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FALL AND EARLY WINTER CRANKBAIT TIPS

By Kevin VanDam as told to Louie Stout

Bassmaster.com

We’re into that time of year when shad have moved into the backs of creeks on most reservoirs, and the bass are piling in there to fatten up.

Baitfish are lured into the creeks by cooler water and nutrients being flushed into the system by fall rains. This creates an excellent feeding opportunity for the bass prior to winter and a great time to utilize shallow running crankbaits.

Spinnerbaits and flipping techniques work well, too, but I think the crankbait is a better choice, especially when the water is relatively clear. You need to cover water quickly to find the bass. Crankbaits make that possible, and they best resemble the forage.

Now, if the water is heavily stained, the vibration of the spinnerbait or well-placed jigs and plastics dropped into cover may work better.

I prefer square-billed crankbaits now because of the erratic action they deliver. You can catch them on a variety of crankbaits, but the smaller, square-billed body baits are ideal when the bass bunch up in the shallows.

I helped in the development of Strike King’s new, KVD 1.5 and 2.5 square bills that have produced extremely well for me this fall. Both run 4 to 6 feet deep, depending on line size, although the 2.5 has a little bigger body profile. Both deliver a unique erratic action.

The baits are weighted so that they constantly search slightly from side to side. The erratic action resembles an injured baitfish.

In fact, we purposely built in some “instability” in the way the lures run so that they kick abruptly off rocks, stumps, or dock posts.

When I head into a creek during the fall, I will have multiple rods rigged with different line sizes, baits and colors. The water tends to be a little more stained in the back than it is near the front of the creek, so I’m prepared for all conditions.

For example, if the water is stained, the fish will be shallower and holding tighter to the cover, so I’ll use heavier line and a bigger bodied bait, like the 2.5, in sexy shad colors. In clearer water, I prefer the smaller bodied 1.5 in natural colors.

I want the bait hitting bottom or off cover, so the various line sizes helps me make the appropriate adjustments.

When the fish are in the far backs of creeks, they can be extremely shallow. I cast the crankbait right up “into the dirt” and hold the rod tip high as I begin the retrieve. When the bait moves into deeper water, I’ll lower the rod tip.

Key spots are the edges of mud flats that drop into the channel. That’s where you’ll find hidden stumps that bass use to ambush shad.

So, when you go to your favorite lake this fall, head into the creeks, look for shad activity, and cover water with a crankbait. If there’s shad in the area, the bass will be there, and you can load the boat quickly.

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What’s Wrong With My Lake? The Algae Scourge!

KILLENS –DOVER 9/15/10

We went to Killens today on 9/15/10 and found less than desirable conditions. I said to Skip, “What is wrong with the water?”, ” I have seen it green before but this is bad”.

We fished hard and caught just one bass. It was decent but it was poor fishing all day and if you know me at all, it was not for lack of knowledge or lack of effort!

I worked every water depth with more than 20 baits presented in a variety of ways to no avail, and we left. I said to Skip, “I have Seen this before but can’t remember what it is called or what it does to the lake exactly as it has been years since I retired and was involved in this on a daily basis.

I no sooner got home and picked up the new BASS TIMES magazine that I got yesterday, and started to read, and what to my surprise was right inside?? What looked like a picture of KILLENS POND with an article attached called, “THE ALGAE SCOURGE“, and here is what it says. I now know what is wrong with KILLENS!!

The algae scourge

Bass Times

Tue, 06/01/2010

By Robert Montgomery

More than pesky surface scum, new algae blooms are killing fish, poisoning wildlife and harming humans

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — As pollution degrades our water, it also feeds a toxic outbreak that threatens our fisheries and our future.

“We are approaching a tipping point where we might not be able to get back to what used to be,” said Dr. Ken Hudnell, a neurotoxicologist and adjunct associate research professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

“We could lose ecosystems, leaving only cesspools of cyanobacteria that can’t be used for recreation or drinking water.”

