Flushing out a covey of bass. Well, one bass anyway.

[busbee]

(For about ten days it has been raining just enough each day to crush all hopes of fishing. I am slowly going nuts, so please forgive this string of posts as I try to hang on to what shreds of my sanity remain.)

A couple of years ago, if I remember correctly, someone asked on the board why bass fishermen occasionally cruise in, cut the engine, loudly bang on their boats with a paddle, and then start fishing. I think the answer someone gave was that the goal was to get the bass moving, get them out of their comfy hiding places, after which they would be more easily caught.

Last February I was experimenting tying some flies that were a lot larger than what I had tied before. To see how they cast, I put on my heavy coat, hat, and gloves and trotted over to the stream, which is about 150 feet across and consistently about three or four feet deep. A snag fisherman sometimes fishes there for carp, even in the winter, and he was there on the other side. As I was setting up, his wife and two teenaged sons brought him his lunch, and as I was about to start casting, his family suddenly started throwing large rocks into the water. Boys do that, but a wife? Then I saw the husband pointing to places, directing the barrage. Obviously, it was all to get the carp out of their hiding places.

The stream often freezes over, but it had been a little above freezing for over a week, which was the reason I was able to test cast my flies. With no chance of catching a bass (largemouth), I couldn?t have cared less about all the commotion with the rocks. Then the bass hit. Not much fighting spirit, but I measured it and the length converted to a little over 1-1/2 pounds. Being that it was cold and windy and I was just seeing how the flies cast, I was retrieving them as fast as I could, which is solidly wrong for cold weather bass. Looking back, of course, I wish I had gone and got my thermometer, but it was just too damn cold.

The fly, by the way, was an eight-inch lead-headed yellow bunny eel. It needed an 8-wt. outfit and maximum effort to go 35 feet, plus at times it required some seriously agile ducking. (Hey, we all make a few stupid flies at times. At least I hope I?m not the only one.) Never even got another hit on that fly. Which is to the good. My idea of hell would have been for it to have become my most effective fly.

[Micropteris]

Throwing rocks in the water changes the fishes mood, ie changes their energy levels. When you can get a fish to change he is usually more catchable. When fishing I usually will look for people throwing rocks in the water and throroughly fish those spots, just out of throwing range of course. Some of my best days fishing this year have been in areas where people were on shore throwing rocks. They think that they are scaring fish away.

[busbee]

All this about pounding boats and throwing rocks to change the fish's mood makes sense. But noisy wading (bouncing rocks around on the bottom) will supposedly cut our chances of success. How does that fit into the picture?

[alra195]

I've heard the term "stoning the river" in reference to fishing the caulk streams in England as a method of getting the fish to take but I alway thought it was kind of a wives tails or a practicle joke played on novice fisherman. You know, like taking the new guy at camp out "snipe hunting". Perhaps there is a grain of truth in this?

Now, where did I leave my snipe bag and flash light?