details about scales and how they work. A look through most fishing catalogs anymore has lots of scales to choose from, mostly digital type scales. Digitals are great for most applications, especially tourney situations where microchips can house and store lots of information about each fish caught, sort and cull automatically, and other neat features. But there are some inherent problems with digitals, or at least lots of little things that can go wrong with them. You can read this article and get an idea of some of these digital scale issues.

Working in an R&D facility that uses quite a few precision scales, I wanted to have something that I would feel very comfortable with as far as accuracy goes. As alluded to in an earlier post, one of my little qualms with this concept is how everybody seems to catch 5 pounders these days. I want to pretty much leave nothing to doubt when I weigh a fish during this project. Actually I'm like that about quite a few things. For instance, my watch is always set to NIST standards as is my computer clock. Don't ever try and argue with me about what time it is or how late I am (LOL). You either won't win or I at least won't believe you. Anyway, I went for the more "old-fashioned" spring scales for this very same reasoning. This type scale is easily certifiable by the I.G.F.A. for accuracy to within 1 increment. Here is a popular article about fishing scale certification from the www.worldrecordbass.com site written by Chuck Bauer.

One of the most popular type of spring scales currently on the market right now is the Boga Grip. They're pretty cool scales but they are expensive, and their smallest capacity was 15 pounds. Ideally you want a scale that has the smallest range necessary for what you are going to be weighing along with the smallest increments to match. This will ultimately make your scale more accurate. No sense in having a 35 or 50 pound capacity if all you are weighing is 5-10 pound bass...or less. Odds are you'll have some variation on the low end as far as accuracy is concerned. So after some searching I finally found what I was looking for, a Chatillon scale. Pretty sweet, huh? I purchased the 12 pound scale with 2 oz. increments. The metric scale on the left hand side is actually a slightly better tolerance at an equivalence of about 1.76 oz.

I purchased mine from Ben Meadows, a scientific supply store where I had ordered from before. They also had the best price on the Internet that I could find for this particular scale. You can also purchase them from Landbigfish.com.

So I now have my official weighing instrument which will guarantee the accuracy I desire for this project. Too bad it will probably be another couple months at least before I can officially break it in on my first 5+ pound bass (fingers crossed).       

Admit it. We've all read the articles about big bass and why you should use large baits to target them. It almost always ends up with the writer giving us an example concerning you in a La-Z-Boy, a big juicy steak or giant hamburger, and whether you'd get off the couch to eat it versus, say, a bowl of cereal or something. Do me a favor. The next time you are reading an article and the writer starts talking sirloins and largemouth bass, stop reading. You are about to be led down a slippery slope.

So the Texas data shows that more giant bass are being caught regularly on common-sized baits than super-sized full meal deals. Plastics like 4"-6" worms, lizards and centipedes, regular old 3/8-oz. jig and pigs and the like. What's the deal? How can that be when all these giant bass in California are falling for 10-12" trout baits? The articles all say go big or stay at home. Here's the scoop...I have two terms for you: Anthropomorphism and Optimal Foraging Theory.

Anthropomorphism is a fancy word that just means assigning human traits and feelings to objects or creatures that don't or can't possess such characteristics. Rich Zaleski, noted outdoor writer once penned an article (Fishing's Human Error) for Bass Fishing Magazine (Nov./Dec. 1991) on the subject in which he stated, "Whenever you encounter a phrase something along the lines of, 'To catch a bass, you've got to think like a bass,' send up the caution flags. In most cases, the speaker or writer is about to lead you down a path on which you'll be asked to, 'Put yourself in the bass' place.' Unfortunately, as soon as you do that, you start to make judgements on what a bass might do based on your own responses." He goes on to mention later in the article that, "Bass are not humans with scales...They're cold blooded creatures with a totally different metabolism, and their responses to whatever might trigger them are directed by survival instincts, not preferences."  A bass basically has just a few survival instincts that guide it's life: "Eat, don't get eaten, and avoid or minimize high stress situations."