The growing danger for fresh water, not only in the United States but worldwide, exists in cellular populations described collectively as Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, are the most notorious, and some species are potentially harmful to humans. Golden alga, a dinoflagellate, is a relentless killer of fish. Didymo is a diatom that has smothered stream-beds in several states.

All are spreading and increasing the duration and intensity of their blooms.

For example, golden algae obliterated all aquatic life in a 30-mile stretch of West Virginia’s Dunkard Creek last fall. Until that kill, it was thought to be confined mainly to brackish waters typical of rivers and reservoirs in east Texas, Oklahoma and Wyoming. Now, resource managers fear that another 21 streams in the state could be at risk because of similar water conditions, as well as waterways in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky.

Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the Water Research Institute at West Virginia University, said the Dunkard incident was “the worst fish kill I’ve experienced in 21 years in West Virginia.”

In Ohio, meanwhile, the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper recently reported, “The number of [blue-green algae] blooms producing scary toxins or poisons is growing in frequency and duration in Lake Erie and many inland lakes and water-ways in Ohio and elsewhere.

“The threat is gaining attention as new testing shows the toxin microcystin from the planktonic bacteria is present in popular recreational lakes and city water supplies, including Akron’s.”

Late last summer, Western Lake Erie Waterkeeper Sandy Bihn told BASS Times, “Old-time boaters say the algae is as bad or worse than it was in the ’60s and ’70s. I think Lake Erie is poised for something awful that will make national news.”

In Florida, Hudnell said, studies have revealed that toxins from some of these blue-green blooms “are higher in drinking water than raw water because the cells are lysed during processing and release all their toxins.

“It’s very difficult to remove all cyanotoxins from drinking water, and utilities don’t monitor for them. They are only concerned about other cyanochemicals that cause taste and odor problems — and phone calls.”

In a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Earthjustice said, “Potentially toxigenic cyanobacteria have been found statewide, including river and stream systems such as the St. Johns River in the Northeast Region and the Caloosahatchee River in the Southwest Region.”

Bill Frazier, a water quality expert for a municipality as well as conservation director for the North Carolina BASS Federation Nation, has been watching the growing assault on our waters and sounding the alarm for some time.

“HABs are a type of canary in the coal mine,” he said. “The fact that they are present is an indicator of an out-of-balance ecosystems. Nothing good can outcompete them for living space. And the space we are talking about is water — the substance that allows us to live on this planet.

“Add to that the fact that HABs are exchanging genetic material in order to allow them to adapt to conditions they otherwise couldn’t tolerate, and it no longer is a wakeup call. It’s more like a piercing scream. Unfortunately, only a very few of us are listening.”

In fact, Hudnell resigned from EPA because it would not start a freshwater HAB research and control program. He and Dr. Wayne Carmichael now are leading an informal coalition of more than 500 people in lobbying for passage of the Freshwater Harmful Algal Bloom Research and Control Act of 2010.

“It’s an emerging story, a fascinating story, a very scary story, and an incredibly complicated issue,” said scientist Julie Weatherington-Rice of Ohio State University. She was speaking specifically about blue-green blooms in Lake Erie and other Ohio waters, but her assessment also accurately describes the HAB problem nationally.

Why is this happening?

To simplify: All blooms benefit from four “stimulatory factors,” according to Hudnell. They are sunlight for photosynthesis, warmth (in general, the warmer the better), nutrients (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus) and calm, even stagnant, water (often brought on by drought).

“Good things just don’t happen in stagnant water,” he said. “A water body, like a human body, needs good circulation to function properly.”

But it is what we continue to discharge into our waters — dissolved solids, salts and particularly phosphorus-laden nutrients from our cities and agricultural lands — that drives this threat.

“In Lake Erie, the cure in the ’70s was the ban on phosphorus in laundry detergent, which reduced the phosphorus in the lakes,” Bihn said. “About 1995, the phosphorus curve reversed its downward trend and began once again increasing. This time, it is said to be dissolved phosphorus rather than total phosphorus.”

