Big Indiana Bass

Hey, we all need goals in life. I may or may not reach that particular one this year, though the good fall bite is just around the corner. I've also learned quite a bit this year that I'll be able to apply next year. But this story just came across the news wires in the past day and caught my eye. A much better write-up with lots of pictures can be found at this CBS 21 link.

Who knew they kept records for such feats? I'm guessing there are lots of anglers that catch 1,000 bass a year and just never track that info. or knew a record existed. Probably a good majority of the higher level tourney anglers easily reach that level every year. Heck, I'm already over 800 for the year myself and now have a new goal to accomplish before years end. At this pace I think I'll break 1,000 this year. I'm sure I've done it before and just never realized it because I didn't track such things. It really has to be an intentional thing. In the second story link I got a kick out of the picture with the counter that I wrote about earlier this year. Not too keen on his measuring technique though. I also found the comment about the 8 - 100+ fish days he's had over 25 years an interesting stat. I had a 104 fish day in September 2005 that is my personal one-day bass record. None of which is neither here nor there, but just thought it was a neat story to pass along.   

Trips: 72  Hours: 187.0   Bass: 803  No. > 5#: 1

Made it out for a decent day on the water this past Saturday. Another bump of rain had me headed back to the rivers chasing bass. Got to share some water time with a river rat and compare notes. This turned out to be an interesting proposition as several things came to light.

1) Big Baits = Big Fish? Of course, "big" is a relative term, but we certainly found one of the many instances where the exceptions came to the front. Take a look at the picture to the left to see a bass less than 4" long that smacked my 4.5" Spook. We got a good laugh and took the picture the first time it happened. But this occurred not once, not twice, but 3 times on Saturday. And those are just the ones I actually caught. Needless to say that I took a little ribbing over my prowess for catching such juveniles from my angling partner, but did make up for it late in the day with the largest smallmouth of trip on the same bait. So the lesson here is that big baits are certainly no guarantee of big fish, at least not when tied onto the end of my line.

2) Trailerless jigs: The psychology of bass fishing is a pretty interesting trip. My buddy was pitching a jig around some current seams and made the comment that his bait had too much drag. He needed a faster fall. So he grabbed the jig and completely dispatched with the trailer, much to my horror and amazement. You just don't fish a rubber-legged bass jig without a trailer! There is something inherently wrong with that picture...to which my friend laughed. He asked me how frequently I fished a spinnerbait without a trailer, to which I responded "most of the time". So he asked, "What's the difference?" Of course, I didn't have a good answer for that one. So to prove a point, he said he'd fish his jig "sans trailer" the rest of the day until he caught a bass on it. I was feeling sorry for him knowing that he could be out there fishless for a good part of the day (LOL). It actually turned out to be all of about 15 minutes before he stuck a 3 pound largemouth, the biggest greenie of the trip on it. Point made!

Still I struggled mentally with this concept. Everytime a bass would grab and rip a claw off my Paca chunk trailer, leaving me with only one claw, I'd feel compelled to replace with a new trailer. At times I'd struggle through it though, continuing to toss my battle scarred freak of nature. And I did catch a few bass with my 1/2 trailered jig (see pic right), but it was "uncomfortable" fishing it that way, and certainly when the second claw would be ripped off by an aggressive fish, the now clawless trailer would get replaced immediately. Still, it was an interesting look into one of the many psychological "hangups" we deal with as anglers. How many techniques or tactics do you use that are done that way "just because" that's the way everybody does it?   

Finally! For most of the day we've been getting some much needed rainfall. Typically by this time of year we average about 32-36" of precipitation. So far for 2007 we're sitting at 26". In fact, in my area, we've only had 2" total in each of the past 2 months. It started early yesterday evening out by me, albeit briefly. A 15 minute downpour. So what did I do? I ran out and got a couple water samples.

Have you ever wondered what the temperature of rain is? How about the pH? Do bass even know that it's raining out? So these are some more of the questions that run through my mind. As it turns out, the temperature of rainfall generally is about the same as the local dewpoint, which is not necessarily the same as the outside temperature at the time. Keeping this in mind can sometimes lead to good catches as you compare incoming rain water temps to current lake water temps. This is especially so in the spring. Of course you also have to take into consideration the temperature after running over ground and off roofs and pavement, etc.

How about pH? Most people would probably guess 7 since that is the pH of water. But it turns out that the generally accepted standard for rain in the U.S. is 5.6. This is because rain reacts with carbon dioxide in the air and actually forms a weak carbonic acid mixture. For a short paper on this read "The pH of Rainfall in the Southern Plains". And for a good visual of pH scale including effects on fish, check out this graphic from the USGS.

So if the normal pH of rain is 5.6, how come Indiana lakes tend to have surface pH values in the 8.0-8.7 range? There are a lot of different factors that come into play, most of which I won't go into. One interesting one though is because of our geologic history. Indiana is blessed with a huge amount of limestone deposits. All the little circles and stars in that picture link are either existing or abandoned limestone quarries. If you remember your high school chemistry, limestone's principle composition is CaCO3 or calcium carbonate. So what you say? Check out this link to the TUMS website. Yep, the active ingredient in TUMS is CaCO3. Turns out Indiana is largely composed of one giant slab of antacid which easily buffers any mildly acidic water. You won't find many problems with acid rain in our state.

And finally, this last cool question...Do fish even know it's raining? I could easily hear it pouring out last night as the rain pounded my roof and everything else outside. But what about the sound rain makes hitting water? Check out this cool NASA explanation entitled "Listening to Rain". It turns out that different size rain drops create different sound frequencies. Some are very high pitched and some are lower. But according to the research, that sound range starts around 1kHz and goes up from there. Turns out that the 1kHz range is probably above where a bass loses its ability to hear high pitched sounds. In fact, their hearing is best around 100 Hz with a max around 600 Hz, much lower than the sound of rain shown in the article. And their lateral line is only geared toward even lower pitched sounds, down in the sub-20 to 80 Hz range. So there is a good chance that bass don't actually "hear" the rain hitting the water, or at least certainly not to the degree that we'd be aware of, as human hearing has a broad range from around 20 Hz up to 20,000 Hz.

So the next time you're stuck fishing out in the rain, you might think of some of these interesting little quirks of nature. It will at least pass the time between slow coming bites.

Match the Hatch? Bah Humbug!

Most everything in nature is colored to either stand out as a warning or blend in as camouflage. As such, I've never been a huge fan of those exact photo-finish baits, though I try a few on occasion. I even still have an aversion to all those sparkly glitter cranks that became so popular for a while. I believe contrast, size, form and motion tend to be the more critical parameters when it comes to choosing lures for bass. For some of the science behind this see the following articles:

• How Much Does A Bass See?
• -->Visual Lure Factors That Attract Bass -->
• How Bass See Motion

That said, I'm always on the lookout for regurgitated items in my livewell, or dead fish floating in the water. This past week I was out on a local reservoir when I came across a floating (but dead) shad. He looked like he was a fresh kill, probably from one of the many white bass schooling attacks that would occur throughout the day. So I scooped him up and set him next to a couple baits that have been producing well in the past couple weeks (click pic to enlarge). You'll see what I mean by getting my baits reasonably close yet sufficiently different. Keep it in mind the next time you're out on the lake.