Monthly Archives: June 2018

Thank a Beaver for Your Trout Stream

Making trout habitat with fake beaver dams

Beaver dam analog: mimicking the real thing
by Toner Mitchell, Trout Unlimited
from
The Fishing Wire

I recently visited a tailwater stream known for its capacity to produce lots of brown trout, some of them quite large. The reservoir feeding this stream is operated exclusively for downstream agricultural users, the result of which is that the fishery is also renowned for its poor conditions in winter, when dam releases are curtailed and the stream becomes a thin vein of shallow puddles, trickles, and exposed spawning redds. Since this stream is in the coldest corner of New Mexico, anchor ice is common.

I was pleased to see the latest work of the beaver population, knowing that their ponds would provide winter refuge for fish. But I was there to see the leveling device (beaver deceiver) installed by the New Mexico Game and Fish department to mitigate the legitimate though misplaced concern of downstream irrigators, who felt that the beavers were holding back valuable water from ranches and farms. The deceiver was working as intended, sending water downstream while limiting the pond’s depth and expanse so as not to inundate an adjacent parking lot.

My next stop was a nearby fly shop. I proudly reported my observations to the proprietor, who proceeded to give me an earful. The stretch of stream occupied by the beavers had always been a money spot for his guides and their clients. Until, that is, the beavers took up residence. The pond had since become a bugless sucker hole devoid of trout, and though he acknowledged the positive impact of the beaver impoundment on riparian storage and late season flows, the shop owner judged the local beavers as a net detriment to the fishery. Beavers are either good or bad, he opined, never both.

The beaver is a keystone species, generally defined as an organism that exerts an outsized influence on the function and even formation of an ecosystem. Beaver dams capture peak flows, prolong spring runoff, while supporting and extending baseflows with water stored in riparian aquifers. Their deep ponds concentrate nutrients and macroinvertebrates; they provide shelter and security for trout, especially in winter.

Understandably, the perceived downside of beavers comes with the keystone package. Like wolves, another disproportionately influential animal, beavers disrupt on a landscape scale. They not only plug up streams, but ditches, culverts, and bridges. Their dams inundate yards, fields, and pastures used by livestock and campers. Beavers kill and eat prized trees. The disgruntled fly shop owner hypothesized that his favorite run-turned-hated-beaver-pond might have warmed too much to harbor the trout it once did and, along with possibly consuming too much oxygen, accumulated silt may have buried insect production.

For what little it’s worth, I’ve personally witnessed few instances where beavers have negatively impacted trout. I don’t doubt that it happens, certainly not in this case, but I think such stories should be viewed in the broader context of watershed health. Consider how many of our highest quality fisheries (and grazing pastures) were literally made by beavers. They cleared trees to build their dams, which filled with trapped sediment and forced channel migration across floodplains. Over time, floodplains expanded and thickened thanks to further beaver-induced sediment deposition. This long process created thick, spongy meadows, essentially grass-skinned reservoirs feeding streams with cooled groundwater.

In addition to logging, mining, grazing, floodplain development, and road building, our large scale beaver extirpation in the late 1800s contributed greatly to watershed degradation. Without beavers, natural and man-made “nick points” went unrepaired, leading to channel incision and headcutting. By armoring and straightening streams for flood control, we actually intensified flooding by concentrating flow and increasing its cutting force. As a result, our beaver-created meadow reservoirs have been drying from within for many decades.

As climate change tightens its unpredictable yet certain grip on our landscapes, it falls on us, the ultimate keystone species, to restore the land’s capacity to absorb disturbance while maintaining function. To hedge against drought, we must lift and spread water tables and reconnect streams with their floodplains, especially in headwater regions. Reconnected floodplains will also enable our streams to de-energize high intensity precipitation events, particularly important in this era of common wildfire.

Where beavers live, we must make them welcome, as they are the cheapest and most efficient means of restoring the greatest acreage of watershed in the shortest timeframe. They work around the clock and accept food as payment; no matter how hard we try, we will never find a better deal than that.

And where they don’t live, we must imitate them; thanks to conservation groups in New Mexico, including the Truchas Chapter of TU, imitating beavers may soon become the hottest trend in stream restoration. Volunteer-made beaver dam analogs (BDAs) employ natural materials and are designed to pass water, trap sediment, and raise riparian water tables. Combined with willow and cottonwood plantings, which provide stream shading and future beaver food, BDAs create true beaver habitat and often attract the real animals to continue this important work.

