Bass still on beds

[MantaRay14]

Took the kayak out yesterday morning on a shake down cruise after installing the new fishfinder. Since I was going to be on the water anyway, I tossed an ultralight spinning rod in the back for some perch fishing. Caught some smallish perch, but was mostly focused on settings for the FF. On the paddle back I was a little closer to shore and paddled right over this Small mouth in 8' of water. I went up wind a little bit and drifted back over to the bed with my GoPro.

Clearly seems to still be guarding the nest. The area was pretty free of gobies and there was a definite lack of perch anywhere near, but I could see no fry and couldn't see any egg masses. It was 7:30 in the morning so maybe the angle of the sun wasn't good enough to see the eggs. Saw lots of beds, but no other fish still on them in our area.

here's a vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

[LakeSimcoe MessageBoard]

[tacklebuster]

That's a cool video. The shadow of the yak looks like a 🦈

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[John Whyte]

It was disappointing to how few males stayed on the beds this year. Most of the males I recorded were small as well. The fish in in your video probably doesn't have any eggs to guard or it would stay much closer to the bed, although smaller fish tend to wonder more. Many of the beds I recorded were empty and had been abandon. The cold and high winds after the first wave of fish came into spawn seems to have wiped out many of the early beds. I found a lot of beds that had good healthy eggs before the cold but the beds were a mess just 5 days later. Doesn't look like a good year. Even after the full moon very few fish came in to beds I have been tracking for years.


These eggs were gone in 5 days

[MantaRay14]

Sad thing to hear John. Mother Nature can be a cruel mistress. 

[SpriteMcBain]

That is a great picture John. I've seen dozens of nests over the years but never saw what eggs looked like. I chalked it up to them being too small to see or i wasn't close enough to see them. Good to know what i should be looking for now.

There's still a couple of smallies on nests up by me as of last weekend but i didn't notice eggs.

[John Whyte]

That is a great picture John. I've seen dozens of nests over the years but never saw what eggs looked like. I chalked it up to them being too small to see or i wasn't close enough to see them. Good to know what i should be looking for now.

There's still a couple of smallies on nests up by me as of last weekend but i didn't notice eggs.

The eggs turn dark after a couple of days as the hatch develops. Once they turn dark its very hard to see them.

[ROFF]

It was disappointing to how few males stayed on the beds this year. Most of the males I recorded were small as well. The fish in in your video probably doesn't have any eggs to guard or it would stay much closer to the bed, although smaller fish tend to wonder more. Many of the beds I recorded were empty and had been abandon. The cold and high winds after the first wave of fish came into spawn seems to have wiped out many of the early beds. I found a lot of beds that had good healthy eggs before the cold but the beds were a mess just 5 days later. Doesn't look like a good year. Even after the full moon very few fish came in to beds I have been tracking for years.

Sad news indeed.  I believe this happens almost every year.  This year it just happened to be in the area you were recording.  There will still be lots of beds that were protected from the wind, and the eggs will survive.  Also a lot of fish spawn deep and beds are not affected be the wind.  I hope no new waves of fish come up before the CSFL spawning fish slayfest begins...😰.  Having a tourney on Simcoe this time of year is just brutal.  Nothing worse than plucking fish from beds throwing them in the livewell and moving them 10 to 30kms across the lake....👎👎


These eggs were gone in 5 days

[John Whyte]

It was disappointing to how few males stayed on the beds this year. Most of the males I recorded were small as well. The fish in in your video probably doesn't have any eggs to guard or it would stay much closer to the bed, although smaller fish tend to wonder more. Many of the beds I recorded were empty and had been abandon. The cold and high winds after the first wave of fish came into spawn seems to have wiped out many of the early beds. I found a lot of beds that had good healthy eggs before the cold but the beds were a mess just 5 days later. Doesn't look like a good year. Even after the full moon very few fish came in to beds I have been tracking for years.

