Monthly Archives: December 2019

How and Where to Catch October Bass at Lake Allatoona, with GPS Coordinates

October Allatoona Bass

with Brian Cox

October is a great month to go bass fishing anywhere in our state. But mention Lake Allatoona and most fishermen will give you a strange look and ask why go to the “Dead Sea.” That misconception about Allatoona keeps many from enjoying the great fishing there.

Allatoona gets crowded since it is just outside Atlanta. On the weekends in the summer pleasure boaters make it hard to fish during the day. But right now the lake is not nearly as crowded and the spots are biting. Largemouth can be caught this month, too.

Brian Cox grew up in Woodstock and his father and grandfather taught him to fish. He got the bass fishing bug at 12 years old and started fishing Allatoona when he was 15. He now lives near the lake, guides on Allatoona and fishes several tournament trails and pot tournaments on the lake.

Three years ago Brian was won the point standings for Angler of the Year in the ABA trail, winning about ten tournaments that year. He also fishes the Bulldog BFL and AFT tournaments and does well in them. For the past year he has taken some time off from tournament fishing to spend more time with his kids but is getting back into it now

Kids are important to Brian. He loves taking them out on trips and seeing their delight in catching fish. He hopes to start a fishing camp for kids, where they will go for a day camp or for a multi-day camp and learn about fishing.

“October is great on Allatoona,” Brian said. The bass are moving more shallow and feeding, and you can catch them on a lot of patterns and baits. Brian’s favorites include a buzzbait, Zara Spook, crankbait, Fluke, jig and pig and jig head worm. With those baits you can cover any condition any day in October.

Rocks, from pea gravel to chunk rocks are a key, and brush piles and blowdowns increase your odds that bass will be feeding on a spot. Wind makes a big difference and it helps all kinds of places, but clay banks can also be good when the wind is blowing in on them. Points and banks in the mid lake area are where he concentrates his time.

Brian took me to Allatoona in early September to show me the following ten spots and how he catches bass on them. The fish were just starting to hit on some of them but by now all will hold bass.

1. N 34 08.088 – W 84 40.365 – Bass follow the shad and the shad move into creeks and cuts during October, especially later in the month. A good place to check for shallow bass is in the back of the creek just downstream of the Bartow-Carver Camp ramp. This creek goes back and splits into several fingers. Brian likes the one to the right going into the creek.

There are many trees in the water cut by the Alltaoona Tree Cutting Project and by fishermen back in this creek. Brian starts near the mouth of the fork and works all the way around it. He fishes an Albino Shad Zoom Fluke over the trees and along the bank in here. You can keep your boat near the middle of the cut and fish all the wood in the water.

After working the wood with a Fluke, Brian will follow up with a shaky head worm. He likes a one quarter ounce head with a green pumpkin Finesse worm on it. A jig and pig will also catch fish in the trees. Dip the tails of the jig trailer and the Finesse worm in chartreuse JJ’s Magic to make the fish bite better. Spots seem to love a flash of chartreuse.

If you see shad on the surface or balls of them on your depthfinder fish the area slowly and carefully. Brian says this time of year find the shad and you will find the bass, so if baitfish are present the bass will be, too.

2. 34 08.415 – W 84 40.116 – Come out of the creek and stop on the downstream point of the second pocket below the ramp. This bank is shady in the morning and Brian says it is a great place to throw a buzzbait. He will start at the point and work all the way down the bank to the back of the pocket.

For some reason the fish here will put their nose right on the bank so Brian casts so his Strike King white one half ounce buzzbait hits on the bank. He pulls it off the bank without a splash and is ready for a bite as soon as it gets in the water.

If wind is blowing in on this bank it is even better. Some chop on the water really helps the bite anywhere you are fishing on Allatoona. Also keep a watch or surface activity here and be ready to throw a Spook or Sammy to them.

3. N 34 09.512 – W 84 39.881 – Another good bank for topwater and a jig and pig or jig head worm is in Illinois Creek. Go past the buoy at the bend and watch the right bank past it. There are big rocks on this bank and it drops off fast, and bass hold on it and feed on passing shad.

There are some key spots along this bank where big boulders are under the water. Keep your boat out in 30 feet of water and work the jig and pig or jig head worm from the edge all the way out to the boat. When you see or hit the big rocks with your bait out in 15 to 20 feet of water fish that spot carefully.

Fish a topwater bait along this bank, too. With all your baits cast at an angle ahead of the boat. The bank is so steep you will be fairly close to the shore even in 30 feet of water so cast to the bank ahead of the boat and work your bait back at an angle to hit the big boulders.

4. N 34 07.848 – W 84 39.712 – Run up to the Atlanta Yacht Club and go into the creek on the downstream side of it. Go all the way to the split in the back and fish the right side split of it. Start near the point and keep your boat out in the middle of the cove and cast to the bank. There are stumps, brush and rocks back in here that hold the bass.

A jig or jig head worm works well but this is a good crankbait area, too. Brian likes a chartreuse and brown crankbait that will hit the bottom when fishing this area. Fish all your baits all the way to the middle of the creek and make some casts ahead of the boat to cover the channel, too.

5. N 34 08.431 – W 84 38.211 – Running up the river, channel maker 19.5 will be on a point on your left. There are several pockets along this bank across from Gault’s Ferry ramp but Brian likes to fish the upstream point of the second one upstream of the channel marker.

It is ideal, with deep water just off it and clay and rocks on the bank and a blowdown you can see half way into the cove. There are also some trees and brush out from the bank underwater that hold bass.

Start with a buzzbait or Spook casts to the bank and worked out, then go back over the area with your crankbait. Fish over the tip of the blowdown you see and try to find the hidden brush. You can also probe the brush with a jig and pig or jig head worm.

Brian says there are three kinds of rock that hold fish right now. Pea gravel is good, especially when wind is blowing on it. Chunk rocks the size of softballs are good as are boulders. Banks like this one where there is a transition from one kind of rock to another is even better. Fish the edge of the rock change hard.

6. N 34 07.595 – W 84 38.053 – Across the river and upstream is Harbor Town Marina. In a cove just upstream of it is a youth camp with a dock on the downstream side. The point across from the dock is a good one, with clay, rock and a few boulders on it. There are also some blowdowns on the downstream bank..

Start on the point and fish topwater, crankbaits and jigs from the point about half way into the cove. You will be fishing the bank across from the dock. The transition areas are key places and you want to make sure shad are in the area. Also keep an eye out for surface activity.

Work the tips of the blowdowns, too. Try topwater and crankbaits over them then probe them with jigs and jig head worms. Try to hit the ends of the limbs and raise your bait up and let it fall back several times, and jiggle your rod tip to make the bait dance.

7. N 34 08.179 – W 84 38.146 – Just upstream from #5 the river makes a big bend and a huge flat runs out from the left bank going upstream. The flat has small islands on it and some danger markers. If you idle parallel to the flat near the channel, out from the shoal marker near the willow tree on an island just underwater, you will cross a point running off the flat downstream.