As a wise man I know once said, “In times of flood, prepare for drought. In drought, prepare for flood.” I’m not sure, but I think this guy may have been a beaver in a previous life.

Toner Mitchell is TU’s New Mexico Water and Habitat Program coordinator for New Mexico.

Hooking Yourself While Fishing

If you go fishing enough times, you will hook yourself. It takes only a second of inattention or some unusual motion of you, the fish, or even your tackle, to impale yourself. Hands are most often the on the receiving end of the point of the hook, but some of us have been hooked in many other places.

Sticking the point of a hook a little ways into a finger is common and is not much of a problem. But if the hook goes in past the barb it gets interesting. Barbs are on hooks so they don’t pull out of a fish’s mouth easily. Same thing works for your body.

My first memory of a hook that would not come out easily did not happen to me, but I caused it. Uncle Mayhu, Uncle Adron and I were fishing Usury’s pond in a jon boat. I was in the middle, a dangerous place for an eight-year-old.

I made a cast with a Crème pre-rigged worm. Those worms had three hooks in them attached to each other by a line. At least I tried to cast, the worm ended up as a decoration on Uncle Mayhu left ear. All three hooks were in well past the barb.

There was a lot of blood even before Uncle Adron took his pliers, cut the hooks and pushed the hooks the rest of the way through to get them out. And it did not stop us from fishing the rest of the day, although I didn’t have another plastic worm to use!

If possible and you can do it, cutting the hook and pushing it on through is good way to get a hook out. But its painful, and not always possible.

Two times I have had to go to the emergency room to have hooks removed. The first I was in my early 20s and fishing by myself at Clarks Hill from our ski boat. I cast a Little Cleo spoon and hung it in a bush. Since it was hot I was fishing without a shirt.

I snatched the rod tip to get the spoon loose, and it worked. The next thing I knew I felt a sting on my right side just below my ribs. When I looked down the spoon was hanging there. One of the treble hooks had disappeared into me and the other two were pressed flat, firmly against my skin.

It was weird, there was no pain. I cut my line, put the rod down and cranked the boat. I was fine until I got to the dock where mom was fishing. I stood up, pointed at the spoon, and almost fainted!

Since I had taught Life Science the year before, I knew there were some fairly important things not far under the skin where the hook disappeared. Mom took me to the emergency room where they numbed the area, slit the skin and fat and got the hook out. At least I was still able to use the bait!

The worst time was at West Point about 15 years ago. I had met a fisherman from Atlanta in my website chatroom and asked him to fish as my guest in a Sportsman Club Saturday night tournament. He met me at the ramp and we ran to a roadbed not far from Highland Marina.

On one of my first casts with a big crankbait I hooked a fish. When it got near the boat I started lifting it in. My rod loaded up and the fish came flying at my face. When I threw up my arms to protect my face, one of the hooks went into my wrist.

There I was, with a guy I had never actually met before that afternoon, standing with a spotted bass dangling from a plug that was dangling from my wrist. We finally subdued the fish to make it stop flopping and got it off the hook. It took some effort to take the split ring off the plug to get the hook off it. The hook would not move when we tried to pull it out.

There was no blood. We cranked up and ran to Highland Marina. It just so happened there was an EMT crew there. They took one look at the hook, said there was no way they would attempt to remove it, and told me to go to the emergency room. A drunk hanging around loudly offered to remove it, but I declined.

It was weird. If I wiggled my ring finger the hook would rise and fall. I found out later the hook had gone under the tendon for that finger. When I got to the emergency room and the receptionist saw it she called a nurse and that nurse called several more to look at the strange thing I had done.

Unfortunately, there had been a three-car wreck not long before I came in and the doctors were very busy removing glass from several people. I sat there for five hours, entertaining nurses and other patients with my trick hook, before the doctor finally saw me.

His surgical tools would not cut the hook, so he called the janitor and got a pair of hog nose pliers with a cutter. After sterilizing it he cut the hook, pushed it on through and sewed up the small hole.