Big Bass Aren't Lazy, They're Efficient

That leads us into our couch potato theory on bass and one of the biggest misconceptions that you'll frequently read. What the authors are really referring to in all this talk is what scientists call "Optimal Foraging Theory" or OFT. You can read a little more in-depth about it at this link OFT description. Unfortunately, most bass anglers and writers screw it all up. OFT does not mean 'eat the biggest thing you can find' and pass on the rest. Nor does it mean sit on your butt and wait for a big meal to swim into your mouth. It is balancing the energy output against the energy gained by consuming something.

Take a look at this diagram:

These quick charts diagram a few of the core principles with OFT.

1-In the first chart, as the prey size increases relative to a given predator size, capture success decreases.

2-In the second, as prey size increases relative to a given predator size, handling time increases.

3-Finally, as prey size increases relative to predator size, profitability increases up to a point. After reaching an ideal point it decreases with further increase in prey size.

This is what a bass has to deal with in the environment in which it lives. Bigger isn't always better, as much time can be wasted trying to chase down and eat a prey item that is larger than optimal. This is why a big bass angler in California can get away with throwing a 10" trout lure while a big bass angler in Texas can't do so as easily. It doesn't preclude being able to throw giant things, it just states that you might not be as successful. And even California bass have their limit. I've been hanging out over at Rob Belloni's great website Calfishing reading through the forum archives. Tons of great info in there and Rob has a great sense of "down to earth" approaches and keeping things simple. Back on point, even Rob has stated that he keeps and throws a 16" bait at times but has yet to get bit on it. So even California giants have their limits.

As you read more about Optimal Foraging Theory you'll find that things in the big bass world make a whole lot more sense. And the science and research will support it. Another component of OFT states that as forage density increases, diet specialization starts occurring. Bass can afford to be more picky when more food is readily available to them. So a big bass doesn't have to take chances on a big bait when lots of acceptable sized food is available to him. Why try and chase down one giant shiner when you can easily consume 3 mid-sized crawdads with less effort (just an example).

Habitat makes a big difference and OFT can be used to explain feeding preferences among bass. Here is a cool study that detailed this behavior with smallmouth bass SMB Crayfish Foraging. In this study, when crayfish were located on sand bottoms smallmouth bass ate all the smallest craws first. The larger the crawdad, the longer it took for the bass to eventually eat it because it would exhaust the population of smaller sized craws that were the easiest to consume (less handling time) first. However, on gravel/cobble bottoms, small crayfish were avoided and mid-sized crays were preferentially chosen because it took too long to try and root out and consume smaller craws that could hide and escape predation more easily in the spaces between the rocks. Larger craws couldn't hide as well and subsequently, smallmouth bass would target and eat them first.    

OFT also covers "Patch Use." As I stated, a bass isn't lazy but it is efficient. OFT details and explains why some fish are home bodies and some have to roam more. A big bass wants to use as little energy as possible consuming prey. John Hope detailed in his book/studies Tracking Trophies how giant Texas bass would have a very predefined and definite hunting ground where it regularly searched for food. Big bass usually wouldn't cross over into other bass' territory. As long as all it's food and energy requirements can be met, there is no need for a bass to leave an area. Some times this can be a very small area. Other times a fish either eventually has to abandon it's home range area or increase it's search area for food to meet its dietary requirements.

Again, this was also documented well with smallmouth bass, too. The April 1997 issue of In-Fisherman has an article entitled "Homing On Big Smallmouth." It details the tracking research of Dr. Mark Ridgway and Barry Corbett, basically coming to the similar conclusion that smallmouth will stay in an area and hardly move if there is plenty of forage available to them. In less fertile areas, smallmouth have to find several different feeding areas and "make the rounds" as necessary in order to obtain enough suitable forage.

One final link you can check out is a great PowerPoint presentation on OFT. You'll have to "read between the lines" a bit, but after reading my post and its associated links, you should be able to get a good feel for what is being presented. You can find it here Predator & Prey.

So the next time you read an article about bass and their feeding habits, keep all this information in the back of your mind. And if the author starts talking about Big Macs, sirloin steaks and thinking like a big ole' lazy bass, you better run fast!