This point has pea gravel and other rock on it. The point runs out 30 to 40 yards and drops off into very deep water. It is ideal since it comes out of deep water and leads to a good feeding flat. And there is usually some wind here.

Keep your boat out in 25 to 30 feet of water and make long casts across the point with jigs and worms. Work the bait up one side, across the top and down the other side. If this doesn’t work, cast your jig so it falls straight down on top of the point. Brian says those two methods, working your bait to and through cover or letting it fall straight down into it, are both good.

8. N 34 08.412 – W 84 37.574 – Above the channel bend there is a huge flat off the left bank going upstream. A key area on this flat is a ditch that comes out of a small cove near a danger marker on top of a hump way across the river from channel marker 22 E. The ditch runs out to the river and offers the bass a perfect path.

When wind is blowing across this flat Brian will fan cast it with a crankbait, staying out inabout 15 feet of water. You can catch fish from the danger marker all the way back to #7 working it with a crankbait. Make long casts and try to hit bottom as much as you can with your bait.

Also keep a topwater ready. Brian says fish school up in this area a lot. If you have your Spook or Sammy ready and hit where they are breaking you will catch fish. Some may be hybrids but bass school up here all over this flat.

9. N 34 08.025 – W 84 37.323 – Across the river a big clay bluff point sits on the upstream side of Kellog Creek. There are laydowns and boulders on it as well as clay. Channel marker 22 E sits on the point and it is an excellent one to fish this time of year.

Brian keeps his boat in about 15 feet of water on the downstream side of the point and casts across it with a jig and pig. Most of the boulders are on the upstream side of the point so casting past them and working back through them moves the bait in a natural way. Also fish the blowdowns on the point.

10. N 34 07.948 – W 84 36.843 – Go into Kellog Creek and watch for a big block rock seawall on your left past the first couple of coves. It is just upstream of a house with a huge catfish replica on the roof of the garage. The seawall point holds a lot of big spots and Brian says he has caught several four pounders here.

Start with topwater here and fish all the way around the point to the next small cove. Work it carefully and give the big fish time to chase down your bait. You can also probe it with a jig and pig or jig head worm, or run a crankbait on it.

All these places are great right now throughout October. Try Brian’s favorite baits and your own, and you can find similar places to fish these patterns, too.

To see first-hand how Brian fishes Alltoona call him at and check his website at 770-855-7388 http://www.metroatlantafishing.com/ for more info.

Air Gun for Christmas

A Christmas Air Gun?

By Frank Sargeant, Editor
from The Fishing Wire

Remember “A Christmas Story” the classic movie tale of Ralphie Parker and his dreamed-of Christmas Red Ryder BB gun? If you don’t you’ll probably have a number of chances to see it again within the next week—the film has run on cable channels nearly every Christmas season since it was filmed in 1983.

Basically the film is about Ralphie, a sort of geeky kid circa 1940’s who obsesses on a special model of the venerable BB gun, while his mother is sure it will be his destruction. His beset and frequently blixtoflipblankety-blanking dad (there were no curse words uttered in the film, but lots of near misses from ol’ pop) has to be convinced the gun is OK—which of course he is by the end of the film.

Ralphie defeats a bully, gets the present of his dreams and all live happily ever after, sort of.

There are still a lot of Ralphie Parkers out there who might want an actual shootable gun for Christmas, even in this age of iPhones, Siri and Alexa. And the modern version of the Red Ryder is still around, and still on the Christmas wish list for a lot of kids, particularly those who have grown up in hunting and shooting families. But many older kids and a whole lot of adults might prefer some of the amazing advances in air gun technology that have come along in the last few years—and that are now sold at affordable prices for most of us.

First, a caution—even though Ralphie was a kid who needed glasses and frequent adult advice to stay out of trouble, air guns beyond the “Air-Soft” models do not fall into the category of toys for kids of any age. Even the basic Daisy Red Ryder is capable of causing serious injury to humans, pets, windows, televisions and the paint job on your BMW–anything that can be injured or broken. Like archery gear, which is increasingly popular among young people these post “Catching Fire” days, an air gun used carelessly can be dangerous.

With that provision, responsible older kids under adult supervision—and responsible adults—might well have an air-powered BB gun or pellet rifle on their Christmas list this year. The guns are far quieter than even a .22 short rimfire and their range is far more limited, making it possible to enjoy target practice safely and without bothering the neighbors in safely backstopped areas that are not miles out of town. In families where firearms are part of the legacy, they can make a good first gun for training.

It’s also a big plus that ammo costs a fraction of what standard ammunition costs—you can do many hours of shooting for what it would cost for a few minutes with center-fire or even rim-fire conventional firearms.

For those who get more serious about air gun shooting, there are now big bore air guns with amazing power that are actually being used to take deer and other big game. They’re expensive, noisy and of course dangerous when used carelessly, but it’s a mark of the strides airgun manufacturers have made in recent years to develop this sort of power. Daisy is by far the best-known manufacturer of air guns in the U.S.—the company has been making them since 1895.

The company and their Gamo subsidiary make a broad spectrum of air rifles, both bb guns that shoot round steel bb’s and pellet guns, which fire larger rifled slugs in .177 or .22 sizes. (Some larger-bore rifles in the .35 size are also available now for hunting, but are much above the entry-level pricing.) Pellet guns are more powerful and more accurate at longer ranges than BB guns. In fact, they’re used in the Olympics—there are 10-meter (about 32.8 feet) events in both pistol and rifle divisions. To be sure, the rifles used by these super-accurate shooters are very, very pricey—some made by Anschutz list at over $4,500.But it’s possible to get into air gun shooting very economically.

The classic Daisy Red Ryder is still just 25 bucks at Wal-Mart. And much improved entry-level pellet rifles are also surprisingly affordable. One of the more interesting offerings this year is the new Gamo Swarm Maxxim, a 10-shot repeater that comes with a 3 x 9 x 40 mm scope for about $180.

The Swarm is no kid’s toy—it can shoot a .177 pellet at up to 1300 feet per second according to the manufacturer. (A .22 version is also available.) A .22 short rimfire goes down range at around 1100 feet per second, so clearly the Swarm has to be treated as any firearm, never pointed at anything one would not want to shoot, never loaded except when shooting is imminent and always treated as if it were loaded, even when thought to be empty.

The repeating function is a big plus in the Swarm—most pellet guns require you to cock the gun, insert a pellet and fire, then cock again, insert another pellet and so on. It’s slow and bothersome when target shooting. The Swarm uses a rotating cylinder to hold 10 pellets, so it’s possible to shoot 10 times without reloading. A counter on the side of the cylinder shows how many shots are left. The scope also adds another dimension to the rifle—it’s got the same adjustments for windage and elevation as scopes costing a whole lot more, and optic quality is good for the price level. (If you’re not familiar with sighting in a scope, there are plenty of good videos on the internet to show you how—basically right and left adjustments are on the side dial, up and down on the top dial.)