I had left my partner fishing from my boat while I drove his truck, since it did not have a trailer attached, to the emergency room. We had never met before that day, but fishermen are like that.

I got back to the ramp with two hours left to fish. When I measured the little spot that caused all the trouble, it was just under keeper size and it was the only one I caught that night!

Be careful out there but no matter how careful, be ready to remove a hook!

Use the Right Fishing Line

The Right Fishing Line for Soft Plastics

Using the right fishing line will help you land fish

Your line is the crucial connection when using Carolina and Texas rigs

By David A. Rose
from The Fishing Wire

Every few years, one of the best bass-tournament pros in the nation sweeps the competition during a major derby, landing the largest limit of fish while rigging their favorite soft plastics in an innovative way. After that, what was once their secret technique suddenly becomes all the rage. The drop-shot rig, Neko rig and advances in wacky-rigging are just a few techniques that have come to the forefront during the past couple of decades after major tournament successes.

But when all is said and done, even after these fresh approaches have become widespread, two rigs still stand the test of time – both sticking out as must-use-when-all-else-is-failing techniques: the Carolina rig and the Texas rig.

Worms? Lizards? Tubes? Creature baits? It really doesn’t matter what your go-to bait is, as both Carolina and Texas rigs have been catching fish almost since soft plastics were first created.

But like any well-established technique (and I mean any,) the single most important connection between you and any fish is your line.

The Missing Link

Seaguar Pro Chris Zaldain is a 33-year-old Bassmaster Elite tournament angler from Laughlin, Nevada, who has taken top honors twice in Bassmaster Elite events, as well numerous top 20 finishes. This carries his winnings over the half-million-dollar mark since his start only 8 years ago.

“There’s no doubt, line is the most crucial link when using both Carolina and Texas rigs,” says the Seaguar pro. “I have been using Seaguar fluorocarbon since the early 2000’s, well before I wore their logo on my jersey [2010], and I’m here to tell you, I have literally spooled many, many miles of it on my reels since I started fishing.

“Seaguar fishing lines have helped me fool fish in the clear-water lakes I fished growing up, and it was InvizX that was my choice from the very day I started. And InvizX is still is a line I trust today because it’s super soft and allows me to cast any lure with ease. And I’ve never had a knot I’ve tied with it unravel.”

Everything’s Bigger When Texas-Rigging…Maybe

One of the most weedless/snagless methods of delivering a lure to a lunker is the Texas rig. Zaldain uses 1/4- to 3/8-ounce weights, pegging them to his hook and soft plastic with a bobber stop on 15-pound-test InvizX.

“That particular pound-test isn’t too light for most applications and hook-sets; yet, it’s not so heavy that it hinders the action of your bait,” Zaldain states. “And 15-pound test Seaguar InvizX is as strong as other manufacture’s 20-pound test, but with a smaller overall line diameter. And the thinner a line is, the more bites you’ll get.

“It boils down to the fact that the thinner the line, the more naturally a bait moves in the water. It just moves more like the real thing…period.”

Zaldain is never nervous about using InvizX for his Texas-rigged offerings for near-shore shallow-water fish, even amongst submerged trees or along steep, rocky bluffs; the line’s suppleness allows it to snake through limbs and around shale with ease. Moreover, it has plenty of abrasion resistance to pull even the heftiest largemouth from structure without worrying about getting nicked up and breaking off.

Also, InvizX fluorocarbon has less stretch than monofilament, which allows Zaldain to feel a strike the moment it occurs. This means he’s able to set the hook and pull a fish out of its snag-infested haunt before it even knows it being bit back.

Cover Me, I’m Going in… Carolina-Style

Along thick-and-gnarly structure in deep water is where Zaldain tends to employ the Carolina rig—which was devised to separate the weight from your offering so that the latter has a natural, horizontal free-swimming movement verses the more precise bottom-bouncing motion of a Texas-rigged bait.

“My line of choice with long-leader Carolina rig applications is Seaguar AbrazX because of its extreme abrasion resistance,” Zaldain states.

If structure isn’t extremely dense, Zaldain still uses 15-pound-test – rarely anything lighter. When the bass are utilizing extremely-thick cover, conversely, he will boost his leader to 20-pound test.

