Bass Season- From The Opener Until Now. 6/17/11

Originally, this post was going to be my obligatory bass opener post, but it is long past so I will turn it into a general report instead.

On the opener, I decided to hit this little lake by where we camp (sorry- I'm not tellin' : ) ).  It is stocked with trout and has good numbers of pumpkin seeds.  Truth be known, I had very little luck.  When I put in, the water was still a little chilly at 59F or so.  I was sharing the lake with a couple other boats so I decided to start down the opposite bank and work my way around so I didn't crowd anyone.  Power fishing a buzzbait.  Nothing.  Not even a boil.

I kept cruising and switched up to a chatter bait and moved off the bank a little bit and started fishing the inside weedline.  The lake has eurasion mifoil and it was starting to get tall, say three feet beneath the surface in anywhere from five to nine feet.  Nothing, although I did catch one of those Rainbow Trout that are stocked and can almost see why people like to fish for them.

After that the sun was up more and moved a little closer to the bank with a 1/4oz Beetle Spin (Quit laughing.  This is my goto bait for bad fish days.)  No bass.  But lots of pumpkin seeds.  Those little suckers can be vicious too!  And that pretty much tells the tale of how my opener went.  At the end of the day, I boated 1 small bass and probably 40-50 pumpkin seeds.

My next bassin' trip wasn't until the following Saturday and I decided to head out to Rice Lake near Paynesville.  I drove around and nearly ended up taking ownership of a nice rocky point.  Luckily, that didn't happen.  Boat and driver are very happy about that.  Anyway, I looked at my phone (Navionics is very handy, must use it more often in unfamiliar waters - feel free to whack yourself in the head, Jeremy) and decided to head to a section of the south end of the lake because there is a fairly fast drop into 20 or so feet. The water temp was mid 60's so I figured they'd be on beds.

I started out with a 1/4oz Bluegill Swim Jig (All Terrain Tackle) and tossed it passed the front of a dock.  Slow rolled it back and a smallie crushed it hard enough I thought I was going to lose my rod at first.  First fish boated was a nice one, measured out at 17".  No belly so I'm guessing it was a he.  I kept rolling that swim jig and caught a nice mixed bag of largemouth and smallmouth all around 16-18".  See pics below.

My last trip was last Friday and knowing that I didn't have a lot of time, I went down to the Rum River about five minutes away from home.  Once again, slow rolling that same swim jig.  The result was a personal best, I know that much for sure.  No idea how much it weighed or how long it was because I was backpacking it.

So far, I may not have had a very productive year, but I've had a lot of fun anyway.  And I bought a different scale that will be going in my backpack for the next time I hook into a tank like that.

As for now, I'm getting ready to head out and try some of the new swim jigs I picked up by Northstar Custom Baits.  They are a little different than the All Terrain Tackle swim jigs I'm used to and I'm excited to use them because I think the colors are better.  We'll see if the fish agree!

Eat Bass...?

I am truly working on an entry for bass opener, but truth be known, at this point it seems moot.  Being the fact that it is almost two weeks past.  Instead, I thought I'd share a link to a blog that I don't really read a whole lot but I saw a title that caught my eye:  "Eat Bass, Improve Your Fishery?"

There are some good points made, and, at risk of being excommunicated by the bassin' community, I too practice selective harvest.  Here, though, are my rules:

I don't do it on a lake I don't know very well.  If it's my first time there, I have no way of knowing if a 15" fish is average size or not.  However, if I'm on my "home water", I know that 12-14" fish are incredibly common where a 16-17" fish is not and anything bigger than that is a tourny winner (no kidding), so I have no problem keeping one or two fish so the other 20,000 from that year class may have a better chance at getting to that 16-17" slot and even bigger.

Another rule I follow is anything over 15" goes back.  I don't know why, that is simply where I drew the line.  It is arbitrary and completely unscientific.  It kills me when I hear of or see a picture of some 5lber that ended up in a frying pan.

Another:  No killing of a fish that has eggs.  I would hope that this would be obvious.

I think the bottom line is that there is a fine balance between what is appropriate for each unique body of water.  Over harvesting has been and certainly can be a problem that can devastate a fishery, but blindly practicing catch and release can have negative consequences as well.

Just my opinion.