To shoot, you simply pull down on the barrel to recharge the gun with air, close it up, release the safety, aim and fire. Once sighted in, accuracy is on a par with conventional rifles at short ranges, out to about 30 yards, and good shooters can hit a golf ball at 50 to 80 yards.

Not only is the gun good for target shooting, if you’ve got a pesky squirrel chewing holes in your eaves—which I did prior to getting the Gamo—it can be a very quick solution. (Before you write, note that squirrel season is open across Alabama Sept. 14 to March 8, with the limit 8 daily.)

To get more details on air guns, visit https://gamousa.com or https://www.daisy.com. For those who get into air gun shooting seriously there are national competitions, including the upcoming Camp Perry Open Jan. 13-17 near Port Clinton, Ohio—see details here: http://thecmp.org/air/cmp-competition-center-event-matches/camp-perry-open.

Purging Fishing Equipment

Fishermen, especially bass fishermen, can never have enough equipment. Anytime anything new hits the market, we buy it. If we don’t have a bait a professional fisherman uses to win a big tournament, you can bet that bait will soon be in our tackle box.

Walk into Berrys Sporting Goods and you will be dazzled by the colors and variety of bass baits. Crankbaits look like little fish but come in colors Mother Nature never dreamed possible. Spinnerbaits look like wire contraptions with spinners on one arm, lead head and skirt on the other and do not look like anything in nature. And many baits look like nothing on earth.

My “tackle box” is a 20-foot bass boat with six storage compartments, several of them big enough for me to get inside and close the lid. And they are all full of rods and lures.

Every few years I try to simplify my fishing, taking rods, lures and worms that I have not used in a couple of years out of the boat. Boxes of those unused lures line my garage wall after a purge, but somehow seem to make their way back into the boat over the next few months, just in case I want to try them.

Preparing for a tournament, I usually rig about 21 rods with baits. Up front on one side of the casting platform I have seven rigged with baits I plan to use, based on time of year we are fishing. On the other side I have seven more rigged with baits I might use. On the back, if I do not have a partner, I have seven more just-in-case baits.

In a typical tournament I use four or five of the ones I plan on using, usually during the first hour. Then I settle down and stick with one or two, usually a jig and a shaky head. Normally I never pick up any of the other rods I have ready.

I’m trying to simplify again. I basically have two color worms I use on my shaky head, and I have a dozen 20 packs of each color so I won’t run out. I am taking out the 30 two-gallon zip loc bags filled with colors I have not used in the past year.

With the jig and pig, I again use two colors of jigs and two colors of matching trailers. I don’t need the 25 other colors of both!

There are crankbaits in my boat I bought back in the 1970s and have been moved from boat to boat nine times, but probably not tied on a line in 40 years. The two-gallon bags of “spare” spinnerbaits have been unused so long their skirts are gummy and hooks are rusty. No point in carrying them.

Even after I finish getting rid of all the unnecessary junk, my boat will still be full. And no doubt things will somehow move back in to my boat during the year, never used and purged again at some future date.

What Is the Oldest Fish Alive?

112-Year-Old Fish has Broken a Longevity Record

By Sean Landsman
from The Fishing Wire

Scientists just added a large, sucker-mouthed fish to the growing list of centenarian animals that will likely outlive you and me.

A new study using bomb radiocarbon dating describes a bigmouth buffalo that lived to a whopping 112 years, crushing the previous known maximum age for the species—26—by more than fourfold.

That makes the bigmouth buffalo, which is native to North America and capable of reaching nearly 80 pounds, the oldest age-validated freshwater bony fish—a group that comprises roughly 12,000 species.

“A fish that lives over 100 years? That’s a big deal,” said Solomon David, assistant professor at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, who was not involved in the study.

In recent years, thanks to more advanced aging techniques, scientists have discovered many species of fish live longer than originally thought—the Greenland shark, for instance, can live past 270 years. Despite the age of fish being a basic aspect of their biology, we often know very little about a fish’s expected lifespan.

Carbon dating

Before the study authors even aged a single fish, they had a hunch that these fish, which live mostly in the northern U.S. and southern Canada, lived longer than thought.

The team removed thin slices of otolith—small calcified structures that help fish balance while they swim—from 386 wild-caught bigmouth buffalo, most of which were harvested by bowfishers. The researchers then used a microscope to count the growth rings on each slice of otolith. Their first counts yielded estimates of fish that live more than 80 and 90 years old. (Related: “Meet the animal that lives for 11,000 years.”)

When study leader Alec Lackmann first saw those numbers, he says his reaction was: “There’s no way!”To validate these extraordinary age estimates, Lackmann, a graduate student at North Dakota State University, and colleagues turned to bomb radiocarbon dating, a well-established method that compares the amount of the isotope carbon-14 in animal tissue to concentrations of carbon-14 released in the mid-1900s during atomic bomb testing. The method has been used to age everything from human remains to sharks.

They then cross-checked their otolith results with bomb radiocarbon dating and found a match—validating the estimates of a lifespan between 80 and 90 years, according to the study, recently published in the journalCommunications Biology.

In total, five bigmouth buffalo surpassed 100 years of age, but a 22-pound female caught near Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, became the 112-year-old record-setter. “She was actually on the smaller end of the mature individuals,” Lackmann notes.

Aging population

The first 16 fish Lackmann aged were all over 80 years old, highlighting another surprising finding: Many of the fish were born prior to 1939, suggesting a reproductive failure spanning decades. The likely cause of this failure is dam construction, which impedes—or outright blocks—upstream movement to spawning grounds.
(See “Rare whales can live to nearly 200, eye tissue reveals.”)

Indeed, bigmouth buffalo are often called “trash fish,” because they’re not usually eaten and are erroneously lumped in with invasive U.S. species like common carp. But Lackmann argues “we should move away from that term, because it maligns far too many native species.

”David agrees, saying that it “automatically detracts value from the organism itself,” which, in the case of the bigmouth buffalo, has an important role in maintaining the health of its native rivers—displacing invasive carp.
(See the overlooked world of freshwater animals.)

Though historically unpopular as a sport fish, the bigmouth buffalo is increasingly a target of bowfishers, which shoot fish with bow-and-arrow, often at night with spotlights.

Almost all U.S. states where bigmouth buffalo are found have no limits on sport or commercial harvests. The fish is not considered threatened in the U. S. but is of special conservation concern in Canada. Lackmann and David hope the discovery of the bigmouth buffalo’s amazing longevity will help boost its profile.“I hope that knowing this cool fact about them will have people look at this species more closely,” David says.

Jackson Tournament and Fool On the Lake

Saturday, December 7, 17 members of the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished our last tournament of the year at Jackson. After eight hours of casting, we brought in 38 12-inch keeper bass weighing about 54 pounds. Almost all of them were spots. There were five five-fish limits and seven fishermen didn’t have keeper.