Complementing the lower stretch and sensitivity of fluorocarbon, Zaldain prefers what he calls “old-school” lead bullet-style weights over tungsten. With the former, he claims, he can feel what’s on bottom much better.

Telegraphed through the lead weight, line and then rod, he can sense the difference between gravel verses rock, for example, which lets him know when to lift his Carolina-rigged offering up and out of a snag. Zaldain starts with a 3/4-ounce bullet or egg-sinker weight above his bead and swivel, and then adjusts his rig from there.

Lessons Learned

Without a doubt, your line is the only link between you and any fish, whether you’re using the newest technique to hit the tournament trail or the most tried and true rigs ever created, like Texas and Carolina rigs.

Overall, use the lightest line you can get away with, but have different rods spooled with diverse pound test and toughness (abrasion resistance); because where you find fish may change with every cast.

Lake Jordan, Lake Russell and Spot Problems

Last week I went to Lake Jordan just outside Montgomery, Alabama, and Lake Russell near Elberton, Georgia. Both are about three hours from Griffin and both have spotted bass, but they are totally different fisheries.

Jordan is a Coosa River lake and is full of the famous Coosa spots. Its waters are very fertile, the water has a greenish hue from algae, and the shoreline is covered with grass. Grass cover for bass is important for several reasons, among them giving young bass a place to hide from predators and giving adult bass great feeding areas.

Twenty-pound five-fish stringers of spotted bass are common in tournaments there. The fertility and cover make them grow fast and fat, and current moving in the lake brings them easy food, so they don’t have to expend much energy to feed.

Spots are native to Jordan, so they are well adapted to that environment. The population is in balance, with predator and prey at the right levels for the environment. Largemouth are also fairly common in the lake since they fill a slightly different niche and, since the spot population is balanced, they do not over compete with them.

We had a disappointing trip although the conditions seemed perfect. Even though it was Memorial Day, the clouds and threat of rain kept pleasure boaters off the lake. And the low light conditions, combined with current moving in the lake that day, should have put the fish in a feeding mood.

We caught a few fish and they were fat and healthy. The fish did not do what we thought they should, which is not unusual when fishing!

Lake Russell was very different on last Friday. The only common thing was the lack of pleasure boaters.
Shoreline development is not allowed on Russell and it is not near a big city, so it was not crowded. We saw a dozen or so fishing boats but no pleasure boaters even though it was a warm, sunny day.

Russel is not fertile. Its waters are very clear and shoreline grass is rare. Dammed in 1984, Russell is the newest lake in Georgia. It does have current since it has power generators and a pump back system at the dam. Power is generated during the day, so water flows downstream, then at night the same water is pumped back from Clarks Hill immediately downstream.

Since the water is recirculated, it does not carry a nutrient load like the water flowing down the Coosa River. Moving water does give bass easier feeding opportunities on Russell, but there is less food to move.

Spots are not native to Russell. In its early days it took 20-pound limits of largemouth to place in most tournaments. But midnight stocking of spots by bucket biologists introduced them in the 1990s and they have overcrowded the lake. It is rare to catch a largemouth there now.

Some fishermen think they can transport spots to lakes where they are not native and they will do as well as they do at Lake Lanier, a premier spot fishery. But Lanier is very fertile from run-off from chicken processing plants and has more food that spots like. Spots have just about taken over from largemouth at Lanier, too, but they grow fat there.

Not on Russell. We caught a lot of spots, but most were 11 to 13 inches long. You can easily catch 100 spots a day there but if your best five weigh 10 pounds you have caught a good limit of spots, and that weight would place in most tournaments.

Those little spots are fun to catch and good to eat. There is no size limit on spots anywhere in Georgia except Lake Lanier, to encourage fishermen to keep them. A trip to Russell to keep ten spots a day to eat is not only fun and good eating, it will not hurt the fishery.

Closer to home, Lake Jackson was an incredible fishery for big largemouth until the 1990s when spots started taking over. Fishermen put them in the lake and they have badly overpopulated it. We saw the first spots in our tournaments there in the early 1990s but they were rare. Now most of the fish we weigh in are spots.

Spots are more aggressive than largemouth and bed deeper, so they are not as affected by changes in the lake as much. But they do not grow as big as largemouth. An acre of lake can support only so many bass.

