Older reservoirs slowly lose cover options as they age, especially a lot of the smaller woody debris. Missouri Department of Conservation and cooperators placed approximately 1,600 fish attracting structures (trees, stumps, and rock piles) throughout Table Rock Lake, Missouri to improve fish habitat for largemouth bass. They then implanted 60 largemouth bass (>15″ total length) with radio transmitters in April 2011 and relocated the fish on a monthly basis. They wanted to determine movement and habitat selection of the bass, and to see if these fish would select for the recently planted structures within the lake.
Results indicated that most of the time, largemouth bass preferred to be near cover (boat docks, rock ledges, and coarse woody debris) compared to out in open water. However, submerged and sunk trees were the only type of additional man-made cover selected regularly by the bass.
They also followed movement rates of up to 20 fish per month, each fish being relocated every 3-4 hours for one, 24-hour period. Bass movement was greatest during summer, and lowest during fall and winter. In fact, bass moved about 2.5-times more during the warmer water period. Interestingly, they also moved 2-3 times greater during the day than at night.
So the lessons seem to be;
- Some cover types may be preferred by bass in any given lake over other options available.
- Increased bass movement during summer days would suggest that just because you don’t catch a bass in an area the first time you fish through it, it might be wise to revisit the area a time or two again later in the day, as new fish are likely to move in.
- When fishing at night, and knowing that bass might move much less in certain lakes, picking good areas and fishing them thoroughly instead of covering a lot of water might be the best tactic.