I won with five weighing 7.89 pounds, Mitchell Cardell placed second with five at 7.11 pounds, Raymond English was third with five at 7.01 pounds and Trent Grainger came in fourth with five weighing 6.42 pounds. Doug Acree had big fish with a 3.27 pounder.

I started on deep rocky banks and fished them all day. My first keeper hit a jig and pig slowly crawled down the dropping rocks at 7:30 and was a 2.98-pound spot, so I had a good start. About an hour later I caught two more keepers on the jig on back to back cast on the end of a rocky point.

At 9:30 I missed two bites on the jig by a log on a bluff bank, then landed my fourth keeper on a shaky head thrown to the same log. I guess the smaller bait got in the fish’s mouth better.

For the next three hours I tried hard but got no bites. Then I tried to skip my bait under a dock, got hung on it and got a bad backlash. After easing up to the dock and getting my bait, I let the boat drift against the dock while picking out the backlash. My jig was hanging off the end of the rod, down in the water about six feet deep by the dock.

My fifth keeper grabbed the jig and about jerked the rod out of my hand, setting the hook on itself. It was on of those fish just meant to be caught. I got another keeper at 1:00 on the same bank as the first one I caught that morning.

With about an hour left to fish I was working up a long point in the middle of a wide cove. My boat was about 50 yards off the bank and pointed toward the bank as I cast to it.

I heard a boat enter the cove behind me to my right. He slowed way down, making a huge wake, went behind me, up the left side of the point then across it in front of me, about 20 yards off the bank. Then he sped up and went further back in the cove.

I don’t know whether he was an idiot, inconsiderate slob, or mad because I was fishing “his” place. He was in a bass boat, and I hate other fishermen that are so stupid. I kept hoping he would run aground on the rocks up shallow on that point. If you fish much, you just have to put up with fools like that.

Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act

House Passes Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act

By Jesse Allen
from The Fishing Wire

Fishing—in particular flyfishing—has inspired me to travel the world, ostensibly to pursue species commonly targeted with fly and light tackle such as bonefish, tarpon and permit. Like most anglers, it’s the encounters with exotic ecosystems and the wildlife they produce that inspires me to explore, rod in hand.

The most unforgettable encounter of my fishing career took place not far from home, in the blue wilderness called the Gulf of Mexico off southeast Texas. It’s an area I fish regularly for a variety of species. On that trip, I targeted sharks. That trip inspired an appreciation for apex predators and the reasons to protect them.

In 2005 Capt. Brandon Shuler guided me to a seamount that rises from about 300 feet to 80 feet of water southeast of Port Mansfield. Massive schools of forage fish, menhaden and pilchards, dappled the calm, green water as they circled the structure, attracting myriad predators to the surface. False albacore and blackfin tunas blitzed through the bait. Amberjacks ambushed from the cover of the reef below. But the sharks were the real “lions” of this watery domain. Thousands of them had aggregated over that reef, presumably to gorge themselves on the bait and gather energy for the rigors of their springtime mating.

I was so enraptured by the scene that Capt. Brandon had to remind me why we came.“Cast, cast,” he shouted, as the biggest blacktip I’ve ever seen crossed the bow heading right to left. I tossed a greenback streamer to the marauding shark. The fish charged the offering, and I set the hook. Between its spinning, high-flying leaps, the fleeing fish spun off line deep into the backing. But Brandon maneuvered the boat to our collective advantages in ways that put maximum pressure on the shark, which allowed us to land it quickly, without thoroughly exhausting the animal.

We photographed it. Then we took the measurements necessary to use in a formula that closely estimates weight. We felt a rush of excitement and relief as we realized we’d broken a Texas state record, while the shark swam vigorously away. The fish, landed on a 12-weight fly rod and 20-pound tippet, weighed and estimated 110 pounds.

No Hands Clapping

My record hardly made a splash in the news at the time. Media coverage of sharks in Texas typically focuses on Mexican lanchas poaching the animals in U.S. waters to sell in the fin trade—a trade that is an international scourge and blight on marine ecosystems.

Sadly, U.S. fishermen and seafood purveyors are still allowed to participate in an industry that is decimating ocean ecosystems around the world. The legal sale of shark fins by U.S. vendors perpetuates the market, one that encourages illegal fishing and overfishing all over the world. Poorly regulated or unregulated shark fishing can and has caused ecosystems to collapse, along with fishing-based economies.

Essential Predators

Depending on the species, sharks are high-level or apex predators. Their positions at the top of food webs put them in charge of removing the weak and the sick from fish and invertebrate populations lower on the food web, and of keeping the food web in balance. Without sharks, populations of predators lower in the food web can grow out of balance.

On a trip to The Bahamas, a nation that has banned commercial shark fishing to protect its ecosystems and tourism, a biologist-turned-fishing-guide taught me how sharks are essential in keeping jack populations in check. If jacks become overpopulated, they eat too many of the parrotfish and other grazers that clean algae from corals and seagrasses. That’s just one way that sharks protect robust, balanced food webs.

Economics 101

Recreational fishing, especially fishing-related travel, is expensive. I shudder to think what I’ve spent over the years getting myself and my expensive equipment into the world’s most sublime waters. Anglers like me drive the massive boat and tackle industries, as well as coastal economies, around the nation, and around the world. But like most anglers, I’m not going to spend hard-earned money to visit places with badly damaged ecosystems devoid of high-level predators. In fact, it angers me when mismanagement of a fishery or ecosystem undermines my investments in our sport.

There are a couple of ways to ruin coastal and marine ecosystems, and the economies they support. Pollution may be the most recognized and recognizable culprit. But overfishing—especially overfishing of high-level predators—especially in combination with pollution and habitat loss—is a quick course to collapse and economic despair.

According to experts, exports of shark fins generates only about $1 million annually for U.S. purveyors. I would wager that anglers spend at least that much in every shark-fishing destination around the country, in places such as Palm Beach, Florida and the Florida Keys, Louisiana, as well as in southeast Texas and Southern California. That’s not counting the goods and services that living sharks provide ecosystems.

Most shark species are easily overfished. They live a long time and reproduce infrequently, giving live birth to a few offspring every few years. Sadly, we are killing sharks at perilous rates, amid mountains of uncertainty, and in changing ecosystems.

By the numbers

U.S. fisheries managers don’t have adequate stock status data for over 62% of domestic shark stocks. Only 12 out of 64 stocks with data are not experiencing overfishing and are not overfished. That’s alarming. One of the driving factors behind shark mortality is the demand for their fins, which I contend should be eliminated in the United States.

Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act (S. 877)

Shark finning is illegal in U.S. waters. However, fins can be sold as part of the whole shark or detached once the shark is onshore. The import/export trade also results in thousands of pounds of shark fins passing through U.S. ports and ending up in our marketplaces. Many of the fins come from countries with lax or non-existent shark-fishing regulations, including countries that still allow shark finning.