Where an acre of water at Jackson used to have, say 100 pounds of largemouth, ranging from one to five pounds or more, now it has 100 spots weighing a pound each.

If you catch spots on any of our lakes except Lanier and a couple of other far north Georgia lakes where they do well, keep a limit to eat.

Trout Unlimited New Science Promotes Trout Recovery

New Science Promotes Trout Recovery

By Chris Wood, CEO/President
Trout Unlimited
from The Fishing Wire

Some define conservation as overseeing loss. Loss of wetlands; loss of open space; loss of water quality; loss of species. Aldo Leopold harkened to this when he wrote in the Sand County Almanac that “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.”

One of the things that Trout Unlimited does so well is to re-frame the question of overseeing loss to one of advancing recovery. Trout and salmon are remarkably resilient creatures. They have survived for millennia, and if given half a chance will respond to restoration. This fact makes a new tool developed by TU scientists and university, state and federal partners so exciting.

Almost every western native trout, and many forms of Pacific salmon and steelhead have been proposed or are listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The historic focus of the ESA is to keep species from becoming extinct. Because resources are so limited, when recovery efforts do occur they often lack the data necessary to evaluate extinction risks and the benefits of management activities based on quantitative information.

Thanks to a grant from NASA, TU scientists, working with universities and state and federal partners, developed a new method of looking across broad landscapes to make informed judgments about where extinction is likely to occur, and how to take concrete steps to improve the security of existing populations and, in some cases, enable successful reintroductions.

Lahonan cutthroat trout, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, are coming back to their native watersheds thanks state-of-the-art techniques used by TU scientists to map and model suitable habitat.
The scientists aggregated 30 years worth of data on Lahontan cutthroat trout—a threatened species under the ESA—across all 211 streams where Lahontans exist, or historically existed, into a searchable database. They then developed advanced modeling and mapping techniques to 1) evaluate extinction risks for Lahontans in each occupied water; 2) evaluate the benefits of removing non-native trout from these streams; and 3) evaluate the likely success of reintroducing Lahontans into waters where they previously existed.

Importantly, they have developed a population simulator that allows partners with fish and wildlife agencies from Nevada, Oregon and California, the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to see the model results and explore impacts of various management actions in terms of how they decrease extinction risks. An equally broad array of partners is looking to use a similar recovery planning tool under development for Bonneville cutthroat trout and redband trout—two other imperiled native trout species.

The scientists call the new approach the Multiple Population Viability Analysis—MPVA. Its wonky name aside it is a game-changing innovation that will allow state and federal agencies and organizations such as TU to begin to think less about overseeing loss and more about recovering imperiled native trout species across broad landscapes. That is incredibly exciting and in keeping with the fact that conservation is not about overseeing loss. Conservation—the notion that we can take specific actions today to leave our children a healthier world—is the single most affirmative, optimistic idea that America ever gave the rest of the world.

Chris Wood is the president and CEO of Trout Unlimited. He lives in Washington, D.C., and works from TU’s Arlington, Va., headquarters.

Jobs Jobs Everywhere

I get to travel all over Georgia and Alabama doing “research” for my Georgia and Alabama Outdoor News articles. Two things stand out from those trips. One I realized several years ago. Alabama lakes, in general, have better bass fishing than Georgia lakes.

There are a variety of reasons, from water fertility to current flow, that make this true.

The second thing has become obvious the last couple of months. Everywhere I go, “help wanted” and “now hiring” signs are posted on businesses from small communities to large cities. From grocery stores and fast food places to trucking and welding firms, there are a lot of jobs out there.

In my opinion, anyone that can work can find a job if they want one.

New Catch Limit for Red Drum

New catch limit for red drum to address overfishing
from The Fishing Wire
(Editor’s Note: South Carolina, like some other southeastern states, is seeing a decline in red drum numbers in recent years. Here’s a report from SCDNR on the issues involved, and what the state is doing about them.)

South Carolina Red Drum

Red drum caught by SCDNR fish surveys are tagged and measured, allowing biologists to track their numbers over time. (Photo: E. Weeks/SCDNR)
CHARLESTON, S.C. – Red drum, redfish, spottail, channel bass – South Carolina’s most popular saltwater gamefish goes by many names and plays a key role in the coastal economy and ecosystems.

