Big Indiana Bass

Big Indiana Bass: "Tidbits"

According to Webster's New Ideal Dictionary, they define these words as follows:

• tidbit: n. - a choice morsel
• choice: adj. - worthy of being chosen; selected with care; of high quality
• morsel: n. - a small piece or quantity; a tasty dish

As such, I'm introducing a new feature to the Big Indiana Bass site entitled "Tidbits".  These will be ~90 second or less video snippets covering a range of topics related to Indiana fishing, and designed to give you a quick visual insight into the how, what and why's of catching more fish. Hoping to have a host of people, including myself, participate. I've even added a listing to the categories section of the website so that they'll be easy to find and watch.

 

The Impact of Line Damage on Monofilament Strength

Effect of Surface Damage on Tensile and Fatigue Properties of Nylon Fishing Line

Worawit Wanchana , Haruyuki Kanehiro and Hiroshi Inada

From the file of 'things you already knew, but needed a research study to prove'. You know the importance of checking your line frequently for nicks and abrasions, but this study quantified the degree to what effect that has on overall line strength (tensile strength). While the authors used very heavy tuna fishing line (monofilament of 150 and 400 lb. test) for this study, the findings should be pretty applicable across a wide range of monofilament line sizes, and if anything, the smaller sizes of line bass and recreational users utilize is probably more a concern relative to nicks due to less 'room for error'.

Here are some of the findings from the paper;

• Tensile tests indicated that the strength of notched nylon monofilaments was rapidly decreased with increasing notch depth, and that between thicker and thinner nylon monofilaments, the decrease in the tensile strength of the heavier line was steeper than that of the thinner line.
• It was shown that nylon monofilament absorbed in total about 5% water (the equilibrium state), and took about 10-14 days to do so. This time period should be much shorter for thinner monofilaments used by anglers, and many studies done by various persons or sites when testing lines have typically used soak times of between 2 to 6 hours.
• The tensile strength for the wet samples of both lines was about 10% lower than for the dry ones. This is a pretty well documented fact with monos.
• The tensile strength of both nylon monofilaments decreased about 30-50% with only a 10% (vs. total diameter) notch depth. This drives home the point that even a tiny nick or gash in your line can severely weaken it's overll strength.
• When comparing between dry and wet tensile strength of the same diameter and notch depth samples, it appeared that the tensile strength of wet notched samples were similar to dry samples.
• In the case of un-marred wet monofilament, the loss in breaking strength occurred after absorbing water due to the weakening of the line from water absorption. For notched wet samples, it appears that the surface damage has a more significant effect on the loss in breaking strength than that of weakening after absorbing water.

So the best advice and line of caution should be to A.) check your line frequently for any nicks or abrsions while fishing, and B.) if you notice or feel anything unusual, you should immediately cut off the bad section and retie on to a fresh section of line. As always, it's better to be safe than sorry. You just never know what your next cast might hook.

The Long Road to Florida...

Jacob Wheeler checking in this morning from the road as he heads down to Florida to fish the first FLW Open event at Okeechobee as a pre-Tour shakedown.

 

More Weekend Wrapup "Stuff"

I'm not a tackle minimalist, but I did a pretty darn good job of checking out 2 stores and 1 fishing show this weekend and walking out of all 3 with less than $60 in combined purchases. Here are a few other things I picked up in the last week that I'll be reporting on in the future, as well as related site news.