Hudnell added, “The No. 1 problem is too many nutrients. This allows HABs to dominate, to crowd out and shade out the good algae. As these occur for longer times and in more places, it’s going to be more and more difficult to reverse the trend.”

Cyanobacteria: A World Wide Nightmare

According to studies by the University of North Carolina, the algae bloom like engulfed Lake Atitlan last year is a world wide epidemic, endangering fresh water supplies at alarming rates

In fact, Hans Paerl, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences Professor and co-author of the Science paper, calls the algae the ‘cockroach of lakes.’ It’s everywhere and it’s hard to exterminate – but when the sun comes up it doesn’t scurry to a corner, it’s still there, and it’s growing, as thick as 3 feet in some areas.

Note: In Lake Atitlan, 85 per cent of the 30,000 acre lake was recently covered with the green scum, going as far down as 80 feet in some locations.

The algae has been linked to digestive, neurological and skin diseases and fatal liver disease in humans. It costs municipal water systems many millions of dollars to treat in the United States alone. And though it’s more prevalent in developing countries, it grows on key bodies of water across the world, including Lake Victoria in Africa, the Baltic Sea, Lake Erie and bays of the Great Lakes, Florida’s Lake Okeechobee and in the main reservoir for Raleigh, N.C.

‘This is a worldwide problem,’ said Paerl, Kenan Professor of marine and environmental sciences in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences.

‘It’s long been known that nutrient runoff contributes to cyanobacterial growth. Now scientists can factor in temperature and global warming,’ said Paerl, who, with professor Jef Huisman from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, explains the new realisation in Science paper.

‘As temperatures rise waters are more amenable to blooms,’ Paerl said.

The algae also thrive in wet, soggy ground in areas experiencing periodic floods, like the U.S. Midwest. And in a drought, like the Southeastern United States is experiencing now, other algae and aquatic organisms die off, cyanobacteria thrive, waiting to explode

Warmer weather has also created longer growing seasons, and it’s enabled cyanobacteria to grow in northern waters previously too cold for their survival. Species first found in southern Europe in the 1930s now form blooms in northern Germany, and a Florida species now grows in the Southeastern U.S. Others have appeared recently places as far north as Montana and throughout Canada.

Fish and other aquatic animals and plants stand little chance against cyanobacteria. The algae crowds the surface water, shading out plants – fish food – below. The fish generally avoid cyanobacteria, so they’re left without food. And when the algae die they sink to the bottom where their decomposition can lead to extensive depletion of oxygen.

These cyanobacteria – blue-green algae – were the first plants on earth to produce oxygen.

‘It’s ironic,’ Paerl said. ‘Without cyanobacteria, we wouldn’t be here. Animal life needed the oxygen the algae produced.’ Now, however, it threatens the health and livelihood of people who depend on infested waters for drinking water or income from fishing and recreational use.

These algae that were first on the scene, Paerl predicts, will be the last to go… right after the cockroaches.

Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Public Health Advisories

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PUBLIC HEALTH ADVISORIES

Note: All information on this page taken from public health documents and web sites who freely pass on important health information that allow and encourage  reprinting in order to save lives!

More information and VIDEO reports at Trophy Bass Fishing Videos and Tips at http://delawaretrophybass.com

“The Real Deal” On Catching trophy Largemouth Bass”

The “REAL DEAL” On Catching Trophy Class Largemouth Bass!

When the water “Clarity” is below 40%, and the “Visibility” is less than 10 inches, then throw all the basics you hear about baits and tactics out the window! Baits and tactics change when the conditions are they way I described here and regardless of the time of year, depth, or water temperature, the baits and tactics you need to catch trophy class bass on the east Coast lakes and rivers change!! To learn just what it takes to catch trophy largemouth bass in these conditions visit the main site at Delawaretrophybass.com All the tackle you need for trophy largemouth bass is available in our tackle store as well from Tackle warehouse, Bass Tackle depot, and Bass pro Shops. There are over 300 instructional videos on these tactics for free! Register at the site for full benefits!