In recent years, state biologists have documented a declining trend in the state’s red drum population, which has been underscored by reports from longtime local anglers. These concerns prompted the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) to take a closer look at the species last year, culminating in an assessment that found South Carolina’s red drum population was experiencing overfishing.

The South Carolina General Assembly responded by passing a new law intended to reverse overfishing, which Governor Henry McMaster recently signed. The new catch limit allows two fish per person per day and no more than six fish per boat per day, effective July 1, 2018. The previous catch limit was three fish per person per day, with no boat limit. The slot limit (15-23 inches) remains unchanged.

“We’ve been monitoring red drum populations across the state using the same techniques for nearly 30 years, and what we’ve seen over the last 10-15 years is concerning,” said assistant marine scientist Dr. Joey Ballenger, who oversees SCDNR’s red drum research. “Across the state, we’ve seen declines in abundance of the juvenile fish most commonly targeted by anglers.”

Red drum are renowned for their beautiful copper color and characteristic black tail spots. Red drum reach several feet in length and can be found in all of South Carolina’s coastal waters at different stages of their lives. SCDNR research has shown that the fish reach maturity around four years of age, although adults may live to 40 years old. A healthy population of these adult red drum is critical to the success of the fishery, as the larger a fish is, the greater its contribution of spawn to the next generation of young fish.

Adult red drum spawn in the fall, producing an annual “crop” of new fish. Recently, the crop has been relatively small. Young red drum (1-4 years old), which make up the foundation of fishing in South Carolina’s creeks and rivers, have not been plentiful over the last decade.

Research at SCDNR shows that poor reproductive years are not necessarily unusual for these long-lived species – Ballenger notes that large crops of red drum fish are only produced about twice a decade. However, Ballenger’s team has also discovered that not as many red drum are surviving from one year to the next as in previous generations. The reasons for this poor survival are unclear, but the impact has translated into fewer fish within the slot size limit, which is ultimately expected to mean fewer adult fish annually entering the spawning population.

“Not only are we seeing declines in the annual crop of fish produced by adults, we are seeing that those produced are experiencing higher mortality rates,” Dr. Ballenger said. “Over time, this translates to fewer and fewer adult fish being around to produce the next crop, resulting in a feedback loop that continues the process.”

At the same time these ecological fluctuations have occurred, fishing pressure has increased in South Carolina, especially on large adult fish.

Adult red drum are already protected from harvest in South Carolina. Under current legislation, the fish are only legal to harvest when they fall between 15-23 inches in length – a size range that they reach for a little more than a year of their life.

As a result, the red drum fishery in South Carolina is defined by catch and release – 80% of red drum caught by anglers are released. But even under ideal conditions, studies estimate that 8-16% of caught-and-released fish die after release. Minimizing the death of released adult fish is critical to maintaining good fishing.

The red drum from South Carolina to Florida are managed as a single population, and the status of regional management is currently unclear. This left SCDNR staff with questions about the status of the species in South Carolina, given the declines seen in catch rates of young fish. The agency therefore initiated an assessment of red drum just in South Carolina to better understand the health of this important species in local waters.

The assessment determined that with a three fish per person per day bag limit, not enough red drum are surviving to sustain the population over the long-term.

The study also found that a modest shift in regulations – from three to two fish per person per day – would be enough, in time, to improve the number of fish recruiting into the adult population.

Companion bills codifying new catch limits (two fish per person per day and six fish per boat per day) were introduced in the S.C. Senate and House in early 2018 and received near-unanimous support on both sides of the Assembly. The Coastal Conservation Association of South Carolina played played a key role in advocating the passage of the legislative changes.

The new regulations will take effect on July 1, 2018.

In addition to the legislative changes, SCDNR seeks to address increasing pressure on adult red drum by working with anglers to implement best handling practices. Valuable adult fish are highly susceptible to predators, disease, and exhaustion after release, making proper handling a matter of life or death.