• I grabbed 2 packs of Gambler Shakey Shads that I plan on testing as part of my "Midwest Finesse" repertoire once the water warms and the sissy jig bite goes away.
• Beside the Megabass knockoff, I also bought one of the new RC2 Luck E Strike squarebills to test. Price was $6.99 and they are all made as silent runners.
• I now own a Lucky Craft Kelly J prop bait that I'll be reporting on later this spring when that bite comes around.
• Received my 6# and 10# spools of Sufix 832 line in neon lime. I'm really anxious to test this line out, and will be dishing out some thoughts after a couple good workouts. The 6# should get a lot of crappie and sissy jig work, and the 10# will be for shaky head fishing.
• Speaking of crappie, I added quite a few new crappie baits to the arsenal. It had been a while since I last added to that box, but I plan on playing with them more this year than I did last. A lot of guys have asked me about how I fish for crappie, what I refer to as 'OTC'-style. A detailed article is coming very soon in that regard. Also reorganized the crappie tackle box this weekend. I'll probably post pics at some point when I get things finalized.
• One more note related to crappie fishing. I bought a spool of 4# Berkley Sensation in 'blaze orange'. Hope it works as good as it looks :) From my testing, Sensation has the least amount of stretch compared to any other mono/copoly or fluoro line that I have tested.
• Spoke with IBF tourney director Kenny Swint at The Outdoorsman show on Saturday, and plans are for a lot more coverage of Federation Invitational events and anglers on this site in 2012. If all goes as discussed, you'll get postings of all tourney results rapidly on the site, hopefully including all the top-8 regional stuff that usually never gets covered. Once info starts rolling in, we'll probably deidicate an entire page to just IBF stuff so it will be easy for anglers to find and keep updated. Also planning interiew features with the Angler & Co-Angler of the Year winners, along with the IBF Classic winner.
• Back on tackle items, I now have my new Rapala digital touch screen weigh scale in hand. I've already been playing with it, figuring out all the features by weighing my rods. Do you know how much your rods weigh? You'll be hearing lots more about this little dude in 2012 on the site.
• Also got my hands on the new Little Pek-R Finesse Jigheads from Rod Yoder and RedShad Tackle. We'll see what we can do with those this spring.
• Lastly, I plan on doing a little bit of 'old school' fishing in 2012, going back to my roots. I've got a pair of 10' poles for panfish dipping and small pond live bait fishing. A lot more than meets the eye here, some of which I plan to cover on the site if I actually take the time to set down the bass poles for a minute. I started out fishing when I was just a little kid on the banks of Eagle Creek as well as the local creeks (more like large drainage ditches) using a cane pole and bobber, and thought it might be fun to revisit those roots, only with modern tackle and techniques. I'm even thinking about holding a 'learn to fish' day for kids and parents locally to introduce them to the simplicity of fishing (and especially catching). I've seen way too many instances of kids out fishing the past few years (both alone and with parents) and simply not catching anything, largely because of poor setup and lack of knowledge. It's good to reflect and revisit "where ya' came from" every once in a while, and we definitely need to get kids more interested in fishing and the outdoors in general these days..

Megabass ITO Vision 110 vs. Luck E Strike RC STX

As many of you know, I made the rounds today hitting the tackle shops and shows through the Greenwood/Franklin area. Was great to meet and chat with a lot of you guys. While out on the road, I came across the new Luck E Strike RC STX, their newest suspending minnow bait. If you haven't seen it yet, it's about as close a knock-off visually as I've seen to a Megabass Vision 110 bait.

How close you might ask? I bought one over at Honey Creek Tackle and came home and ran the two baits through a thorough comparison, BIB style. The details are below.

There's no question that the Megabass Vision ITO 110 works. Lots of tournaments have been won nationally on it, and I used it with great success late in the year here in Indiana. What I don't know is exactly how good the RC STX bait will be, but I can assure you that as soon as I get launched again this spring, I'll be doing an on-the-water head-to-head comparison/competition between the two, and will report back in with the results. It should be very interesting...

The A-B-C-D-Rig in Action

New Study Finds Take Me Fishing™ Campaign Motivates Decision to Boat & Fish

Campaign continues to achieve high levels of brand awareness and advertising effectiveness

ALEXANDRIA, VA (January 25, 2012) – A new study released by the Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation (RBFF) reveals that RBFF's Take Me Fishing™ brand and Take Me Fishing advertising continues to achieve high levels of awareness, and that the campaign is positively affecting decisions to participate in boating and fishing. The study, based on an online survey, found that consumers who recall a Take Me Fishing print ad are more than three times more likely to intend to go fishing, take someone fishing, or go boating for the purpose of fishing as consumers who do not recall the ad. In another analysis, the study scored Take Me Fishing print advertising 74.4 out of 100 on its ability to influence readers' decisions to go fishing in response to the ad's call to action.

