Post by bluecatters on Jun 11, 2013 10:46:26 GMT -5
This is my first post on this forum so I thought I would start off strong and provide a rough draft of one of my articles I use to give presentations with. This is some really valuable information for people looking to get into bigger fish and streamline their productivity on the water.
“POST-SPAWN BLUES IN RESERVOIRS”
It’s that time of year again, love is in the air (for blue catfish anyway) and all the catfisherman are cursing about it, well this one anyway. While I hate the peculiar mating habits these fish exhibit, it is a great thing for our fisheries to have new batch of mini “monsters” hunting our waters. And while fishing may not be hot during the spawn you do have a great window of opportunity to look forward to an often overlooked part of the year when you can catch hundreds of fish in a day and the big fish bite comes to life once more.
The Post-Spawn bite, while tricky to pinpoint, can be one of the most productive times of year. Nailing down the “date” that this bite will happen is impossible but by paying attention to your catch rates and average fish size this time of year you can get a good handle on when the spawn begins. For example, on my home lake I have been steadily monitoring the average fish caught for the last month and the bigger fish are getting harder and harder to come by, especially during the day, for example in the beginning of may our average fish was anywhere between 15lbs and 20lbs. with many fish over 30lbs as the month went on our catch stayed pretty consistent up until 10-12 days ago when we started to notice that our big fish bite was slowing down. This was the first sign that the spawn was closing inand we knew that we would start picking up PLUS size females in short order. Like clockwork 3 days later our big fish numbers shot back up big pregnant females full of eggs started bending our rods, I always love this time of year because those females are especially mean a fish that wouldn’t normally pull drag will try its damnedest to spool you. 7-12 days after that they just shut off that was our notice to put down the “pool cues” and pick up the bass rods or “bait sticks”. Here are a few signs the spawn is coming into effect:
-The first sign I key into is a spike in big males.
-The second sign I identify is the males start to darken in color and their shoulders become swollen and enlarged (more so than usual anyway) and you begin to see scars and cuts on the males from fighting with other males and clearing their spawning area. Here’s an interesting video FighinDaBlues took during pre spawn notice the dark colorations as well
-The third sign is a spike in females being caught, they can be easily identified because of their smaller heads and typically their bellies are swollen with eggs most of the time grotesquely.
-The fourth sign is a distinct drop in the number of big fish. These are days when you can’t seem to catch anything over a few lbs.
-After that it will seem like you can’t find any blues. That’s when you hang up your poles and wait 10-12 days.
This is my experience there are other indicators such as water temps. and weather patterns but these are the easy ones that work for me. I used to log my catches and make notes about the condition of the fish, depth, water temperature, location on the lake, nearby structure, special weather conditions or weather patterns that occurred that week for every fish over 20lbs, but after a while I just knew where to go and what to do.
After you have identified the spawn pattern you can begin your search for post-spawn fish. The areas that I generally look at when looking for post spawn fish are areas near spawning grounds. Generally speaking you’re going to find spawning grounds to be an area from 5’-25’ of water that holds a lot of bottom structure ( i.e. – Medium size rocks with lots of cracks and crevasses, fallen timber, ect.) and is pretty protected from the elements. Once you have found a likely area for spawning you need to find bait congregations within close proximity to that area. Once you have found an area that holds a good amount of bait either toss out the drift socks or drop anchor and throw them big, fresh, juicy baits. This is one of the few times outside of tournaments I will throw especially large baits, up to 2lbs. Don’t be shy in this 2-week feeding frenzy it’s not uncommon for us to catch 150+ fish a day drifting smaller baits or putting together 200lb.+, 5 fish totals.
This bite will be upon us shortly so make sure to get out and take advantage of this limited window of opportunity to catch some big fish. Make sure to check out our website to see the latest catches or book a trip and we can teach you this approach first hand.
If you want more info shoot me a PM or visit my website!
“POST-SPAWN BLUES IN RESERVOIRS”
It’s that time of year again, love is in the air (for blue catfish anyway) and all the catfisherman are cursing about it, well this one anyway. While I hate the peculiar mating habits these fish exhibit, it is a great thing for our fisheries to have new batch of mini “monsters” hunting our waters. And while fishing may not be hot during the spawn you do have a great window of opportunity to look forward to an often overlooked part of the year when you can catch hundreds of fish in a day and the big fish bite comes to life once more.
The Post-Spawn bite, while tricky to pinpoint, can be one of the most productive times of year. Nailing down the “date” that this bite will happen is impossible but by paying attention to your catch rates and average fish size this time of year you can get a good handle on when the spawn begins. For example, on my home lake I have been steadily monitoring the average fish caught for the last month and the bigger fish are getting harder and harder to come by, especially during the day, for example in the beginning of may our average fish was anywhere between 15lbs and 20lbs. with many fish over 30lbs as the month went on our catch stayed pretty consistent up until 10-12 days ago when we started to notice that our big fish bite was slowing down. This was the first sign that the spawn was closing inand we knew that we would start picking up PLUS size females in short order. Like clockwork 3 days later our big fish numbers shot back up big pregnant females full of eggs started bending our rods, I always love this time of year because those females are especially mean a fish that wouldn’t normally pull drag will try its damnedest to spool you. 7-12 days after that they just shut off that was our notice to put down the “pool cues” and pick up the bass rods or “bait sticks”. Here are a few signs the spawn is coming into effect:
-The first sign I key into is a spike in big males.
-The second sign I identify is the males start to darken in color and their shoulders become swollen and enlarged (more so than usual anyway) and you begin to see scars and cuts on the males from fighting with other males and clearing their spawning area. Here’s an interesting video FighinDaBlues took during pre spawn notice the dark colorations as well
-The third sign is a spike in females being caught, they can be easily identified because of their smaller heads and typically their bellies are swollen with eggs most of the time grotesquely.
-The fourth sign is a distinct drop in the number of big fish. These are days when you can’t seem to catch anything over a few lbs.
-After that it will seem like you can’t find any blues. That’s when you hang up your poles and wait 10-12 days.
This is my experience there are other indicators such as water temps. and weather patterns but these are the easy ones that work for me. I used to log my catches and make notes about the condition of the fish, depth, water temperature, location on the lake, nearby structure, special weather conditions or weather patterns that occurred that week for every fish over 20lbs, but after a while I just knew where to go and what to do.
After you have identified the spawn pattern you can begin your search for post-spawn fish. The areas that I generally look at when looking for post spawn fish are areas near spawning grounds. Generally speaking you’re going to find spawning grounds to be an area from 5’-25’ of water that holds a lot of bottom structure ( i.e. – Medium size rocks with lots of cracks and crevasses, fallen timber, ect.) and is pretty protected from the elements. Once you have found a likely area for spawning you need to find bait congregations within close proximity to that area. Once you have found an area that holds a good amount of bait either toss out the drift socks or drop anchor and throw them big, fresh, juicy baits. This is one of the few times outside of tournaments I will throw especially large baits, up to 2lbs. Don’t be shy in this 2-week feeding frenzy it’s not uncommon for us to catch 150+ fish a day drifting smaller baits or putting together 200lb.+, 5 fish totals.
This bite will be upon us shortly so make sure to get out and take advantage of this limited window of opportunity to catch some big fish. Make sure to check out our website to see the latest catches or book a trip and we can teach you this approach first hand.
If you want more info shoot me a PM or visit my website!