By allowing the sale of shark fins, and supporting illegal and unsustainable shark fishing, the United States besmirches its reputation as a leader in marine conservation. In fact, the very practice of shark finning flies in the face a national conservation ethos evidenced by our stewardship of special ecosystems through national parks, self-imposed excise taxes on recreational fishing gear that benefit wildlife, and massive investments in ecosystem restoration initiatives such as Everglades Restoration.

The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act (S. 877), which just passed the U.S. House of Representatives, would prohibit the possession, sale and trade of shark fins in the United States. It would not prohibit the sale of shark meat, including the sale of meat from the increasingly popular and prolific spiny dogfish.Now it’s the Senate’s turn: passing the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act into law would go a long way toward protecting sharks, repairing our reputation as conservationists, and protecting domestic and international ecosystems that drive coastal economies. The Senate needs to pass S. 877 now.

How and Where to Catch September Lake Lanier Bass with GPS Coordinates

September 2013 Lanier Bass

with Rob Jordan

Tired of summer doldrums fishing for bass in deep water and not catching much? There is light at the end of September, when water starts cooling and bass get more shallow and active on our lakes. But why wait several more weeks? You can catch some big spots at Lanier right now.

Lanier is a big lake at 40,000 acres and since it is just northeast of Atlanta it gets heavy pleasure boat traffic, especially on weekends. And it gets a lot of fishing pressure. The lake is known for its big spotted bass that took advantage of the introduction of blueback herring. Five pound spots are caught often and most tournaments are won on spotted bass, with five-fish limits weighing 15 pounds common.

Rob Jordan grew up fishing Lanier and now lives in Swanee. His cousin Jim Murray, Jr. got him started tournament fishing and taught him a lot about catching bass. Rob also worked with Jim painting custom lures and Rob has a business making realistic looking baits. He also guides on Lanier and fishes tournaments. Next year Rob plans on fishing the FLW Everstart and BASS Opens.

This year Rob fished the Savannah River BFL trail and is right on the qualifying point to fish the Regional at Lanier with one tournament to go. He hopes to do well in the Regional on his home lake.

Rob’s best five spots in a tournament on Lanier weighed 21.5 pounds. This summer he has had big fish in two night tournaments. Two years ago he placed third in the Weekend Series on Lanier and was in the top ten in the BFL there that year. He knows the lake and how to catch good spots.

“Lanier is a fantastic lake but you have to understand the waters and when the bass bite to do well,” Rob said. It is a unique lake and you won’t catch the big spots by fishing like you do on other lakes.

“The biggest spots are hard to catch since they roam the lake, living in water 50 to 60 feet deep,” Rob told me. Weather and moon phases are keys to figuring out the bite. And you have to fish in the right places to catch the quality spotted bass.

September is a transition month for spots on Lanier and you can catch some really big fish, especially late in the month. Last year Rob got a six pound, six ounce spot toward the end of September on a guide trip. But you can catch quality fish starting right now.

A wide variety of baits will catch spots on Lanier this month. Rob will have a drop shot worm and a shaky head worm ready for slower fishing. When the bite is good he likes a swim bait or a top water plug. All these baits are fished in deep water, with his boat often sitting in 80 plus feet of water and fishing water that is 30 feet deep.

Rob will try a variety of depths and lures until he finds where the bass are feeding, and that depth will usually be consistent all over the lower lake. The key is a long point or hump that drops off into very deep water. Standing timber in the deep water and brush or rocks on the humps and points make those places much better.

Rob took me to the following ten spots in early August and we caught fish on most of them. They are good right now and will get even better as the month progresses.

1. N 34 10.029 – W 84 02.492 – Green channel marker 3SC in Shoal Creek sits on a rocky hump right by the channel. There is also a danger marker on it and one small bush stuck out of the water when we were there. The hump is right off an island, too. It always holds bass, according to Rob, and it typical of the type place he fishes this month.

There is brush all over and around it as well as the natural rocks to hold feeding fish. Rob says it is important to locate the brush piles and fish them, so ride it with your electronics and mark the brush. Good electronics will even show the fish in the brush and how they are setting up on it.

Start on the upstream end and work the whole area, keeping your boat out in the channel. Wind rippling the surface of the water is critical here and on other spots to make the fish active, and overcast days help, too.

If there is some wind and some clouds try a big swim bait like the Bucca Bull Herring hard swim bait or a Zman Grass KickerZ over the brush. Topwater plugs like a big Spook or Sammy will draw the bass up to the top from the brush.

If the water is slick or it is sunny Rob will fish a Zman StreakZ on a drop shot or a Big Bass Baits jig head with a worm on it in the brush. It is important to get the baits right on the fish so work each brush pile carefully, especially if you see fish in or around it.

2. N 34 11.681 – W 83 03.607 – Run over to Young Deer Creek and right in the mouth of it on the left side going upstream marker 1YD sits on a hump with a danger marker and some bushes on top. Again, it is right on the channel where deep water is very close to shallow water.

Your boat should be in about 100 feet of water and you want to fish brush around 30 feet deep. Rob says 30 foot deep water is usually a good depth in September but they may feed a little shallower later in the month. If you are not catching fish in the deeper brush, or if you see them in more shallow brush, try it.

Rob says bass are caught here every day. There are a lot of brush piles and big rocks on the hump to cover. Try all your baits around them.

A big swim bait is Rob’s go-to bait if he wants quality fish. In a tournament where five bites from big fish is all you want, try the Bull Herring worked slowly over the brush. Rob’s custom painted versions are best since the spots on Lanier see so many swim baits but all will catch bass.

3. N 34 11.766 – W 84 03.499 – Across the mouth of Young Deer Creek channel marker 2YD sits on a deep rocky point that is excellent. Rob fishes the downstream end of the point where it runs out parallel to the channel. You will be sitting in 70 to 100 feet of water when fishing the end of the point.

First try the swimbaits and topwater. Always keep a topwater plug ready to cast immediately to surfacing fish. We caught a couple the day we fished when they came up near us. They may not stay up long so be ready. If the spots are consistently schooling on top but not staying long, Rob will stand in the front of the boat with a topwater bait ready to cast, waiting on them to come up again.

4. N 34 12.494 – W 84 01.432 – An island sits in the mouth of Six Mile Creek and marker 4SM sits just off it. The creek channel is on one side and the river channel on the other. Rob says this is one of the best big spot holes on the lake and he caught a six pounder here.

There are stumps and brush piles on the point on the downstream side of the island where the big spots live. Rob says a big swim bait or topwater is the way to go here for the big ones. Work both baits all around the point, concentrating on brush piles and stump beds you find with your electronics.

Rob fishes both hard and soft swimbaits with a steady retrieve and keeps them near the surface is there is cloud cover or wind on the water. When a fish hits he sets the hook with a sweep of his rod, not a hard set, and does not drop the rod tip.