"These are exciting results for RBFF and our stakeholders," said RBFF President and CEO Frank Peterson. "They prove the Take Me Fishing campaign is positively affecting behavior and boosting participation. This coming year, we're expanding the campaign. And we're working right now on future ads to keep the campaign fresh, effective and motivating."

The survey reached 2,000 people among three target groups: those interested in the outdoors, those interested in both fishing and boating and those known to have been exposed to the Take Me Fishing advertising campaign.

KEY FINDINGS:

• Awareness of the Take Me Fishing logo increased in 2011 across all audiences, and is up to 61 percent among those interested in fishing or boating, an increase of 16 percent over 2010.
• Brand awareness (measured by recall of the phrase "Take Me Fishing") increased from 30 percent in 2010 to 48 percent in 2011, a more than 50 percent jump over 2010.

Take Me Fishing ads have a powerful effect on intentions to participate:

• Those who recall a Take Me Fishing ad, compared with those who do not recall the ad, are 3.6 times more likely to go fishing, 3.6 times more likely to take someone else fishing and 3.5 times more likely to go boating for the purpose of fishing.
• Consumers who recall a Take Me Fishing ad are 3.6 times more likely to go to the TakeMeFishing.org website than those who do not.
• Awareness of direct mail advertising (via RBFF's Fishing License Marketing Program) is up six percent in 2011 (15 percent) compared to 2010 (9 percent).

The study was based on a survey conducted by EurekaFacts in September 2011. An executive summary of the report is available online at www.rbff.org/research. To request a copy of the full report, please e-mail rbff@rbff.org.

Largemouth Bass and Fish Leeches - A Story

This post is a great example of why I love the Internet. It starts out with an observation I've made several times over the past 10 years or so while bass fishing, that being the prevalence in some waters for bass to have very small leeches attached inside their mouths. Cool thing I noticed, but never thought much more about it. Then recently I stumble upon this piece of research and the lightbulb goes off - this is what I've been seeing.

High prevalence of buccal ulcerations in largemouth bass, Micropterus salmoides (Centrarchidae) from Michigan inland lakes associated with Myzobdella lugubris Leidy 1851 (Annelida: Hirudinea).

Faisal M, Schulz C, Eissa A, Whelan G.

Widespread mouth ulcerations were observed in largemouth bass collected from eight inland lakes in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan during the summer months of 2002 and 2003. These ulcerations were associated with, and most likely caused by, leech parasitism. Through the use of morphological dichotomous keys, it was determined that all leeches collected are of one species: Myzobdella lugubris. Among the eight lakes examined, Lake Orion and Devils Lake had the highest prevalence of leech parasitism (34% and 29%, respectively) and mouth ulcerations (53% and 68%, respectively). Statistical analyses demonstrated that leech and ulcer prevalence varied significantly from one lake to the other. Additionally, it was determined that the relationship between the prevalence of ulcers and the prevalence of leech attachment is significant, indicating that leech parasitism is most likely the cause of ulceration. The ulcers exhibited deep hemorrhagic centers and raised irregular edges. Affected areas lost their epithelial lining and submucosa, with masses of bacteria colonizing the damaged tissues. Since largemouth bass is a popular global sportfish and critical to the food web of inland lakes, there are concerns that the presence of leeches, damaged buccal mucosa, and general unsightliness may negatively affect this important sportfishery.

Then, of course, finding one study leads to a list of references and more searching, and I find another paper;

• Epidemic oral ulceration in largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) associated with the leech Myzobdella lugubris

which backs the first one nicely, actually coming out much earlier and from the east coast, and assures me this is what I've been noticing. The cycle continues as I now learn that this particular leech is highly present in the freshwater fishes of Lake St. Clair;

• Leeches (Annelida: Hirudinida) Parasitizing Fish of Lake St. Clair, Michigan, U.S.A.

and most recently, this leech was found to be able to harbor the disease Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia virus (VHSV) and is highly likely the/a vector for the transmission of this fish killer;

• Detection of Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia virus (VHSV) from the leech Myzobdella lugubris Leidy, 1851

which brings this story full circle for me, as this disease and the subsequent federal ban on transportation of game fish from and between Great Lakes states several years back was the reason we didn't get our local lake stocked that year with fish from a hatchery in Wisconsin that I had ordered. It really is a small world after all...