SCDNR urges anglers who target adult red drum to use the following best practices for release:

Use a rig that minimizes the chance of hook damage (short leader, fixed sinker weighing 3 oz. or more, and barbless, non-offset and non-stainless hook)

Use gear that shortens the fight time (20-lb and higher test line)

Keep the fish in the water (take photographs of the fish while during revival and release)

March West Point Tournament

The last Sunday in March 15 members and guests of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our February tournament at West Point. The unusually warm weather had the fish feeding. We landed 66 keeper bass weighing about 101 pounds. All but 8 of the keepers were spotted bass. There were 11 limits, and no one zeroed.

I won with five weighing 12.22 pounds and my 5.35 pound largemouth was big fish. Robert Proctor came in second with five at 11.09 pounds, Billy Roberts placed third with five weighing 9.40 pounds and Javin English was fourth with five at 8.87 pounds.

I went over on Wednesday trying to find some kind of pattern. Thursday afternoon, after catching some bass, I cast a shaky head worm to a rocky point and got a thump. When I set the hook, my rod bowed up and the fish pulled my boat around the small creek for 15 minutes before I was finally able to land a 22-pound flathead catfish. That was a highlight of the trip.

I thought I had a good plan, but Sunday morning started very frustrating. I lost two keepers before finally landing a small keeper at 9:15. At 10:35 I went to the point where William Scott and I had missed a bunch of bites the weekend before and put my fifth keeper in the live well ten minutes later. I was able to hook almost every fish that bit there and had ten keepers in the livewell at 11:15.

After getting my limit I started casting a jig and pig, hoping to catch a big fish, and the big one hit on a nearby point at 11:30. After that I really relaxed, and fished some new places, trying for another big one, but caught only one more keeper the rest of the day.

Jig Fishing

Tips for Jig Fishing in Northern Lakes
By Tony Roach, Northland Tackle
from The Fishing Wire

Walleye caught on jig

Few baits will ever be as successful as the plain lead-head jig like the Northland Current Cutter. As a bait-delivery method or a stand-alone option, it excels for multiple species throughout the country, moving water or stagnant, stained or clear. It can be swam, hopped, plopped, dropped, dragged, shook, pitched, and fished vertically, among other presentations. No matter how you choose to fish it, there’s a species that’ll eat it on every water body near you. However, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easy to fish, and it can be downright challenging if you’ve never been much for jig-fishing.

I learned to fish jigs on a river system in current, which is quite the curveball compared to natural lakes. With moving water, you need to take into account more variables like sweep, casting angle, mono vs. braid, among others. However, with a few pointers, anyone can catch fish with jigs. Here’s a few to get you started in the right direction.

Use the Right Tools for the Job – Start with a lightweight, high-quality carbon-fiber (no fiberglass) rod in an Extra Fast (XF) action, along with a featherweight reel combination. Jig-fishing, perhaps more than any other technique relies heavily on feel, and you simply can’t feel much with poor equipment. While there are techniques that don’t require you to spend as much on a rod and reel, here’s one instance where you really get what you pay for, and better tech quite simply leads to more fish.

Line – Start with braid and a fluorocarbon leader of a few feet in length, joined by an Albright Special or Uni-to-Uni knot. This offers you the best ability to feel the jig, while still having some stealth with the nearly translucent fluorocarbon line up against the jig itself. Mono can excel in certain situations, especially in current where the sweep and way it cuts through the water presents the jig differently, but braid offers you the best feel overall.

Map the Bottom – Your first couple of casts should be an exploratory mission, as you decipher clues that are telegraphed back to your rod-hand. Cast out and let the jig settle to bottom. Then slowly drag it back to you, hopping or with mixed-in quicker pulls along the way. You’re actively figuring out substrate at distance, such that you can understand the big picture and where fish will be holding. Like any experiment, start with a “control” retrieve, and compare various types of retrieves thereafter.

No Cross-Wind Casting – No matter the orientation of shore or where you’re pitching, wind could be the single largest inhibitor to your catch-total for the day. Position your back to the wind, or directly face it to enjoy far better direct contact with what your jig is doing. Drift into a crosswind, and every fish in the lake could hit your bait on a single retrieve, and you’d never know it because of the huge bow in your line. Wind triggers many fish species up shallow, so on these days, mitigate the effect by keeping your rod-tip close to the water and off to one side of the boat to reduce that problem.

Stay Back in Clear Water – Jig fishing can only be productive in the clear shallows when you’re not driving over fish. In hyper-clear water bodies like Mille Lacs, this means fish spook in 10FOW or even more, meaning you have to stay over deep water and simply pitch a little bit further up to the zones you’d like to cover.