Sad news indeed.  I believe this happens almost every year.  This year it just happened to be in the area you were recording.  There will still be lots of beds that were protected from the wind, and the eggs will survive.  Also a lot of fish spawn deep and beds are not affected be the wind.  I hope no new waves of fish come up before the CSFL spawning fish slayfest begins...😰.  Having a tourney on Simcoe this time of year is just brutal.  Nothing worse than plucking fish from beds throwing them in the livewell and moving them 10 to 30kms across the lake....👎👎


These eggs were gone in 5 days

That is true that many will survive. The first wave has already been and gone and there is fry. The problem with deeper beds after a cold spell is the incubation period. The eggs have to develop within a matter of days. If they don't the yields are very low. I normally track beds all over the lake up to 15 ft. If you have to depend on first wave fish as your only recruitment, you could not sustain current populations.

At a time when Simcoe bass populations should be booming, they are declining with fewer and fewer large males. My belief, supported by many is that opening day and week on Simcoe has become a bed fest. Multiple tournaments where everyone fishes beds. The funny thing is that in a late spawn year, more than 70% of the big fish are available not on beds and are easy to find and catch. But with perfect electronics and a waypoint on every rock and bed by hundreds of anglers, the lake will most likely continue to decline. Recruitment simply can't keep up with technology and expertise anymore. The conditions that produce very high yields are the same conditions that bring more anglers out and make it easier to find and fish fish beds.

In Ontario its a short season. You simply can't restrict bass anglers anymore than they already are. Here is an interesting read http://www.outdoorcanada.ca/Fishing-for-nesting-bass

[VanSlyke]

It was disappointing to how few males stayed on the beds this year. Most of the males I recorded were small as well. The fish in in your video probably doesn't have any eggs to guard or it would stay much closer to the bed, although smaller fish tend to wonder more. Many of the beds I recorded were empty and had been abandon. The cold and high winds after the first wave of fish came into spawn seems to have wiped out many of the early beds. I found a lot of beds that had good healthy eggs before the cold but the beds were a mess just 5 days later. Doesn't look like a good year. Even after the full moon very few fish came in to beds I have been tracking for years.

Sad news indeed.  I believe this happens almost every year.  This year it just happened to be in the area you were recording.  There will still be lots of beds that were protected from the wind, and the eggs will survive.  Also a lot of fish spawn deep and beds are not affected be the wind.  I hope no new waves of fish come up before the CSFL spawning fish slayfest begins...😰.  Having a tourney on Simcoe this time of year is just brutal.  Nothing worse than plucking fish from beds throwing them in the livewell and moving them 10 to 30kms across the lake....👎👎


These eggs were gone in 5 days

That is true that many will survive. The first wave has already been and gone and there is fry. The problem with deeper beds after a cold spell is the incubation period. The eggs have to develop within a matter of days. If they don't the yields are very low. I normally track beds all over the lake up to 15 ft. If you have to depend on first wave fish as your only recruitment, you could not sustain current populations.

At a time when Simcoe bass populations should be booming, they are declining with fewer and fewer large males. My belief, supported by many is that opening day and week on Simcoe has become a bed fest. Multiple tournaments where everyone fishes beds. The funny thing is that in a late spawn year, more than 70% of the big fish are available not on beds and are easy to find and catch. But with perfect electronics and a waypoint on every rock and bed by hundreds of anglers, the lake will most likely continue to decline. Recruitment simply can't keep up with technology and expertise anymore. The conditions that produce very high yields are the same conditions that bring more anglers out and make it easier to find and fish fish beds.

In Ontario its a short season. You simply can't restrict bass anglers anymore than they already are. Here is an interesting read http://www.outdoorcanada.ca/Fishing-for-nesting-bass

Well said and hard not to agree with.  In my opinion there should not be any tournaments allowed until the 1st saturday in July.  The bass just get hammered so hard openeing weekends by tourneys and like john said, a lot of bass are still on beds and protecting fry.  It's a tough situation. 
I feel lucky my cottage lake does not get much pressure, only one tournament a year, and a lot of people struggle to catch bass in it.  Simcoe to me is more of a Laker and Whitey fishery.  Although I do enjoy trolling for smallmouth also.

[ROFF]

Save the Simcoe tournies until August.  There are plenty of other fisheries to fish where the water warms up a lot quicker and the majority of spawning fish are long gone.  Simcoe is a world class smallmouth fishery.  If we don't start to protect it, it will be gone.  I think there should be some more studies done by the MNR to confirm the declining population, and perhaps keep tournies away for awhile, and maybe even make bass catch and release only.  I see far to many people filling there coolers full of 3 and 4lb smallmouth.  The worst part about it is it's usually the same boats I see doing it time after time.

