ABA potholes?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mike Bess on July 25, 2012 at 5:51pm

You are dead to me.

Jon Sessler said:

Thank you "Steve Toole"......

Mike Bess said:

I have some friends (yes Jon, I do have a couple) in Moses.  In 15 years they have never seen the weather pattern they've had for the last 4 months.  For example last Friday, Moses/Othello had a massive hail storm. I think this has a lot to do with it.

Jake "The Snake" Anderson said:

Good questions Joel,

The reason I was interested was that almost every tournament this year has had 1 or two teams putting 5 good bites together, and the rest coming up light.  Potholes open in april, NW bass, ABA, Anglers choice, Your club tourney last weekend....same story.  

I'm left wondering if Potholes has run its course, and everyone and their mother should be fishing Sammamish or whitman to get the big bites leaving Potholes for the pathetic eastsiders to sulk on. 

Permalink Reply by Rob Maglio on July 25, 2012 at 8:18pm

I wouldn't say Potholes has been down all year. 21-23 pound bags during the Mardon Open. After that there were plenty of 16-19 pound bags. 2 over 20lb during NW Bass. That lake has changed fairly dramatically over the past 5 years. Areas that were thick with green willows are now nothing but dead sticks. That lake has tons of forage however. The bass are still there. I think most anglers haven't adjusted to the changes. Those "spots" that were great for several years may not be good anymore. The fish are still there. I know for sure the smallies on the rock have been down, but they get hammered. There were pigs there 2 years ago. Been tough there this year. I won't speak for smallies much though because I don't fish them much. But the largemouth are there. Not to mention the 6 and 7 pounders that have been hauled out. There have always been days over the years that were tough. Doesn't mean anything is wrong with the body of water. We have had weird weather, and it could be causing the fish to do different stuff, but they're there.

Permalink Reply by P.J. Koshi on July 25, 2012 at 10:48pm

I think the diverse nature of the fishery and the unstable and unpredictable weather we have been having is what makes the fishing tougher than it has been in past summers.  Right now the lake is in a place where the water is rapidly dropping and the whole lake is finally a couple weeks past the spawn.  I can think of at least 5 different patterns that would likely produce fish, but it seems that each of those patterns are only good for a couple fish at most.  I think this year they have also kept the lake even higher than they did last year, so it is still behind as far as water level for time of year.  From what I can tell there has been some significant changes in the last couple years in regard to the weed growth and types of weeds growing in certain sections of the lake. Not to mention the lake being kept higher for longer and the addition of more habitat boxes has definitely increased the number of forage fish in my opinion.  I think the typical mid July summer patterns have not really started yet because the lake went through 3 major transitions very quickly and all of them had major impacts on the bass behavior.  Spring transitioned to summer like a flash and it was high 90s even triple digits over there and that brought the water temp up into the mid 80s a few weeks ago.  Around that same time the fish were just coming off the spawn some were still on beds and a lot guarding fry.  About that same week they also started really pulling water hard.  Those are just my thoughts.  I would tend to agree with Bess the lake is not reaching a downward trend in its cycle. 

Permalink Reply by Jeff Grimes on July 26, 2012 at 7:50am

I was there...and can tell you that I caught the 2 bigger fish first thing in the morning and the rest of the day only caught 2 pounders or smaller.  

Joel Alinen said:

Dang...any thoughts on why the weights are so low?

Permalink Reply by Josh Potter on July 26, 2012 at 12:21pm

That is more like it. You can't have all lakes take a dive at the same time in one season. I think it is more likely the stuff that Rob mentioned that has lead to poor fisherman performance not poor fishing. Water levels are super high and the weather has been as weird and unstable as I can ever remember. Banks lake was super tough last weekend. The weekend before it was like fishing for idiots. It was as good as I personally had ever seen it that time of year.

Rob Maglio said:

I wouldn't say Potholes has been down all year. 21-23 pound bags during the Mardon Open. After that there were plenty of 16-19 pound bags. 2 over 20lb during NW Bass. That lake has changed fairly dramatically over the past 5 years. Areas that were thick with green willows are now nothing but dead sticks. That lake has tons of forage however. The bass are still there. I think most anglers haven't adjusted to the changes. Those "spots" that were great for several years may not be good anymore. The fish are still there. I know for sure the smallies on the rock have been down, but they get hammered. There were pigs there 2 years ago. Been tough there this year. I won't speak for smallies much though because I don't fish them much. But the largemouth are there. Not to mention the 6 and 7 pounders that have been hauled out. There have always been days over the years that were tough. Doesn't mean anything is wrong with the body of water. We have had weird weather, and it could be causing the fish to do different stuff, but they're there.

