Big Indiana Bass

You know how we like numbers and stats on this site, so thought I'd pass along another set for the site. Just this week the site passed the 20,000th page view mark and is currently averaging about 1,750 per month.

On another note, I had this pic sent to me this week wondering what the baseball like growth was on this bass. There are no guarantees without having it verified by a path lab like the one at Purdue University, but it is most like a tumor of some sort. Tumors in fish are usually considered non-infectious and can be either genetically predisposed or a result of some type of environmental contaminant such as some metals or chemical compunds in the water. Certain types of infections can also lead to abnormal swelling of organs or other body parts. Fish tumors can also either be malignant or benign, again requiring an examination and biopsy to know for sure. Looks kind of painful either way. You can read a bit more about common fish diseases and parasites in the 2008 Indiana Fish Consumption Advisory Booklet (see Page 7 for tumors) found at the link. 

Anyone as old as I am will probably remember the advertisements on television for the starving artists art shows that would be held at local hotels. This goes back a ways. Now I don't know if they were truly starving, just trying to make a buck or actually a good way to obtain paintings direct from the artist at a good price. I never attended one, or I should say, my parents never did as it was well before my drving age days. But I've been hanging out on E-Bay recently and it appears that there are some new artists on the block, and they don't seem to be starving at the moment.

Custom painted baits have been around for a while as have custom carved lures  In some parts of the country there are local "legends" on the scene, especially in the crankbait carving business. Some probably make it big and get famous, others are more local or regionally influential. For instance in my parts, the Dee Bait along with the Wee Bait were locally made cranks that were infamous for winning tourneys on the Ohio River. In spinnerbaits it was Timmy Poe's little baits pulling the same trick on the same waters. In the custom painting arena you have guys like Tim Hughes from Missouri, who I have had the pleasure of sharing the boat with once over on Table Rock Res. Well the market for custom painted baits is alive and well from what I'm seeing.

Just for the heck of it I found a sweet little painted bait in a color pattern dear to my heart that I thought I'd bid on. Now this lure is a Lucky Craft knockoff, selling for $4-$5 in a large southern retail establishment. Said artist buys the baits and then applies his magic and you get some wonderfully painted lures. So I thought I'd bid on one just to see what would happen. Mind you this bait was already at $19.50 when I jumped into the bidding process with about 3 hours left. My bidding immediately shot the price up to $26.00 based on other bid maximums that were already established. My bid maximum was $30, and if you kow anything about E-Bay, you know that holding a high bid means nothing if you aren't there at the last 30 seconds to protect your bid.

With one hour left to go and the auction not ending until nearly 11 PM local time, I didn't want to stay up that long on a weeknight as 4:30 AM comes awefully early. So I went ahead and thought "what the hell" and increased my maximum bid to $35 before calling it a night. Figured I'd give somebody a run for their money even if I couldn't be around. Also figured there was no way I was going to win since I wouldn't be around to protect my bid. So I woke up this morning, went right to the computer and wasn't disappointed. I didn't win as I expected (OK, I was a tiny bit disappointed), and the ultimate winner ended up paying nearly $39 for this bait. Remember, this is just a single knockoff crankbait that can be purchased every day for just $5 at the store, minus the fancy paint job. Average price for these works of art have been running in the $19-$25 range, this one just happened to be appealing to several people with money. Would it have caught any more fish than some of the $5 stock baits I own? Probably not. At that price would I have even tied it on and risked a scratch on the bait for that price? I can't really say. Does this experience speak to the strength of 'color' belief in our baits we throw, and ultimately the confidence we must have in them? Apparently. And is this crankbait artist and others like him starving? - I don't think so :)     

While we're still on the subject of books and quotes from books, I wanted to add another favorite that I found online. Actually, I found it as an excerpt in one of those cheesy Airline magazines while flying somewhere many years ago (I honestly don't recall where I was flying to). The minute I read it I was hooked. The author was John Gierach and I have since picked up about 6 or 7 of his works, most autographed. The excerpt I'm specifically referring to that first got my attention can be found at the following link: "The Happy Idiot"

"The Happy Idiot" is the first chapter in the book, "Standing In a River, Waving a Stick". John is actually a fly fisherman, beside being a well reknowned author. You bass guys probably have never heard of him as he focuses on trout angling and the West, but see if some of his comments in the excerpt don't strike a chord with you. He actually goes on in some of his books to talk about largemouth and smallmouth fishing, pond fishing, even carp angling, all with the fly rod. Even if you don't care about trout or own a fly rod, if you love fishing you'll probably find something enjoyable in his story telling. Remember, crossover applications - it definitely applies here. You can read some other excerpts and get further info on some of his books here: Fishing Books and Videos.

Clear Lake, California...Frequent Bassmaster stop, stomping grounds for "Fish Chris" Wolfgram and operator of what was the best big bass site on the Net before he throttled it down. Still tons of great info, pics and articles on the site to browse through despite the forum being removed. But Clear Lake is also the subject matter for one of my favorite little chapters in what is a wonderfully detailed read about the Putah and Cache watershed. The particular chapter deals with the differences and difficulties of applied science vs. basic science. Written by Pete Richerson, "Data: The Lovely, the Flirtatious, and the Ugly" is a quick read at under 5 minutes. Not sure why it sticks with me after finding it many years back, but I think it is its simplicity and line of thinking that resonates with me, applied science (scientific research being applied to my bass fishing) being why this website was largely created. The full online book can be found at: "Putah and Cache: A Thinking Mammal's Guide to the Watershed".

I posted this once back about this time last year, but with all the recent talk of conditioned responses I thought I'd bring it up again. I'm referring to the bass that live around the marina on one of the lakes I regularly fish. These fish get fed at least twice a day by the operators of the bait house. All the dead minnows that either didn't survive overnight or those that die during the course of the day get collected in a pail and fed to the wolves. You can click on all the pics to make them larger for better discrimination. Those are a bucket full of dead minnows about to be sacrificed on the left.

Here is a shot of one of the lurking bass I took today that is just cruising below the surface and checking things out. Notice all the live shad swimming around in the pic above him. They don't attack these shad, at least not that we've ever seen. Instead they wait for the dead minnows to be fed to them. This might also speak to the principle of OFT or Optimal Foraging Theory. You can find a big write up on that in the archives under 'Not Another Juicy Steak Story'. Hard to say how long you'd have to fish using dead minnnows "in the wild" before you caught a bass.

Here is a shot of one of the bass blasting on a dead minnow just floating on the surface. It is not unsual to get as many as 8 or 10 bass feeding in the morning on the free food. They'll actually start cruising up and down the boardwalk once they know you are there, waiting for the food to be dropped in. The attacks can be pretty violent, to the point of splashing people on the edge of the walk observing the feeding frenzy. Again in this shot notice all the shad cruising by in the lower 1/3 of the picture while the bass is well off the walkway feasting on a dead, floating minnow. These aren't little bass either. these fish range from 2-4 pounds in most cases, and we occasionally see one larger. Last year there was even a giant crappie that hung with the bass for a good part of the year and got in on the feeding.