If there is little wind or if the spots just don’t seem to eat the big bait, Rob will drop down to the smaller size Zman SwimmerZ soft swim bait. He fishes the soft baits on a three sixteenths to three quarter ounce jig head depending on how the fish set up. The lighter head is better for running the bait shallow but the bigger head will allow you to fish it a little faster and deeper.

5. N 34 13.464 – W 84 01.406 – Further up Six Mile Creek it narrows way down right at channel marker 7SM. There are several good humps and points in this area. The left side going upstream, between the last cove on that side to the point where the creek narrows way down, have the better ones.

The danger marker on the left sits between two long points that are excellent. Sit out in 45 feet of water and cast up into 25 to 30 feet of water. There are a couple of road beds, an old house foundation and brush piles on the points. Fish them all.

The pinch point where the creek narrows way down funnels fish into this area as they move up the creek in the fall. Rob says when the water temperature drops into the 70s it is like a switch turns on and the bass get into action chasing bait. Swim baits and topwater are even better when it cools down.

6. N 34 14.772 – W 83 56.843 – Run up the river to the mouth of Flat Creek. A big island sits in the mouth of it and red channel marker 26 is on a point where the river channel swings in toward it. Rob says bass live here year round and it is always good, but in September even more bass get on the point while moving into the creek.

Sit out in 40 feet of water and cast up on the point with all your baits, starting shallow and working deeper. There are rocks and brush piles here that hold the fish. If you can’t find the brush with your electronics, drag a jig head worm along the bottom until you hit rocks or brush and work it.

7. N 34 13.602 – W 83 55.772 – For a change of pace run into Mud Creek all the way to the narrow creek channel in the back. Rob fishes docks back in places like this. Spots and some big largemouth can be found back around docks in creeks as the water cools. Fish all the docks from the ones on the left past the big rocky point where it narrows down all the way around the creek.

Try a one eighth to three sixteenths ounce jig head with a Zman finesse worm on it. Fish all of each dock, from the deepest water in front of it to the back under the walkway. The bass may be feeding anywhere around the docks.

The bass will be on the outside deeper docks early in the month but move further back as the water cools. Since the weather this summer has been fairly cool and the rain and cool weather in the middle of August kept the water temperatures down, they may move further back sooner this year.

8. N 34 13.967 – W 83 56.271 – Going out of Mud Creek Old Federal day use park with a boat ramp is on your left. Past it a long point runs out toward the main lake and there is an island off the bank, with danger markers between it and the main point.

Stop about even with the island in Mud Creek and idle over the ridge that runs out on that side toward the Mud Creek channel. This ridge runs way out and has rock and brush on it, and bass stack up on it all summer long. Even more move to it as they follow shad back into the creek in the fall.

Sit in about 40 feet of water and cast up on top of the ridge to 20 to 30 feet of water. Try all your baits. When using a drop shot in the brush Rob likes to pitch it ahead of the boat a little rather than fishing it straight under the boat. He will let the lead hit bottom, raise his rod tip to keep the bait up off the bottom and twitch it in one place, moving the lead very slowly as he works it around the brush.

9. N 34 13.447 – W 83 57.774 – Out off the end of the point with Old Federal Campground there is a big flat point with a danger marker off a small island with bushes on top. There are brush piles all over it but Rob’s favorite area of this big point is downstream of the island and danger marker.

As in other places, start with topwater and swim baits over the brush piles you locate with your electronics, then try the dropshot and shaky head. Rob likes a light one sidxteenths to one eight head, as light as conditions will allow, since the slow fall will often draw a strike.

Rob lets the shaky head hit bottom then slowly drags it along with an occasional snap of the rod tip to make it wiggle and jump. Many people shake it in one place, as the name implies, but Rob moves it slowly along the bottom without constant shaking.

10. N 34 11.424 – W 83 58.442 – In Flowery Branch across from the Van Pugh ramp a long underwater point runs off the upstream side of the danger marker between the small island and the main point. This point actually runs off Van Pugh park out to the island then on out toward the creek channel.

Stay out on the creek end of the point and work it with all your baits. Resident fish live here and more move in during the fall. If you are fishing a tournament use big baits for a few quality bites. Use smaller topwater baits like the Sammy 100 early in the fall but go bigger later. For numbers the shaky head or drop shot will get more bites.

All these places hold bass right now and will get better as the month progresses and the water gets cooler. Give them a try and you can find many more just like them.

For a guide trip with Rod to see first hand how he fishes Lanier call him at 770-873-7135 and check his web site at http://robjordanfishing.com Also check out his custom painted baits at http://www.xtremelurecreations.com

Mako Shark Tracking

Mako Shark Tracking Reveals “Impressive” Memory and Navigation

from The Fishing Wire

These top predators travel far across the Pacific, returning to the same areas in the Southern California Bight each year. The largest effort ever to tag and track shortfin mako sharks off the West Coast has found that they can travel nearly 12,000 miles in a year. The sharks range far offshore, but regularly return to productive waters off Southern California, an important feeding and nursery area for the species.

The findings demonstrate “an impressive show of memory and navigation.” The sharks maneuver through thousands of miles of the Pacific but return to where they have found food in years past, said Heidi Dewar, a research fisheries biologist at NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California.Researchers tagged 105 mako sharks over 12 years—from 2002 to 2014. The tags record the sharks’ movements, as well as the environments the sharks pass through.

Researchers have long recognized that ocean waters from Santa Barbara south to San Diego, known as the Southern California Bight, are an important habitat for mako sharks. Prior to this study, however, they knew little about what the sharks do and where they went beyond those waters.The researchers are from NOAA Fisheries, Stanford University, Tagging of Pacific Predators, and the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education in Baja California. They reported their results in the journal Animal Biotelemetry.

“We did not know what their overall range was. Were there patterns that they followed?” asked Nicole Nasby-Lucas, a NOAA Fisheries research scientist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and lead author of the new research. “It turns out they have their own unique movement patterns.

” Sharks tracked over multiple years returned to the same offshore neighborhoods year after year.

Long-Range Travelers The tagging data overall revealed that the sharks travel widely along the West Coast. They venture as far north as Washington, as far south as Baja California, and westward across the Pacific as far as Hawaii. The sharks tagged off California remained on the eastern side of the Pacific east of Hawaii. This indicates that they do not mix much with mako sharks in other parts of the Pacific.

A roughly seven-foot female mako shark followed similar courses into the Pacific and back to the California Coast over three consecutive years.

Although there are examples of mako sharks crossing the ocean, it is probably the exception rather than the rule, said Dewar, a coauthor of the new research.The finding provides insight into population dynamics of mako sharks across the Pacific. It also allows scientists to identify which fisheries the tagged mako sharks might encounter. Muscular mako sharks are a popular sport fishing target. They are also caught in U.S. longline and drift gillnet fisheries and are common in the international trade in shark fins.