I had a tough time deciding on the title for this post. You can see what won out though. My other title which I didn't go with was, "Big Fish, Big Baits...Big Myth". But that isn't quite true, though truer than you might think. But more on that in another post. For now, lets keep looking at the data from the over 400 ShareLunkers that have been weighed in over the past 20 years.

I want to take a look at the baits used to catch these brutes and see what we can learn. There are a couple ways that we can do this. Let's first look at the broad categories and where things fell out.

So here you have it. Far and away more lunkers have been caught on soft plastics than any other baits. Next closest is jigs followed by spinnerbaits, livebait and crankbaits, then a host of miscellaneous baits. Once again going back to the point BigBass101 was making, is this reflective of what the population of bass anglers in general is throwing? Does bait type make a difference or is what's caught directly proportional to the cumulative amount of time that a particular lure is thrown? That is where the data falls a little short in helping to fill in all these clues.

I did come across a study from Texas that documented that approximately 1/3 of all anglers that say they fish for bass use live bait. Yet live bait isn't that highly represented in big bass catches. Another interesting mention in the study was that no more than 10% of the licensed anglers had ever fished a tournament. That means tournament anglers, and subsequently popular "current" tactics that they use are definitely in the minority. That helps to understand why soft plastics is probably number one, the jig being more of a tournament type bait and a little harder to learn than a plastic worm. Yet spinnerbaits seem to be one of those baits that bass anglers in general all seem to throw, at least on the waters that I frequent.

While we're pondering that series of questions, let's take a closer look at the breakdown of "soft plastic" catches:

So this is kind of interesting in the fact that plastic lizards as opposed to just plastic worms comes out on top when it comes to lunker catches. In third place is a craw worm followed by fluke/sluggo type baits. From there you have a miscellaneous group of plastics accounting for several fish each. Again the question, is this representative? It would seem like a plastic lizard and a craw worm would be more representative of a tourney type angler as opposed to just a regular plastic worm which is probably thrown equally or maybe even more so by just recreational bass anglers. 

So we're left with quite a few questions. If live bait is such a "give me" when it comes to catching big bass, how come 90% of all the lunker catches weren't caught on live bait? Is it a coincidence that the top 4 baits for catching lunker bass, accounting for over 85% of all the ShareLunkers are all "silent" or "quiet" baits? Or were people adding rattles to their jigs and plastics and that just didn't get documented? And to come full circle back to this post's title, if giant wood baits, swim baits and trout look alikes are truly the way to catching monster bass as so many articles and websites seem to suggest, why did they only combine for 3 ShareLunkers out of 424 entries?

Just my opinion and a final thought for this post...There is California, there is Florida, and then there are the rest of us. Think about it ;)

Here is a quick one for you. What is the most popular day to fish? What about the second most popular? The third? Chances are you probably guessed this one right, being Saturday is the most popular followed by Sunday and then Friday. So does it come as any surprise that the ShareLunker catches track that same pattern? Here is the graph:

One of the common things that you read in many big bass articles is that fishing when others aren't (usually during the week) is a good strategy. But while it may be a more peaceful proposition, the data shows that more big bass catches come on the weekend than any other time period. This goes back to a comment that BigBass101 made referencing the proportionality of effort to bait choice. In this case, the more anglers fishing, the more big bass caught.

Unfortunately we don't have specific statistics in order to weight the effort relative to the number of catches, but it does lend credence to the theory that the best time to fish for a big bass is whenever you can. The more time you spend on the water, the more likely you are to catch a big bass.

So you want to start a good argument with a bass angler, bring up the subject of moon phases the next time in conversation. Seems everyone has an opinion (including me). For a good basic overview of the lunar cycle and moon phases check out this Wikipedia Lunar link. Basically you have a situation where the moon revolves around the Earth, completing this lunar cycle in approximately 29.5 days. One of the things that the Sharelunker database tracked is moon phase of the fish caught. Again we are referencing over 400 big bass caught over a period of 20 years. Here is the chart for their documented catches.

They have categorized the catches as occurring on either the new, full, 1st quarter or last quarter, plus 4 days either side of those primary markers. I simply added up the total catches for a given moon phase then added error bars. You can see a slight increase around the full moon but it is probably not significant statistically.

