This week we decided not to fish and to take a week off and study what lures we should throw the next week. This part of the year is when fish start to move up to the banks so that they can spawn and lay their eggs. What triggers this time of year is the water temperature and when the water starts to warm up they will start to move. This is the best time of year to catch a big bass because all of the larger fish will be protecting the eggs on beds. You can sight fish and see where the fish are all up along the banks if the water is clear enough because they will be so shallow. This time of year is normally when you would use more finesse type baits but both finesse and reaction could work. For crank baits you would need to use very shallow running ones. You could drag a plastic worm over the beds and get a bite from a fish by finesse. Many things would work this time of year because the bigger fish are trying to protect their eggs. In lakes fish will be around structure trying to stay in the shade so that the water temperature will not affect them as much. This will help them stay a little cooler. This can be one of the most exciting times of the year to fish but also one of the most challenging.
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This week we had a tournament that was located at Lake Wylie. We had to be at the boat launch by 6 AM so that we could get our boat number and now when we can start fishing. Fletcher's boat number was 36 and Grayson's boat number was 34. There were 76 boats total in the tournament. Your number would determine when you could leave and we were both in the second flight. There are three flights that divide the boats into even numbers and leave every 15 minutes. The water temperature was anywhere from 55-58 degrees. The wind was steady at 30 mph and were gusts up to 45. The lake was really choppy and lots of wood and brush that was floating throughout the main channel. The water color was very dingy in the main channel and some of the coves were clear. Most of the fish were on primary points or on docks and poles right off of the main channel. Fletcher caught all his fish on a white crank-bait with a pink top. Grayson would catch all his fish on a black shaky head with a black zoom trick worm (it does tricks) and a green pumkin worm with a chartreuse tail. The fish for the tournament would need to be 14 inches and Fletcher would catch 7 fish but none of them would meet the size requirement. Grayson would catch 3 and only one would meet the 14 inches and it would weigh 1.21 pounds (whopper). Overall the wind would make it very hard to keep the boat still and over fish. Between the wind and the rain in the early morning it would not be a good day to be fishing. The winner of the tournament would catch 18 pounds 2 ounces. This is our week of fishing and we hope to improve next week.
This week we went to Fletcher's Grandparent's pond. We weren't able to go to a lake this weekend because of us both being busy, so we made a last minute decision to go to the pond. We caught 8 total and lost 6 fish, a pretty good day overall. The bass we caught were all largemouth and were averaged about 2 pounds. The weather conditions were brutal. The temperature stayed around 34-37 with a 5 mile per hour wind with 25 mile per hour gusts. The wind made the temperature drop and fishing difficult. The strong winds would blow lures when casting, blow your line when reeling making it hard to feel fish bite, and making the water choppy. The fish we caught were in approximately 2-5 feet of water. The fish seemed to be on a shelf that dropped off into deeper water. From this information it sounds like they are staging before they come up really shallow to spawn in the upcoming months. The water was a very dingy/muddy color which made the black worm a good choice to use. The color black shows up in muddy water better than most other colors because of its darker color. The black worm was on a shaky head which is a type of finesse lure that is fished slowly. Generally, when the water is colder like it was in the low 50's, fish are more likely to hit a slower moving lure than a fast moving reaction bait. This requires less energy the fish must use to eat the bait when it is cold and they aren't as aggressive. We have documented all of this information and more in our notebooks and we will see if this information helps us in the upcoming tournament on March 19th.
This week for our Genius Hour Project we went fishing at Lake Wylie. The water temperature for this lake this weekend was anywhere between 58-61 degrees. The water color was a little dingy with a green tint. Grayson caught two of his three fish on a black worm with a shaky head. The third fish was caught on a black floating trick worm. Fletcher caught all 6 of his fish on a 3-4 ft diving crank-bait. The color of the crank-bait was white on the bottom with a purple back. The purpose was to imitate a shad. Most of the fish were moving back to prepare for the spawn since the water temperature is warming up. All together it was a successful week on learning Bass behavior.
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