Big Indiana Bass

Taking up your band width with this one. But, there are several "other" factors not presented in the Lake Wylie article that folks may find interesting. Yell at me for doing this if you will Brian. Some of what follows is on Walleyes, but don't let that turn you away. Basic principals apply regardless of species.

Primordial Anomalies R.Ziert . 12/2008, about 2,000 words

Chasing green or other fish can be tough as the season gets colder. Chasing them can be easy as well if you know where to do your chasing. Wisdom says to focus on points and cover on steep drops: all traditional cold water holding spots based on experience. Mixing this with power plant lake and primordial anomalies brings us to the best choice we can make at this or other times on any lake.

Large Mouth Bass are stacked into little areas of deep water: often a stretch maybe 20-50 yards long is all that is needed. With ice formed on the shallow, upper end of the lake where creeks feed in, and plant discharge water being much, much warmer on the other end, We need to find a happy medium, a stability haven.

Walleyes life styles are more oriented to colder water and moving water than are L.M Bass. L.M. Bass do not migrate nearly as much as Walleye or Small Mouth Bass. Walleyes also can be found historically deeper, or tucked in, due to greater avoidance of light. Walleyes can be found at 100+ feet, but they can also be found nose into the outer face of weed beds. They can be found in moderately deep stick ups. As with the other species, Small Mouth Bass can be found shallow and deep depending on the season, and have much less of a problem with light penetration. Due to enlarged heart compensatory factors, Crappies, on a whole, and in colder water, are the faster moving fish of the Sun Fish family (“Fastest Moving” does not mean migrating in the context of its offering). All fish adjunct "instincts and feeding habits" stay the same from season to season. In a flow system environment, locations change marginally or greatly, as do prey types, and biological as well as communal attitudes. Spot localized Neighborhoods of fish, migrating or stationary, learn from each other and have a different set as to stability criteria than the next neighborhood of fish. If the neighborhood is too large, all members are smaller, and rely too much on their numbers to produce what is needed to sustain them. The whole does not realize its full potential. Without overlap with other communities, that is, other new blood, relative growth in size, prowess, and wariness is stunted. Communities that are larger also learn from one another, but it takes longer to achieve what the smaller, more manageable, harder working group does in a shorter period of time. The balance, the “Stability”, the best fishing occurs when all these factors meet somewhere in or near the middle; another form of a “Stability Haven”. All so-called flow systems evolve to balance and minimize imperfections, reducing friction or other forms of resistance, so that the least amount of energy is lost.

What holds them there ? Thermal protection is one reason. Aside from the proximity to warmer water flow from whatever source, high bluff banks and steep shores offering protection from current/waves in/on shallower slopes and banks. Depth plays a role from the standpoint of fish being able to move marginally deeper or shallower quickly and with little effort to compensate for environmental conditions.

Conservation of energy as to feeding opportunities comes into play. These deep/steep areas tend to concentrate all kinds of food (baitfish and game fish, as well as other items making up the total diet of all concerned) in a single area that has or leads to many food opportunities in a small area. The other is ease of feeding from a containment standpoint. Steep banks, or steep/deep weed lines, etc. act as a wall that limits movement of potential prey. With colder - lowered metabolisms, having a vertical wall as well as a horizontal wall (the bottom and the surface) enhances feeding success. Think in terms of a bass in a box where the structure mentioned serves as 3 side to that box, with the pursuing bass actually forming a fourth side. It makes trapping your food source much easier when they have a limited amount of area to use as a possible escape route. A bass never really needs to roam, cruise or flush feed in these scenarios. He can find everything he needs in a very small, more controlled environment.

It's all fine and well that we go through the process of sorting it out for ourselves. I'd like to back us up for a second or two however, to look at a more primal view. Cold water to cold blooded fish/creatures means everything slows down. “Everything” means everything from the smallest to the largest living cold blooded thing. The steep drops are a sanctuary where stability is more abundant - to everything in a continuing big picture lifestyle.

The conservation of steep drops and access to spawning areas add to what happens when "they" (all life): come out of their winter stupor. With gradual seasonal changes, they position themselves there to find the greatest stability - not to exert undue energy - between all the factors that make up their on going lives. With seasonal conditioning and maturity, fish come to know where to be and when.

If we were flexible enough to see weeds, plankton blooms and movement, or even larger schools of minnows as the same thing vertically, as a bluff wall, then our position would be confirmed there as well. In other words, it makes no diff as to the substance of the wall - whatever it's made of - the difference is ease of movement and food availability. Remember, a weed bed or stick ups as a whole, their thickness, and its parts, is a series of wing dams blocking current; thermal mixing current, as well as flowing current.

