My expectations for one more banner day dwindled down to just 'one more fish' with the "new" Ovid. Took the day off work and got John C. to join me as well. Thankfully I got that 'one more' but that was it. Fished from 10:30 to dark- one 35" landed, lost one a little bigger, and 2 small follows. Talked to a couple other ardent anglers who had similar experiences today
The last 4-5 times I have been out there I have only had a 1-2 follows with no takers a day. I did not have one single "action day" or even multiple fish day out there this year. I would like to figure out the true cause of this lake's production decline. My vote goes with the "going over the damn theory" but I know some people disagree.
The fish are still there. Somewhere.
This decline started in August '08 when the weeds crashed, and the fishing hasn't been nearly the same since. 75% of the weeds died in the space of a few weeks, leaving the lake filled with dead weeds and LOTS of suspended plant detritus, which made the visibility very low. Visibility used to be 3-5', and sometimes more, but I havent seen that in well over a year now. Lately it's been ~2-3', but most of this year it was less than 2'. Weevils probably had something to do with it, but that's just a guess.
But the weather was weird this year, too, so the weeds never came back close to what they were in early '08. The extent of emergent weeds this year never got to be even half what it was at the peak in July '08. Water temps lagged behind all this year (until this warm Fall we're having), and never got above 78°F even in August.
We used to be able to easily locate fish because they were near the emergent edge, which was in 8-12 fow, and easily fished. The muskies stayed there because all the forage hid in those dense milfoil weedbeds, and the muskies could successfully ambush-predate from there. Now…? Your guess is better than mine.
If the crashing of the weeds was owing to weevils, from now on I might expect predator-prey-type ocillations of years with good weed growth and years with poor weed growth, assuming the weevils were the cause, have successfully been able to reproduce in Ovid, and are now permanent residents.
Here's to hoping next year is better. It can hardly be any worse.
I agree on the weed decline in 08, but I don't think on the muskie contact decline. Last fall was just about as good as previous years I think, no significant difference anyway. No one knows just how many fish went over the dam last spring, but I know it was a lot, an amount that would be significant. Though I doubt that the loss of fish is the only explanation for drastically fewer contacts, but I don't know that it couldn't be, either?… Either way, its a bummer! Hopefully there are still a lot of thriving muskies in there, but I know one thing- I plan on fishing the dam on the MAPLE River in Ovid next spring. I'll bet there's some muskies there!
Yep! I also think the decrease of seeing and/or catching muskie in Ovid is a combination of a couple of things. Many lakes have "on" and "off" years regardless of spieces. This year was a strange year weather wise and many lakes throughout the midwest and Canada experienced some tougher than normal conditions. I'm sure that the number of fish going over the damn has an impact although we don't really know how many slip through. It could be more than we realize….or not? A decrease in water clarity will reflect a decrease in the numbers of "seen" follows and may in turn drop confidence levels in the fisherman, us. Changes in weed growth will certainly effect location of baitfish and muskie. What about the fish becoming a little more educated? Lots of ideas I'm sure.
Yes could be like you said just an "off year." The educated muskie idea…I have thought about that one, but then I dismissed the idea because if any lakes are going to have educated muskies I think it would be over on the west side like Murray and others. One odd thing I noticed was in previous years, you could just drift down the middle of the main lake and find fish suspended off points and breaks during the summer time, contacting fish on pretty much any mid-depth lure. This year, the fish didn't do that. I don't know whether they were super tight to the weeds or in them, or hanging so low on the breakline that conventional lures just didn't get it in their face. Thats one pattern I didn't try, is fishing super slow and deeper. Super slow=super boring, and super hard to do if the wind is blowing, so maybe it is just an unconventional presentation that might have worked. I'll find out next year I guess.
Weird for sure this year. We only had one great day in the spring and this past weekend was decent, everything between was like real muskie fishing. 2009 was just weird, I saw this everywhere I fished in 2009 and from the people I've talked with this was true across muskie-land.
I wouldn't be overly concerned that it was off this year but we need to keep an eye on it for sure.
"Too Many Acronyms" is correct, Sir! If I had ever been in the military, I'm sure I would have quickly gone AWOL because of TMA, IMHO.
As for getting back to the (second) topic of this post, mark me down with those who are suspicious of the spillover.
…And thanks for the good feedback, guys. Let me append my question. So the curly leaf was normal in Ovid this past spring – how was the water clarity at that point in time when the curly leaf was growing tall and approaching the water surface?
From my very little experience on Ovid the water clarity was the best in early June. One day this season when clarity was 3-4ft had over 20 follows in a 3-4 hr span all over the lake, not the same fish. Then before dark lost several fish but nothing in the net that day. Those are the kind of days I have always heard about on Ovid, but have only seen it once myself. Then sometime in the middle to late June it seems like there was a heavy rain that actually flooded the docks and the water clarity was not as good obviously and it seemed the sightings went down. I would think sometimes with less clarity you see less of the deeper follows so the clearer water increases the sightings but catching seemed to be on good weather or key times?
Just for the record, IIRC, TMA, IMHO, etc. are NOT acronyms, they're "initialisms". An acronym is pronounced using its letters, like NATO or MADD or WYSIWYG. Initialisms are not pronounced when spoken, they're spelled out. Class is dismissed. [smilie=nice.gif]
"john c" said:
…And thanks for the good feedback, guys. Let me append my question. So the curly leaf was normal in Ovid this past spring – how was the water clarity at that point in time when the curly leaf was growing tall and approaching the water surface?
As for last spring's curly-leaf period, the water was quite murkier than '08, when I remember 5-7' visibility. In '09, it was more like 2-3' at best.
Are you inferring that I need a new acronym? Err… no, wait – I mean, should I infer that you are implying I need a new intialism? Thanks for the interesting tidbit, Hemi. And thanks for more good feedback. To throw out some more feedback, my experience has been that the better the water clarity, the better the fishing on Ovid. Interestingly, it’s not just that I could see deeper follows in clearer water – I actually get more fish up high and chasing in the clear water (high enough that I would see them no matter what the water clarity might have been).
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