Mako sharks are overfished in the Atlantic Ocean, but not in the Pacific.The researchers used two types of tags to track the sharks. One type, called pop-up tags, collect data and eventually pop off the animal and float to the surface, where they transmit their data via satellite. The second type transmits data to satellites each time the shark surfaces, determining the animal’s location by measuring tiny shifts in the frequency of the radio transmission.

Remembering Southern California Mako sharks are among the fastest swimmers in the ocean, hitting top speeds of more than 40 miles per hour. The larger tagged sharks traveled an average of about 20 miles a day and a maximum of about 90 miles per day. They travel long distances in part because they must swim to move water through their gills so they can breathe, Dewar said.

Large numbers of juvenile sharks caught in the Southern California Bight indicate that it is a nursery area for the species. Tagged mako sharks returned there annually, most typically in summer when the waters are most productive. The tracks of the tagged sharks may look at first like random zig-zags across the ocean, Dewar said. They actually illustrate the sharks searching for food and mates based on what they remember from previous years.

“If you have some memory of where food should be, it makes sense to go back there,” Dewar said. “The more we look at the data, the more we find that there is a pattern behind their movements.”The tagging results also provide a wealth of data that scientists can continue to plumb for details of the sharks’ biology and behavior. About 90 percent of the time the sharks remained in the top 160 feet of ocean, for example, occasionally diving as deep as 2,300 feet. Although the sharks traveled widely, they mainly stayed in areas with sea surface temperatures between about 60 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

“We can continue to ask new questions of the data to understand these unique movement patterns,” Nasby-Lucas said. “There’s a lot more to learn.”

Juvenile shortfin mako shark swimming in the waters off California. Photo credit: Walter Heim.

Fishing Lake Chickamauga

Chickamauga Bass with Jeremy York

Chickamauga has been the best bass lake in the Southeast, if not in the whole country, the past few months. Many eight pound plus bass have been landed and in most tournaments you didn’t even need to weigh in if you had five bass weighing less than 25 pounds.

The bad news is the patterns producing those incredible stringers working the first three months this year are over. The good news is those bass are still there, hungry in May and can be caught on a variety of new patterns.

Chickamauga is a TVA Lake just outside Chattanooga on the Tennessee River. It runs 59 miles from the dam up to the Watts Barr Dam, with many big feeder creeks. Although it is not in Georgia or Alabama, many fishermen in our state are less than three hours away and make the trip often. If you are not one of them you are missing out on some incredible bass fishing.

Jeremy York owns Angler’s Warehouse near Athens, Georgia. Two years ago one of his pro staff invited him to sample the great bass fishing that was just being discovered on Chickamauga. He went up and caught some big bass and fell in love with the lake. He now makes the three hour drive several times a week in the winter and does some guiding on the lake, about 25 trips so far this year.

Jeremy is a tournament fisherman and fishes the pro trails as well as local and regional tournaments. In the BFL on Chickamauga in March he weighed in five bass weighing 30.25 pounds – and came in third! In another tournament he had five weighing 27 pounds and came in 14 place.

In five guide trips in March he and his clients had their five best weighing 26, 39, 36, 30 and 32 pounds. That is better than a six pound average for four of the five trips.

In five trips this year he and his clients have landed an eight pound plus fish in each. One of his best trips was with a father and son. Within a few minutes of starting the father landed an 8.75 pound largemouth, he landed a 6.5 pounder and then the son landed an 8.68 pound fish, all within the first hour.

Jeremy found a pattern that works great from the beginning of January through March. When the water temperature hits 48 degrees the bass really turn on and 48 to 52 is the ideal water temperature. It starts slowly as soon as the water reaches 45 degrees. The pattern holds until the water gets to about 58 degrees, usually around the first of April, and the bass head toward the bedding areas.

Although this pattern is over this year, it is worth remembering for next year. Jeremy came up with the idea for the Extreme Bait Ball Rig that is sold by Picasso. It is an Alabama rig with teasers on the arms, so it looks even more like a school of baitfish. That is what he caught the big bass on from January through March.

He rigs it with one eighth ounce Buckeye Jewell heads on the hook arms and rigs them and the teaser attachments with either a 3.5 or 4.5 inch Shadalicious blue gizzard or Texas shad swimbaits. For bigger bass he runs the 4.5 inch bait on the hooks with smaller ones on the teasers, or runs the bigger size on all.

The ideal rig for throwing this heavy bait is an I Rod Bama Rig Special Genesis II rod with a Revo SX reel spooled with 80 pound Power Pro braid. He tried several reels and all wore out in a few trips except the Revo.

There are three things to remember when throwing this rig. Lob it, don’t make a usual cast. Keep reeling when you feel something until the bass almost jerks the rod out of your hand. You will hit stumps with it and if you set the hook you are unlikely to get the rig back. And finally, when you do hang up, keep your line tight as you go to it, go past the hangup and pop it loose with small pops of the rod tip.

Jeremy took me to Chickamauga the second week of April and warned me the great bite was probably over. Although he got a nice 4.5 pounder first thing that morning on the rig, fishing was slow. We went into the spawning pockets and they were full of bass just starting to fan beds. The fish were very spooky and we could not get them to hit, but we saw many in the six pound plus size starting to bed.

Adding to our problems that day the water rose almost two feet while we were there. The lake is scheduled to be at full pool by April 15^th each year and it was four feet low when we got there. But it was filling fast.

When the water temperature is right Jeremy fishes transition areas like stump flats near the mouths of spawning areas. There needs to be deep water nearby with a shelf or flat with stumps on it. A ditch or cut running across the flat is key. The bass feed on those types of places during the winter and pre spawn.

Other good types of cover are banks where big rocks transition to chunk rock to sand, often found at the mouths of feeder creeks and coves. Big largemouth and smallmouth both like this kind of area and will hit the rig fished there. On one trip this year he got a six pound smallmouth and a six pound largemouth.

On the stump flats keep your boat out in deeper water near the cut or ditch and cast up to four or five feet of water. Work your rig back steadily, keeping it above the stumps but near the bottom. On the transition banks stay out a long cast from the bank and cast near it, fishing the rig back to cover water two to six feet deep.

File this information away for next year. But now for the good news. Those big bass are still in the lake and you can catch them right now. Fishing will be good from now through May and you can use a variety of baits to catch them.

Right now about half the bass, especially the bigger fish, are on the beds or have been in the last few days. You can sight fish for them or drag a Carolina rigged lizard through the bedding areas. If sight fishing, look for stumps, the favorite place for a bass to bed on Chickamauga.

Jeremy likes a Big Bite Baits Fighting Frog on a light Texas rig, a white swim bait with a weighed keel hook or a whacky rigged Senko rigged weightless for sight fishing. He will cast well past the bed and pull the bait to it, letting it drop into the sweet spot. Let it sit and shake it and the bass will usually eat it if they are hard on the bed.

