1-1-13 Tue

1-1-2013 Tue 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Weather
S 5, 14 ˚ overcast, 30.18 falling
Water:
3.34 falling, 1 kcfs, clear
Location:
Black River side bay
Caught:
Six pike between 20 – 25”
Partners:
None
Comments

It is a new year of fishing and the action has started out well. The qualities of the fish were not big, but I definitely got a good workout chasing flags. Except for about a half hour lull around four o’clock the action was constant.
Today I did not even try for pan fish, with the amount of pike in this bay and the lack of cover they just do not seem to be here. With the lack of down time, I did not have much time to reflect on the past year.
The early spring brought low water levels, then around June we had some high water, but then by the end of summer we were enveloped in drought conditions. There was one week in July we had extreme heat and with it we had very low flows. The combination of these two conditions resulted in a very large die – off of some very large northern pike and a few largemouth bass. The low water conditions and the heat were very stressful on all the fish and they responded in a negative mood.
Largemouth bass on the lake were practically non-existent once we hit July, but the small mouths were rather abundant. The flat heads on this pool were hard to come by, but the pool to the south was decent fishing for them.
Bluegill action and crappie action was fair, but the perch were hard to find.

Observations:

This was the second time I targeted this bay this ice season and again the size structure was small. The water level had risen since the last trip, but there was still only about two and one half feet of water.