[SpriteMcBain]

After watching tournament angler after tournament angler pitch lures 10 feet off my dock to bass on beds i always wondered why tourneys are so early in the season. Seems like an easy fix. The fish are bigger in September/Oct so when you're on a lake that produces big fish why not hold all the tourneys late in the season? People will pull out monsters and that's great press for the sport.

Catch and release for the first month for regular anglers wouldn't be a bad thing either.

[casacrow]

The only wee bit of positive I can add to this thread, is that in my observations LMB are all off their beds. Fry galore.

[John Whyte]

The only wee bit of positive I can add to this thread, is that in my observations LMB are all off their beds. Fry galore.

They tend to spawn a little earlier and can get back so far in the reeds that no one can get to them. Lots of LM fry on Couchiching as well.

[dustybacon]

After watching tournament angler after tournament angler pitch lures 10 feet off my dock to bass on beds i always wondered why tourneys are so early in the season. Seems like an easy fix. The fish are bigger in September/Oct so when you're on a lake that produces big fish why not hold all the tourneys late in the season? People will pull out monsters and that's great press for the sport.

Catch and release for the first month for regular anglers wouldn't be a bad thing either.

The only thing is fall tourneys usually mean deeper water fishing, if you had a ton of fall tourneys you would definitely have some bass die from baurotrauma. The populations will be fine as long as we don't have 3-5 years of cool summers, there will be recruitment in normal years, not so much when it's rainy and the temps struggle to climb through June-July. As much pressure as bass get in the early season you'd never get complete lake-wide recruitment failure strictly from angling, it's pretty hard to have even half of the entire number of nests in a lake as large as Simcoe fished to the point of abandonment.

[John Whyte]

After watching tournament angler after tournament angler pitch lures 10 feet off my dock to bass on beds i always wondered why tourneys are so early in the season. Seems like an easy fix. The fish are bigger in September/Oct so when you're on a lake that produces big fish why not hold all the tourneys late in the season? People will pull out monsters and that's great press for the sport.

Catch and release for the first month for regular anglers wouldn't be a bad thing either.

The only thing is fall tourneys usually mean deeper water fishing, if you had a ton of fall tourneys you would definitely have some bass die from baurotrauma. The populations will be fine as long as we don't have 3-5 years of cool summers, there will be recruitment in normal years, not so much when it's rainy and the temps struggle to climb through June-July. As much pressure as bass get in the early season you'd never get complete lake-wide recruitment failure strictly from angling, it's pretty hard to have even half of the entire number of nests in a lake as large as Simcoe fished to the point of abandonment.

By the time July fry are out it doesn't matter. They have a hard time growing big enough to survive a normal winter. You would be very surprised just how high a percentage of the beds are being fished. I doubt there is 10% of the beds that are not someones waypoints now. Remember, the early deeper beds have low recruitment unless the water heats up stays warm. You can never stop all recruitment lakewide but given the survival rate or fewer and fewer healthy fry it is very possible to decimated the population. Given the 30 year warming trend and the amount of food in the system, smallmouth should be booming not declining.

[dustybacon]

That is true, the gamble of the early deeper beds being if the fry make it to the green fry stage they will have less predators to worry about as well as a bit of a head start with getting big enough to make it through the winter. In terms of decline, it would be what, numbers? Maybe it'll give the Cisco populations a chance to strengthen to allow for some of the smallies to grow record sizes

[John Whyte]

That is true, the gamble of the early deeper beds being if the fry make it to the green fry stage they will have less predators to worry about as well as a bit of a head start with getting big enough to make it through the winter. In terms of decline, it would be what, numbers? Maybe it'll give the Cisco populations a chance to strengthen to allow for some of the smallies to grow record sizes

Yes the quantity and the average size. Cisco is only a fall food for smallies. Crayfish and goby would make up more than 80% of their summer diet.

[BB]

I seen many beds this morning,no beds with any fish on them  John. Im close enough to the water to see. LOL