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Spinnerbaits For Bass Fishing Success

Spinnerbaits are not just a tool for the spring and fall. Spinnerbaits can be deadly, if the right ones are fished in a variety of situations whether it be the East Coast or the West. The trick is to be able to distinguish which is the right one for the right situation? Spinnerbaits can fished in so many different ways, all of which, produce BIG BASS from north to south, east to west. They can be fished through the water column top to bottom. They are really a versatile bait if you know the little tricks it takes to fish them effectively. They can be fished many ways by varying the retrieve, weight of the bait, blade size, the trailer and colors. You have a bait here that can work a water column and catch fish from one to twenty-five feet, and because it is so versatile, you can fish it fast, slow, and in all seasons of the year.

The first time I discovered this, I was amazed at how many fish I had must have missed in my youth, by not knowing how to fish a spinnerbait here in the Northeast.

When it was October here in Delaware, I went hunting until the end of Quail season. Soon after 1976, I read my first issue of Basssmaster magazine, and saw that people were using this bait year round and catching bass. Soon after, in late December in Delaware, I caught my first bass on a “Stan Sloan” single nickel colorado blade,(with a purple skirt, with rattles on the arm,) by letting it flutter into a sunken tree, in ten foot deep, thirty-six degree water. I soon felt that sluggish pull on the line, “like a pile of leaves or grass”, not until then, did I realize that I could catch bass year round on the right lures, with the right presentation, sound and color. It was well over six pounds, and was a different fight when she got close to the boat and saw the trolling motor. Since that time I have fished all over the United States, from New York to California, and found the right spinnerbait and the right technique produces big bass from all sorts of waters all year long. They key is to keep it in the strike zone, and most lures are made so that you can work them as slowly as you want to, while still keeping them in the zone.

“DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES”

I like to use the spinnerbait as a search tool, and kind of a depth finder, and bottom contour device also. What I do is check out the structure of the lake by bumping objects, and increasing my chance for a reaction strike right then. The spinnerbait will make a different sound bumping off different objects such as stumps, rocks, sand, and pea gravel.I also vary the speed often, and even shake the rod if necessary, trying to give the bass a different look, which is important in highly pressured waters. I work buzzbaits in a different manner also, which I believe is what accounts for some real lunkers that I might have otherwise missed. There are times when a spinnerbait is the most effective tool to use. When fishing the bait in heavy cover such as pads, I employ a technique that I now know is called fluttering by some anglers.

Basically what you do is to cast the spinnerbait out into the pads, and by moving your rod tip, and other parts of your body positioning, you maneuver the bait through the pads, and when it comes to an opening, stop it, and let it flutter down. Many strikes comes as a lure sinks.You should make a lot of casts to the areas where you really believe the bass are, or have seen them, as they can be irritated into striking if the bait is presented in enough variations and positions. Slow rolling can be extremely effective in deep water as it designed to imitate a crawfish on the bottom, or another type of bass forage. The trick to it is rolling it down the side of a sloping bank, a rock bar, a hump, or any underwater structure, and then slowly pumping it back to the boat. I employ the almost identical technique with a lipless crankbait with great success. There are also better types of spinnerbaits for different types of cover. C shaped baits tend to work better through heavy pads and grass, while a V shaped bait gets hung up more easily.

Riprap is another good area to slow roll spinnnerbaits. Sometimes there is debris mixed in with the rocks, and many times large bass are waiting to attack prey that come along, and are primes areas to slow-roll spinnerbaits. The spinnerbaits should be slow rolled over the rocks and such, and extra action is not really necessary. It should crawl over the bottom, and sometimes I give it a little twitch. All you have to do is raise the rod a slightly, lightly shake it, and then continue slowrolling it back to the boat.