Good areas for sight fishing are in Soddy Creek, which usually has the clearest water on the lake, and other creeks on the lower half of the lake. The pockets up the river are full of spawning bass, too, but they are harder to see since the water is usually more stained there.

Another good area is Dallas Bay around Chester Frost Park. Jeremy says there have probably been 100 eight pound plus bass released there in tournaments this year and they will not leave the bay since the spawn is approaching. They will stay in the bay, feed until spawning and then gradually work back out to the river, feeding on post spawn areas.

The stump flats on both sides of the ramp are good spawning areas to check since they are littered with stumps. Be careful, the flats run way out. Try to follow the ditches and cuts going back into them since the bass will follow them. Often the biggest bass will be bedding on stumps closest to the deeper water in the cuts.

Bass move into the spawning areas in waves and about half of them are there now the last week of April. More will move in during the next few weeks, depending on water temperature and moon phase. They will stay on the bed for about a week then move off and spend about a week recovering. They won’t feed much during that week but will start feeding heavily after that so there will be a lot of hungry fish all during the month of May.

To catch post spawn fish Jeremy will try a variety of baits. A Spook or similar walking bait worked over the stump flats will draw explosive strikes. Keep your boat in the cuts and cast ahead of you down the cut and fan cast the flats on both sides. Cover a lot of water, fishing fast until you find feeding fish.

A swim jig worked over the same areas will also catch fish, especially if the fish are not real aggressive. Swim it in the same places you worked your topwater. You can also work a spinnebait over those areas or try to bump the stumps with a square bill crankbait.

Toward the end of May there will still be a few bedding bass but the bream spawn comes into play. Bass will feed on the bream that are bedding in the same areas as the bass use, so fish a swim jig around the bedding bream to catch those bass feeding on bream.

Another big key in May is the shad spawn. Chickamauga has two kinds of shad, both threadfin and gizzard shad, and golden shiners, all favorite foods of bass. The shad will spawn on gravel and shell bed flats and rocky banks this month and the bass often go wild feeding on them. Jeremy says the shell beds on flats near the river channel are a huge key to the shad spawn so seek them out.

Look for the schools of shad running the banks early in the morning or working the flats. Jeremy likes to see smaller areas of shad spawning. If there are shad spawning on 100 yards of bank there might be 20 bass feeding on them and they will be real scattered out. If there are shad on only about 20 feet of bank, those same 20 bass will be concentrated and easier to catch.

A spinnerbait, rattle bait or swim jig all work well on the shad spawn. Work them over the flats, running them right on the bottom. On the banks, cast right to the bank, even up on the rocks and pulling your bait into the water. The bass will be facing the bank so you want to cast as shallow as possible.

The shad usually spawn early, the first couple of hours of light on sunny days, but will stay shallow much longer on cloudy days. If it is sunny and the shallow activity stops, back off and fish a little deeper to catch the bass following the shad out a little ways off the bank where they hold until the next morning.

Why is Chickamauga so hot with big bass right now? Jeremy says the stocking of Florida and Northern strain largemouth as produced a cross, an F1 hybrid that grows very fast and is very aggressive. Tennessee DNR reports show they stocked both Florida and Northern strain largemouth as well as F1 hybrids in 2002. Those fish have reached trophy size and their offspring are reaching bragging size every year.

Jeremy thinks the next two years are going to be fantastic, with some huge bass caught in Chickamauga each year. All those eight to ten pound bass will mostly still be around for a couple of years and could be two to three pounds heavier. And all those five and six pounders will also be two to three pounds heavier.

For the future, there are a lot of four and five pound bass coming along, too. There is a 15 inch size limit on largemouth and an 18 inch size limit on smallmouth on Chickamauga and those limits have contributed to the larger fish in the lake. That size restriction also insures a good supply of quality fish for the future. So the fishing should stay really good for the foreseeable future. You definitely want to head to Chickamauga and get in on catching them.

A three day non resident Tennessee fishing license is $16 and can be bought on line before your trip. A ten day license is $25 and an annual license, good until February 28, 2014, is $80. You might want an annual license since you are sure to fall in love with fishing Chickamauga.

West Coast Rockfish Boom

West Coast Rockfish Boom with Warm Water “Blob”

Young groundfish, including great numbers of rockfish as well as other marine creatures thrived under unprecedented ocean conditions, according to new research.

The high temperatures that came with the marine heatwave known as the Blob led to unprecedented mixing of local and subtropical species. There were, often with new and unpredictable outcomes. Out of that mix came one unexpected winner: West Coast rockfish. These bottom-dwelling species, which that had previously collapsed in the face of overfishing during the 2000s, thrived under the new conditions.

Scientists from Oregon State University and NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center recount the boom in young rockfish in a new research paper in the journal Fisheries. It examines the effects of the Blob as documented by NOAA Fisheries offshore surveys. Scientists have been conducting the surveys for more than 20 years. The Blob years brought some of the most dramatic changes in marine life off the West Coast they’ve ever seen. Unexpected interactions may have also altered the abundance of some species, from plankton that support the food web to fish that depend on them, the researchers wrote.

In the waning months of the Blob in 2016, juvenile rockfish increased over a large area from California to Alaska. Since juvenile rockfish are very difficult to distinguish from one another, scientists could not tell which species benefited. They could not tell what specifically drove the boom in their numbers and or whether they will support fisheries in future years.

They suggested that the surge in rockfish may have been part of an unusual cascade of effects resulting in large part from a shift in the dominant jellyfish off the West Coast. The typically abundant sea nettle declined in number while the less common water jellyfish multiplied to become the most abundant jellyfish in their catches. That may have reduced predation by sea nettles on juvenile rockfish, as well as competition between the species.A catch of mostly water jellies and only a few fish from a 2015 research survey off the West Coast.

“When organisms from different regions suddenly come together, they can interact in unexpected ways,” said Brian Beckman, a research fish biologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center and co-author of the new study. “The question is whether this is a lasting change, or one that will shift back toward something we’ve seen before.

”The scientists also described the sudden and extremely high abundance of gelatinous pyrosomes. They, which had never been previously observed in the Northern California Current off the West Coast. Pyrosomes have such voracious appetites that their increase may explain low concentrations of chlorophyll documented off the West Coast in 2017, the scientists suggested.

Pyrosomes found off the Oregon Coast range in size from a few inches to more than two feet long. (Photo by Hilarie Sorensen/University of Oregon)“If this organism remains abundant in subsequent years, it could produce lasting effects upon the ecosystem by outcompeting other filter feeders, which in turn might reduce the food supply to organisms higher in the food web,” they wrote.

The effects of the Blob may be evident in the species mix off the West Coast for many years to come, they added. The scientists emphasized that continued ocean surveys should track those changes over time. This will to help us understand the interaction among species and inform ecosystem-based fisheries management.Read more like this at NOAA Fisheries

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