11-5-11 Report

[roadwarriorsvt]

All I can say is that today was tough. I didn't make it out until the afternoon. I had one blow-up in the Mikimiki Flats grass and caught this poor largemouth up north on a white Gary Yamamoto. Water was still muddy to stained at best. He is a tagged bass, #4244. I didn't weigh him but he looked about 16"-17" in length and maybe 1# at best. Pretty sad.

[Stan Wright]

#4244
That's one that Jeff tagged... we'll have to get the story from him.

I'd call the water "Muddy" (less than 2 foot visibility)

Poor underfed bass. Sure not a fat belly little butter ball we'd like to see.

And I'm going to have to get you a tape measure.
Perhaps get a Sharpie and mark one inch segments along your fishing rod.

[Filthyfisherman]

That fish was caught on 9-17-11 at Morgans point at 12 noon on The Filthy Lizzard in Bluefleck color on 3/0 EWG hook and 3/8oz bullet. And I don't remember tagging anything that Skinny? He was fatter in Sept...

[roadwarriorsvt]

UPDATE:

11-9-11: I caught thie same tagged LMB again, in the same area, probably within 15' of where I caught him last time. Water was only stained today so a watermelon plastic was used.

[skunked]

Good to hear he is still alive! Looks like he should be on life support, but he is still healthy enough to feed, so that's good. Maybe he will fatten up during the winter.

[roadwarriorsvt]

Who knows? I don't think there is to much forage in the area he is staying. Its interesting that he was tagged, healthy, at Morgan's Pt. in Sep., then went about as far north as he could go and has stayed there. I'd like to say he is probably skinny from spawning but I've caught way to many just like this.

[djverve05]

I was talking to my father about LM and he said that LM tend to feed a lot for awhile then sit on it kind of like hibernating. He also suggested that with fall arriving they may have already gone through their feeding cycle, and are sitting on it until the next feeding cycle. Sounds like a legitimate reason to me.

[Ca_Bass]

I've caught LMB like that way up north too. DJverve theory sounds like a good one, makes sense too considering that normally a basses motabolism slows consideribly when water starts dropping below 60..and since that doesn't happen at wilson he would continue to burn calories at a high rate when not eating since the temp doesn't drop low enough to actually slow their motabolism. But I would think they'd just continue to eat. My theory is they go up there for 2 possibly reasons, 1 being better oxygenated water and the other bait. I have seen really big schools of shad all they way up there with tucs chasing them and some LMB mixed in wish I could remember what time of year that was! After they eat up all the shad they don't migrate back and left with nothing to eat and lose weight. But I'm already am thinking of holes in that theory too....I think that fish just might have something wrong with it...maybe an internal parasite or blocked digestive sytem. Maybe the next skinny one caught up there could benifit from a relocation back to the main lake.

[Ca_Bass]

I've caught LMB like that way up north too. DJverve theory sounds like a good one, makes sense too considering that normally a basses motabolism slows consideribly when water starts dropping below 60..and since that doesn't happen at wilson he would continue to burn calories at a high rate when not eating since the temp doesn't drop low enough to actually slow their motabolism. But I would think they'd just continue to eat. My theory is they go up there for 2 possibly reasons, 1 being better oxygenated water and the other bait. I have seen really big schools of shad all they way up there with tucs chasing them and some LMB mixed in wish I could remember what time of year that was! After they eat up all the shad they don't migrate back and left with nothing to eat and lose weight. But I'm already am thinking of holes in that theory too....I think that fish just might have something wrong with it...maybe an internal parasite or blocked digestive sytem. Maybe the next skinny one caught up there could benifit from a relocation back to the main lake.