Permalink Reply by Mike Bess on July 26, 2012 at 3:23pm

Really, fishing for idiots?

Josh Potter said:

That is more like it. You can't have all lakes take a dive at the same time in one season. I think it is more likely the stuff that Rob mentioned that has lead to poor fisherman performance not poor fishing. Water levels are super high and the weather has been as weird and unstable as I can ever remember. Banks lake was super tough last weekend. The weekend before it was like fishing for idiots. It was as good as I personally had ever seen it that time of year.

Rob Maglio said:

I wouldn't say Potholes has been down all year. 21-23 pound bags during the Mardon Open. After that there were plenty of 16-19 pound bags. 2 over 20lb during NW Bass. That lake has changed fairly dramatically over the past 5 years. Areas that were thick with green willows are now nothing but dead sticks. That lake has tons of forage however. The bass are still there. I think most anglers haven't adjusted to the changes. Those "spots" that were great for several years may not be good anymore. The fish are still there. I know for sure the smallies on the rock have been down, but they get hammered. There were pigs there 2 years ago. Been tough there this year. I won't speak for smallies much though because I don't fish them much. But the largemouth are there. Not to mention the 6 and 7 pounders that have been hauled out. There have always been days over the years that were tough. Doesn't mean anything is wrong with the body of water. We have had weird weather, and it could be causing the fish to do different stuff, but they're there.

Permalink Reply by Josh Potter on July 26, 2012 at 7:59pm

That means even you could have caught a fish.

Permalink Reply by Mike Bess on July 26, 2012 at 9:17pm

I should have crushed you but I decided to be nice to my idiot friend.
 
Josh Potter said:

That means even you could have caught a fish.

Permalink Reply by Ronald Hobbs, Jr. on July 28, 2012 at 8:26am

If you think the weights are down look at the aoy for northwest bass and look at total weights pretty sure Wolsky and Have our best total accumalitive weights for fishing 4 of the 5 tournies. It hasn't seemed that the weights are down to me it seems that they are up. I think Maglio makes the best point about potholes, cover is changing and the fish are adjusting, I don't think we have seen this lake at its full potential I think in two more years it will be turning out 10 limits of 20 lbs. per large tournaments, the bait is plentiful, I think the habitat restoration has something to do with this along with the shorter low water period, the fish are changing so must the anglers




BigBass Dez said:

I has been saying the same thing all year with most of the lakes that i have fished .

Its started in april on whatcom , then banks , chelan , washington , potholes , etc 

All of these lake have not been turning out good bags like they have in years past . My club just fished riffe this past wkend and same thing , one good bad then the rest are all dinks .I really dont know WTF is going on right now , but im just keep casting untill im the one angler with a good bag at some point ..lol 

 

Its not personal ,its just fishing has been the motto :)

Permalink Reply by Josh Potter on July 28, 2012 at 10:16pm

You could have just said, "ditto" to what I said and it would have taken less time to type. You are supposed to be spending time with your kids at the beach anyway.

Ronald Hobbs, Jr. said:

If you think the weights are down look at the aoy for northwest bass and look at total weights pretty sure Wolsky and Have our best total accumalitive weights for fishing 4 of the 5 tournies. It hasn't seemed that the weights are down to me it seems that they are up. I think Maglio makes the best point about potholes, cover is changing and the fish are adjusting, I don't think we have seen this lake at its full potential I think in two more years it will be turning out 10 limits of 20 lbs. per large tournaments, the bait is plentiful, I think the habitat restoration has something to do with this along with the shorter low water period, the fish are changing so must the anglers




BigBass Dez said:

I has been saying the same thing all year with most of the lakes that i have fished .

Its started in april on whatcom , then banks , chelan , washington , potholes , etc 

All of these lake have not been turning out good bags like they have in years past . My club just fished riffe this past wkend and same thing , one good bad then the rest are all dinks .I really dont know WTF is going on right now , but im just keep casting untill im the one angler with a good bag at some point ..lol 

 

Its not personal ,its just fishing has been the motto :)

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