Another apparent problem with their tracking system is that as mentioned, they document 4 days either side of the primary phase. So for instance, you could have an N+4 or N-4 phase (4 days after/before new moon). This leads to 9 days per lunar phase times 4 phases. That makes for a total of 36 days recorded when the lunar phase is only 29.5 days long, so there must be some overlap or miscalculating somewhere.

So I went back and recalculated the exact moon day (0-29) using a lunar calculator for all 424 big bass entries. I then graphed this out a couple different ways. One way was how anglers tend to base their expectations around the moon. Ask most people and they will tell you the 2 days before or after (including) the new and full moons are the best times. This makes for a 5 day window of potentially good fishing. Taking that theory one step further then, I ran a 5-day moving average over the entire lunar cycle. Theoretically the 5 day average should peak at the new and full moon period and be better than any other 5 day average for the month. Here is what you get when you do that (click to enlarge):

What you end up with is a slight up and down movement over the course of the month with small peaks near the new, full and last quarter periods, all very similar and none really standing out as being any better than the other. Even when you compare the highest peaks to the lowest troughs you only have an average 6 fish difference. This for a 20 year period meaning you end up with one extra fish on those 3 particular moon phases every 3 years. Hardly significant in my book.

Now they have also started a separate program over at Lake Fork with smaller (but still big) bass. The threshold there is 7 pounds and above as opposed to the 13 pound minimum for the ShareLunker program. Ralph Manns, noted bass reasearcher and author wrote a small In-Fisherman article on the findings as presented by Texas F&W personnel for the years 2003 and 2004. You can find it here In-Fisherman Article. They claim to show an increase in catches linked to moon phase in this particular scenario, but I honestly don't see it. Look more specifically not at the couple big peaks but instead the numbers directly under the moon phases from year to year. The full moon looks good in 2003 but not so hot in 2004. Vice versa for the new moon which looks insignificant in 2003 and then pretty darn good in 2004. Also what about the big spikes in-between phases and inconsistent from year to year?

I would argue instead what you are seeing is a very predictable movement of fish between days 17-20 from year to year tied to a combination of water temp and photo period. I'm guessing that if you continued to graph this over the next few years you'd see that same basic short spike around that 3rd week period in March regardless of the moon phase associated with those days.

So make what you will of the moon phases. As they say, a huge part of fishing is confidence. As for myself and my quest, I'll track my catches against lunar phases just to see what happens up here, but I won't be losing any sleep over being out chasing big bass on any particular moon phase day. I just don't see the data to support it.   

Without a doubt, one of the coolest shows on television is MythBusters. If you haven't seen it, the two hosts tackle the challenge of trying to prove or disprove many of the urban legends we've all heard of. Things like pyramid power, tomato juice on skunk spray, gas mileage of vehicles and so many other things. They love to blow things up! But if I could have control of programming for just a show or two, I'd direct their attention and  efforts toward bass fishing.

Lets face it, there are a lot of beliefs about all kinds of things pertaining to the sport of bass fishing. Red hooks, invisible fluorocarbon, big baits, match the hatch, eye sight, moon phases, etc., etc. Many of these apply directly to our challenge of catching big bass. However, when reviewing most of the studies being done on largemouth and smallmouth bass by all the universities and state fish and game departments, in most cases an adult bass in their study is something in the 10-15" range. Biologically speaking, most bass are considered adults (fully capable of reproducing, i.e. mature) by that size in life. What we don't see often are studies being undertaken on big bass, fish in the 5-10-15 pound range. There are a host of reasons for this, but our lack of scientific knowledge concerning these larger individuals is exactly what leads to all the theories and beliefs (myths?) we have read in magazines and books or online, and are all familiar with.

Fortunately, a few good sources of information can be studied that will help shed some light on how we might go about our approach as we target bigger bass. One such source is the database that has been maintained by the Texas ShareLunker program. Over the next couple weeks we'll take some time to tear apart and break down the data to see what we might be able to learn from over 400 truly big bass that have been caught in waters covering the entire state of Texas. I promise you the results will be intetersting!