Bas and all fish eat whatever is available – Minnows, other prey fish, bugs, crawly creatures hidden in crevices/holes, hidden under weed leaves and stems/stick ups , they even eat one another. What have you; fish even the very small stuff they started life with, when that's all there is to eat at the time. It just so happens that this small stuff is common in those areas we've noted and is also consistently attracted there at most times and specifically at cold water getting colder times. That diet is also common on steeper rip rap and bulk head walls. That small stuff is also favored by and is attractive to somewhat bigger prey, If that bigger prey is attracted to those same vertical areas/consistently reliable food sources, that prey becomes food for bass and other fish at the time. The keys to "stability" is a combination of several factors; balanced as best its users can at the time and place.

Again, it's primordial. A relatively reliable and unchanging food source. . . Shelter/Energy Conservation/No, or little fluctuating water temps. . . Reproduction. . . Social Benefits in realizing the first three needs. It just so happens that the winter habitat we speak of (whatever form it takes) provides all of these things including the promise of a better long and short chance at future reproduction.

Just as "stability" is not all things to all people, it is not the same thing to all fish at the same time and place within the part of the ecosystem they occupy. Various parts of lakes or any body of water will have localized characteristics. As said “Stability” is a combination of water temperature, current, food availability, ease of living, and more: how these things all come together at the time and palce. Total Stability is unachievable utopia, but near stability is the best they can do with what they have at the time they are there, or from reasonably close by to where they started. The statement of “reasonably close by”, means different things at different times of the year, and of the moment for that matter. Stability is also the best adjustment to conditions within their immediate sphere of influence.

In the moment, fish cannot consciously move/search to find something because they have no idea where that "something" is to begin with. They figuratively either stand up for what they believe in, or turn their backs on what they don’t. They can and do move more when the water is warmer, or when conditioned to do so by other annual changes with their food source or their metabolism. In fact their metabolism is higher in Summer right along with other food they might be after. They have to move more at this time because food is also more on the move for the same reasons. They can't afford to do this with colder water temps because they would lose more (energy conservation) than the benefit derived from a more and continuous adventurous endeavor. Deeper fish are experiencing colder water temps any time of the year, and adjust accordingly to a slower world. Younger fish might not have learned all that they should have, and certainly not as much as the older fish. They – some of them - then become food for their indiscretion, or lack of maturity.

We need to recognize that fish live a life of conditioning. Something has to happen before something else, a conditioned response, takes place. . . a response, a genetic calling that may have always been there, but unrecognized. They learn as they grow and the implanted recognition of when things work and when they do not work stays with them over time. . . not all fish are as aware as others no matter what happens to them. All life forms and even individuals within a species have learning curves.

One very basic hydrodynamic principal of water and especially moving water of any kind is that the water next to the basin and steep embankments – even underwater cliff like strata - runs slower because of the friction of the water running into that basin or wall. A few feet out from those places, the water runs either marginally or much faster because that friction is absent. This wouldn’t make much difference if those underwater surfaces were smooth, or if there was no current to speak of. But there is always some current even under the ice, and the surfaces are never smooth; with pockets of various sizes and shapes to form mini wing dams and edifices behind. In fact due to natural or man made erosion, forces, those eddies change over time. Slower water is more stability for fish because of the energy conservation mentioned earlier. This same principal applies to all fish and other editbles of all sizes; predator and prey alike. Think of it as a wind chill factor. Cold water is cold, but moving cold water feels colder. Over their life time they come to know that this slow cold water is where they have to be to achieve that part of stability.

Also, please don’t think that wing dams, mini or otherwise, are exclusive to basin walls, rivers and streams. Twists and turns and other things that block the route of wind and water also act as underwater wind/wing dams; current absent havens. Havens where they can watch and take advantage of passing or well established opportunities.

The other part of all this is that fish of any size are going to eat the easiest meals they can find at the time and place. Mix that statement with the “best meal” available for what lies ahead for them, and you have the basis for very sound bait selection. When water is cold, if given a choice of a slow moving big worm and a fast moving small minnow in the same square yard of water, they will go after the worm. If the tables were reversed on the size of each prey above and it was the abundance of summer they’d still go after the worm unless the minnow gave them a better immediate opportunity; it was closer, unsuspecting, or injured. This principal applies all year but again is tempered with the rate of metabolism mentioned earlier. Remember: If cold they need to move less. If warm they need to move faster, and more often.