Miscellany

A few brief snippets of things going on this week...

• The Outdoorsman Sport Shop Show in Greenwood, IN will run from 8-6 on January 28th. Speakers include Billy McDonald, Todd Hollowell, Keith Monson, and Billy Blakely. Raffles, give a ways, specials (most items will be, at the least, 10% off), and free hot dogs will all be part of the experience.
• The Indiana Fishing Expo runs this Saturday and Sunday down at the Franklin County Fairgrounds. Guest speakers for this multi-species show include Gilbert Huxley (Carp); Nick Teeters (Smallmouth); Charlie Hildreth (Crappie); Todd Hollowell (Bass); William Bennett (Muskie); Rick Millette (Walleye); Clint Kowalik (IDNR) - I'm hoping to hit both shows on Saturday as it stands now, so keep an eye out for me if you're there and say 'hi'.
• One line I've really been wanting to try, as well as compare to NanoFil, is Sufix 832. I now have 2 spools headed my way, so I'll be able to throw out some opinions on it after I get a chance to use it this spring. I've seen it in use and have been impressed with it "from afar". It's a braid comprised of "8 fibers (7 HMPE Dyneema® plus 1 Patent Pending GORE® Performance Fiber) and 32 weaves (pics) per inch. GORE® Performance Fibers improve abrasion resistance, increase casting distance & accuracy and reduce line vibration. HMPE Dyneema® fibers provide high strength & sensitivity, hydrophobic water-repellent protection and small diameter." I'm actually most excited about the color options, as the 2 spools I have coming are 'neon lime'.
• I usually take the time to clean and lube all my own baitcasters. It makes a difference, as some of the reels I'm fishing with are 15 years old or more. This year I decided to send all the Shimano's out for a thorough cleaning, inspection and repair. Several of them were squealing pretty bad, and I figured I needed some bearing replacements, since oiling didin't solve the problem. Turns out it was a case of the centrifugal spool pins working their way loose after all these years, a supposed known issue with Shimanos. Never had that problem or worry with my Daiwas. Anyway, 3 of my baitcasters were suffering from this malady. Simple fix is to take a pair of pliers and remove the affected pins. Those reels are now super free spoolin', but it beats replacing spools at $30 a pop. Might keep this in mind if you're experiencing the same thing.
• Also in the category of being frugal (read cheap), I've been scouring the halls of EBay looking for spare spools to purchase for my assorted spinning reels. Being multi-species, I always seem to run into this problem of never having enough outfits set up for exactly what I want to do. Instead of buying more spinning outfits (I already own 7 or 8), I decided this year to purchase spare spools for those reels so that I can have multiple line setups ready to roll for any given trip with a simple change out. I've bought about half a dozen already for the various reels I use, and the cost, even with shipping charges, is running about $7-$8 per spool. So for any given reel, I can have a braid setup, a fluorocarbon setup, and a mono setup, or two different line weights of the same material. I just need to come up with a good labeling system now :)

Indy Bass Club Waveland Benefit - Open Tx

The Indy Bass Club would like to invite you to be one of 25 teams in their 2012 Charity Open Tournament at Lake Waveland on Sunday, April 15th. There are only 13 spots left. There is also a raffle for a 50"class HDTV donated by hhgregg. Raffle tickets are $10 each and the drawing will be done after the awards ceremony of the fishing tournament. To purchase raffle tickets see the Indy Bass Club display at the Outdoorsman Sport Shop Greenwood January 28th or the Indiana Fishing Expo Johnson County Fairgrounds January 28th & 29th. or send an e-mail to info@indybassclub.org
 
Please print the attached flyer, fill it out and mail it in with your entry fee payment as soon as possible as Lake Waveland has a 25 boat limit.
 
Please feel free to e-mail any questions you may have.
 
Visit the Indy Bass Club website at www.indybassclub.org for more information.

Download 2012_IBC_Charity_Tx