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Old 04-09-06, 04:28 PM   #1
JB
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Default What Makes Lakes Change?

You ever wonder why your favorite lake one year has all kinds of bass biting, top water , chasing crankbaits etc, and then the very next year its all changed? I hear from several anglers that complain about there's no comparison from last year to this one, and it makes you wonder if its all bait fish location related, is it water temp and depth? Any ideas on past experiences from your home lake?
An example up here is a rainy spring that floods the coves can make it great to fish new waters that were woods, but the other side of the coin is how the lakes water level management lowers the pool level and the fish change locations making it hard to figure out....
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Old 04-09-06, 04:53 PM   #2
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I'm going to have to say its changing conditions. If John Doe was on Lake X last year April 9 was the sky cloudy, what was the air temp, water temp, barometer, which direction was the wind blowing, was the water muddy from it raining days before or a lot of wind, did the bass get an early or late start on the spawn, what's the ph levels and how much food source do the baitfish have? Now compare all of that to April 9 this year, how much is similar? Most people simply do not get to get out on the water often enough to compare this year to last year as there are too many variables and very RARELY do you get similar conditions when you consider all of the variables.
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Old 04-09-06, 04:53 PM   #3
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water quality, bottom changes, weed die-out, pressure, chasing food, cover changes, weather paterns throughout a year...I think a lot of stuff effects the way a lake fishes.

It takes a lot of commitment to making a lake a "fishery" in order to make it consistently good.
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Old 04-09-06, 05:09 PM   #4
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I see our lakes improving water clearity really changing anglers tactics.
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Old 04-09-06, 07:29 PM   #5
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JB, I was thinking about that today.I am going out on a limb on this one.Every year, they rape the bass population here during ice fishing season and this year has been very limited for safe ice fishing.If we can get a few more years like this year, its gotta help.Maybe I am wrong, but I doubt it very much.Nothing goes back in the water during ice fishing here, like it or not, they have the right to be able to do so. P N J
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Old 04-09-06, 08:09 PM   #6
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jb
i belive it is the fishing pressure..if the fish see enough of the same baits all the time. they will stop hitting them,say what you will but think about this. why do you catch bass by the ton one year with a certain lure. but the next year using the same lure and catch nothing?

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Old 04-09-06, 08:12 PM   #7
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yeah pnj, any critter that comes through the ice is goin in the grease up here too
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Old 04-09-06, 08:14 PM   #8
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mmmmmmmmmmm deep fryed fillets in beer batter -it don't get no better than that..

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Old 04-10-06, 06:18 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pig n jig
JB, I was thinking about that today.I am going out on a limb on this one.Every year, they rape the bass population here during ice fishing season and this year has been very limited for safe ice fishing.If we can get a few more years like this year, its gotta help.Maybe I am wrong, but I doubt it very much.Nothing goes back in the water during ice fishing here, like it or not, they have the right to be able to do so. P N J
I'm with you on this one PNJ with the exception being we dont get ice BUT I firmly beleive that the answer is related to fishing pressure and the spawn AND the water changing. If you have a bad spawn for whatever reason you wont realize it until approx. 2 or 3 years later. Bad spawn equals less bass in the yearling class......then comes in the fishing pressure. The fishing pressure doesnt get less it always gets more pressure and here comes the water changing. All lakes get old so to speak and with age comes changes be it water clarity,weed growth,or introduction of a species of fish not native to that water. I have fished a local lake here in crossett for over35 years and watched it change and it did drastically. When it was made back in the early sixties it was a lake that contained LOTS of standing timber and huge amounts of stumps,creek channels and ledges and very few weeds and the water visibility was less than a foot. As time went on the timber fell and the stumps started to rot. The water vis stayed the same for many years. All the while the bass fishing was awsome. 8 years ago they drained the lake and removed some of the silt and filled her back up. We now have visibility to 3 feet,lots of weeds,still sump stumps around no creek channels and very few so called ledges and the fishing pressure has gotten to the point its sometimes hard to get a parking spot. So this is how I think the lakes change.
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Old 04-10-06, 09:05 AM   #10
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I agree that lakes change year to year, Im sure a lot of it has to do with the weather. The lake I normally fish, changed last year, but we had a very large snow pack and when it melted the lake filled up beyond normal levels, but the water was muddy for a long time. It took me most of the year to get a good pattern going. The year before I had the lake figured out but the water level changes had changed it the next year. I dont know what the lake is like this year, I havent been able to fish it yet. Im currently deployed to Iraq, but hope to get home soon to fish it.
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Old 04-10-06, 09:19 PM   #11
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JB,

I really noticed a huge change back in Indiana on the coal pit I fished. We had a really, really wet spring(10" in one day), and set the record for water that month, and I beleive that year. That year was the same year we went from solid mats in the shallows, to sparse vegetation all over the lake. I know for a fact the fishing pressure wasn't any different at all. That was also the year I was worrried about several big bass I found floating, and was worried about the LM disease. I think the pesticides and the water being so dirty do to all the runoff caused the problems in that lake. When I left Indiana the vegetation was still way down from years past. I changed tactics a little, and fished more points, and ledges with much more success than in the past. The laydowns and what vegetation there was still held bass, but it was a lot more sporadic. These of course are just my opinions on why the lake changed so much, but the local reservoir also had less vegetation in it that year as well. Maybe PITA for all I know, they thought they were helping, but hurt much more by putting weed killer in the lake.

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Old 04-10-06, 09:23 PM   #12
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with all the farmland around here, the use of nitrogen and other chemicals often filters into the lakes from runoff from the fields to the creeks..We've seen big fish kills in the past in the spring, but more often than not the dif. in changes in fishing here are water clearity and pressence of vegatation.
I think it puts the bait fish in other places we dont fish as much, and the largemouth are feeding on the schools, rather than beating the banks...its a guess at best sometimes eh.
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