Fish From the Outside In – When fish are schooled up near cover, it pays to work your casts from the outside in. As you pick off fish after fish from the outside, you have less chance of disturbing an entire school by casting up to the center of the most prime piece of cover.

When Vertical, Stay That Way – Vertical jigging works really well in deeper water, but only if you keep your rod tip directly over the top of the bait. Poor boat control when fishing vertically leads to baits off bottom, and less ability to detect bites, especially when the bait is under the boat.

Re-Bait – Whether plastics or live-bait, degraded or destroyed additions to a jig hinder the action and direct appeal. Resist the temptation to leave it on for “one-more-cast” and put your best bait forward. It’s amazing how selective fish can be at times, and at the end of the day you may only use a handful more minnows or plastic grubs. Call that cheap insurance to a successful bite.

Focus – Probably the single biggest deterrent to catching fish on a jig is distracted fishing. If you prefer to doze off, drink coffee, or otherwise just relax, start trolling or bobber fishing. The best jig anglers I know are machines. They’re casting, processing bottom content, hooking walleyes, and positioning the boat for the next cast. They’re mentally engaged nearly all of the time, as they pick apart pieces of structure bit-by-bit. While it’s true that the more you pay attention for any fishing scenario, the more you’ll catch, with jig-fishing it’s absolutely critical.

Fishing Lake Eufaula In March

Bass Statue in Eufaula[/caption]

I had a great trip to Lake Eufaula in March. I met Eufaula, Alabama mayor Jack Tibbs to go fishing and get information for a Georgia and Alabama Outdoor News article. And when my club went back in May, I won on some of the places that will be in the August article – they were good in March, good in May and will be good in August!! Jack has been fishing all his life and fishes many tournaments on Eufaula. He came up with an idea for a spinnerbait designed to fish deep ledges on Lake Eufaula, the Ledgebuster, and developed a tackle company from that start.

Strike Zone Lures now makes all kinds of lures, including spinnerbaits, jigs, worms and others. It is very successful nationwide.

We landed about a dozen bass on Wednesday and the biggest five weighed between 20 and 21 pounds. Although Jack caught most of the fish, I landed the biggest, just under six pounds, and Jack had one about five pounds. I also had one at about four and one-half pounds. All the largemouth hit in three feet of water or less on spinnerbaits, swim jigs and even topwater frogs.

The town of Eufaula is historic, with many antebellum mansions and historic sites. I stayed at beautiful Lakepoint State Park Lodge in a spacious room with a nice view of the lake and marina. Thursday morning before heading home, I relaxed on my private deck, drinking coffee while watching squirrels and more than a dozen different kinds of birds looking for breakfast.

The two nights I was there I enjoyed excellent food. The first night I met Jack and his wife at El Jalisco Mexican Restaurant on Broad Street downtown. I got there first and the owner met me at the door. She was friendly and helpful, explaining some of the menu items.

When Jack arrived, he was greeted by almost everyone in the front of the restaurant and the owner was surprised he was the person I was meeting for dinner. We had to sit in the very back booth, so Jack and I could talk. Otherwise we would have never been able to talk due to all the people coming up to our table to speak to him.

Service was good and the food excellent. I had my favorite, Chili Relleno, and, although a little different than what I am used to, it was very good.

The next night we went to the Cajun Corner Grill, on the corner of Broad Street and Highway 431. Although busy, service was good and I really enjoyed the Gumbo and fried scallops. The salad that came with the meal was a surprise, not the usual bland house salad. It had good cheese, cranberrys, orange slices and mushrooms on it.

One highlight of the trip was a visit to the big bass monument. Since becoming mayor, Jack has pushed to take advantage of the biggest resource of the area, the lake. Fishermen come from all over the US to fish Eufaula and bring in a lot of money to the local economy.

This year the city unveiled the bass monument, with the town’s motto “The bass capitol of the world” on it. That self-proclaimed motto is hard to argue with since Eufaula is known for its quality bass fishing, but people flock to the lake to catch crappie, too.

Eufaula is about 2.5 hours away and is worth a trip for the food and sights, but the fishing is always the highlight.

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