“DEEP METHODS”

When the bass are really deep I employ a technique I call deep pulling; its like a yo-yo method but a little different. I let the bait flutter all the way down, and then let it sit, then I pull it hard and way up near the surface and do it again. I use real heavy baits with Colorado blades for this, usually in a chartreuse, or a chartreuse and white skirt when I fish in places that have dying shad in the winter, but anywhere else, I use black, or black/purple combinations. I always add a little Megastrike to the baits.

“TACKLE”

I like to use a  6 1/2 foot rod for this but sometimes I  use a 7 foot rod, on different occasions. Many times situations come up when a 7 foot rod suits the situation better that a 6 or 6 1/2 foot rod for distance and control. Most of my rods I use for this technique are in a medium heavy action. I really like a Fiberglass rod for these baits, but there are many new rods that are very good for spinnerbaits and crankbaits, made by G.Loomis, St.Croix, Kistler,and Shimano. Sometimes on the smaller baits I use a spinning rod with Stren Super Braid,or Power Pro, but the rest of the time I use a baitcasting rod with a Shimano Chronarch, with fourteen to twenty pound P-Line or Bass Pro Shops line.

WHAT COLORS FOR WHAT BAIT

When I choose a color for a spinnerbait, a lot of factors come in to play. The first thing I do is pick a shad pattern, or whatever is the dominate species in the lake. I usually double up the skirts, to give them more bulk. I use blue and white, black and white, and chartreuse and white. Sometimes I use red, depending on the location. All of these colors give a good range of visibility under water.

In muddy water, I have always used the same colors, black and blue and red. The same goes for the nighttime. I like to use the forage in the lake if I can, such as rainbow trout or shad, and to make it appear injured to trigger that genetic response, but only if the water isn’t muddy. In muddy water I stick to black almost exclusively.

I like to use big spinnerbaits in the spring, when I’m in big fish waters, some right here in Delaware or Maryland, or others such as Florida, Arizona, Texas, and Mexico. When fishing strictly for big bass with spinnerbaits I add on a double or triple skirt for bulk and lift, and use really big blades. Terminator makes some big blades that I really like on our spinnerbaits.  This year here in Delaware, I landed three bass in one day on big spinnerbaits, that went seven and eight pounds. Sometimes we even break off the tails of worms for trailers, and many times in the spring, I have caught some huge bass from ten inches of muddy water with a big spinnerbait with a trailer. The new Skeet Reese Redemption is another great spinnerbait and I use that with a Colorado blade in cold and/or muddy water.

I have had a great response from bass in the Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania areas, using a double golden shiner skirt. The bluegill and shad patterns top the list overall though. Sometimes reversing the skirts on the baits presents a different profile, and will also trigger hard to get strikes. The spinnerbait isn’t just a bait for beginners, although it is a great bait to break in a novice or child to the sport of bass fishing. But in the hands of an expert, it is a versatile year round bait, that can catch “HUGE” bass.

More advanced tactics and videos are available at my website for serious tournament anglers. All the tackle mentioned is available with free shipping and up to 50% off at times at World Record Trophy Bass Tackle Store.

New Bass Fishing Tackle Store Open.

NEW BASS FISHING WEBSITE NOW OPEN!

We have opened a brand new website centering on trophy and world record bass fishing in the Northeast with additional information, tips, videos, podcasts and tackle for the entire world! We have professional anglers, guides, and tournament anglers ready to assist you with any waters in the USA and Japan, and we specialize in tournament tactics and videos on the Uppper Chesapeake Bay Rivers and the Potomac River with professional grade tackle at discounts, including FREE SHIPPING on most orders. We have contests to win free tackle, podcasts, coverage of major events, detailed tips and tactics and locations to catch moe and bigger bass in the northeast and beyond. The forums have special reports with video enhancements. Register today for full access.World Record Trophy Bass at http://delawaretrophybass.com

LIVE TOURNAMENT HELP AND VIDEOS!

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