No Big fish

[RonB]

I have been fishing in eastern Indiana a lot recently...particularly Brookville lake and Middlefork res in the center of richmond Indiana. Anyway over the last 3 weeks I have made two trips to brookville, and 3 trips to Middlefork.
Picking the banks apart with craws,frogs,cranks and shakyheads, I have caught tons of 8 to 13 inch bass...Where are the big fish???

The water temp is averaging between 75 to 81 degrees, visibilty is around 1 to 2 feet.

Now that the spawn is over..are just the bucks up close in the weeds and the bigger females in deeper water? Or am I just having having a run of fun but small fish luck?

Ron

[Bubba_Bruiser]

How far out of the spawn are you? They might be in post spawn and recouping period. Sometimes if you can find a ledge around or move out from the spawning flats, you might get in to them.

[Mac2]

I once read that the "bigger Fish" only compose about 3 percent of the total population and if you are catching little fish you are surely doing something right and just to keep catching and eventually you will run into the bigguns.
Even so, it can be a long and somewhat tedious approach at best. I think the above advice presented in the previous post is certainly valid and worth a good shot.

I'm also including some finesse presentations that have worked well for me over the years and sometimes do well in finding and catching the bigger fish. I realize that location advice is more important than presentation advice, but they can also work well together. Hope this helps and Good Fishing, Mac

This is a page of information a fishing buddy and my wife helped me to develop over the years. We’ve caught a lot of bass using the following techniques and presentations.

We fish with spinning outfits, usually 6 pound test mono.
I buy a pack of zoom speedworms in watermelon/red and clip off the tails at the narrow spot just in front of the flapper tail. This makes approximately a 4 inch lure that works exceptionally well.

Not having internal salt, it sinks more slowly. This is key when you have submerged weeds, giving the bait much more exposure to the bass on the slow fall.

I rig the lure texposed on a 2/0 offset shank worm hook, weightless most often and often use a sidearm skipping cast.

This lure doesn't cost as much as a Senko, yet holds up under use much better. When one end wears out, I rig it in the other end....when that end goes, I save it for wacky rigging. I call the speedworm body in watermelon/red a zoomie, for brevity.

It casts like a bullet, and skips well under log, rock and dock.
I fish it most often in the following manner.....cast to likely cover/structure. Sometimes the fish prefer a "Here I am" skipping cast, at other times a quieter entry seems to work better. I let it fall with bail open, to the bottom, watching line at all times. I wait, initially, for 30 seconds, just letting it remain on bottom. After 30 seconds, gently take out the slack and lift it slowly off bottom about two feet to feel for fish....if nothing on, I tremor the bait by suddenly grabbing the rod handle harder, but trying not to move the rod tip.....this gives the lure a sudden little twitch at the top of the raise and will sometimes elicit a strike, if nothing hits, I let it re-fall and rest again for 20 seconds. Lifting slowly a second time...and pausing at the top of the raise, if nothing takes it this time, I reel in at a moderate pace and cast to another likely spot.

If done properly, this presentation will take one full minute per cast.

An alternate presentation.....developed and perfected by my wife. Using either a regular or skipping cast....she lets the zoomie fall to bottom and lets rest for 15 seconds, then takes one s l o w crank on the reel and lets rest again, with the line draped over her index finger for feel, and watching the line carefully.....after 15 seconds, another s l o w turning of the reel handle and another 15 second pause. She does this until the lure has travelled 8 to 10 feet across bottom, then reels in at a moderate to slow pace, and casts to another likely spot. It should be noted she uses a Zebco 33 reel ( just her personal preference ) so that when reeling s l o w l y, the lure doesn't go far with one revolution of the reel handle, so should you use a higher gear ratio, and want the same results you'll have to maybe take a half or quarter turn.

If weight is needed, I clip pieces of small finishing nails into 3/8 inch lengths and use one inserted in the skin of the lure about even with the hookpoint, but on the side of the lure to maintain a good horazontal fall.....the closer to the hookpoint, the tighter the wobble, the farther out to the side of the worm, the wider the wiggle on the fall. This is a side to side movement, kind of a rocking back and forth. Discovered totally by accident, but beneficial in that the glitter inside the worm body rocking side to side creates a lot of extra flash. Most often, we don't weight, but once in awhile the wind drifts the boat along and the touch of weight added gets the lure down deeper.

Fishing weeds.....bump and fall, bump and fall. I cast to the edge or inside pocket, letting the lure fall until it lodges in a weed. I lift slowly until I feel it bump another weed, then let fall again. I pause 10 seconds each time I lift to let the lure fall farther down in the weeds. Caught some really nice bass doing this along weedbed edges and pockets...... You may be surprised how thick the weeds can get and you can still work it down deep.

In lily pads and reeds, I use a 5 inch zoom lizard in watermelon/red exposed weightless. With the rod tip up, especially in pads it will crawl up on the pads and over the tops. When it comes to an open pocket, I let it sit on the edge of a pad with just the head showing and after 20 seconds or so, I tremor it twice with a little pause between before moving on.

[Mac2]

Sometimes fishing a little deeper helps to find the bigger bass....casting occasionally away from the bank, trying mid lake humps, fishing drop offs, etc.

[screwballl]

In addition to the above... what are the lake's keeper limits? Lakes with higher size limits (like some here that are 18 or 24" to keep) means the lake ends up with loads of small bass. The ones with 12" limits tend to have a good balance of small and big fish, unless it is overfished.

[keithdog]

I've had that same problem before more than once. What has aften worked for me is to get out from the bank in deeper water with good weeds. I tie on a big 1/2 oz. spinnerbait with a colorado willow blade combination. White with gold blades is a good choice. Add a 4 inch twister grub and your good to go. I'll work that spinnerbait right through the tops of the weeds. It takes stout tackle though. Good luck.

[RonB]

Size limit is 14 inches....catching tons of 12 to 13 inchers. Fish were on beds by beginning of may, if not a tad sooner. I have recently heard a rumor that they actually took out a bunch of bigger bass and stocked Whitwater Res after they did some work and drained the lake....not sure on how true that is yet.

[geezer1]

RonB...I don't fish your neck of the woods, but I'll tell you what works for me in most Southern lakes. Right about the time the Bass spawn is over, the Shad spawn begins. I look for open water flats, just a few feet deep with deep water (usually creeks) nearby. This is where I usually find the Shad spawning. Bass that are transitioning from post spawn to deep water will gorge themselves on these Shad, and later, Bream, before settling deep. Find out what the Shad are doing in your lake, post spawn, & you'll probably locate those hungry Bass. Hope this helps you, it works for me.

[Cavs1123]

Try some bigger sizes of the same baits your throwin.

[Bassboss]

Are the fish still in post spawn up there?

In my experience fishing in the summer, they fish like bigger baits.

Reason being is that fishes metabolisms are really highest during the summer. So they don't want to spend a lot of energy eating something small. They wanna eat something that'll be worth their while! It'll take a bass the same amount of energy to eat a 3" minnow, that it will to eat a 6" minnow. It'll get a lot more nutrition from eating the larger minnow.

In other words, they want a high input to out put! For the energy they out put, they want more energy than spent on in put, on the out put.

So put away the 6" worms, and take out the 8, and 10 inchers.

One of the best summer baits in my experience is a big lizard is a great summertime bait over a swimbait because a slimy defenseless lizard (that is a guaranteed meal) will be easier to eat then a big shad, that may not be a guaranteed meal!

Hope I made scene!