Pressured fish

I was looking at the tournament schedules last night and realized that the bass at Patoka going to be really sick of looking at lures by May. There are 4 events in the month of April, just about one every weekend. An HOTT tourny yesterday 3/30; Federation tourny on 4/6; another HOTT on 4/13; and then the Top 8 on 4/19 and 4/20. These are just the major ones and not included all the club tourny that will be taken place. Of the 4 mentioned, let say a conservative number of 100 boats average each. Two anglers each boat, so we have 800 anglers that probably will comb every inch of the lake. Thanks God the BFL didn't picked Patoka too cause that would really stink. I don't understand why organizers don't choose more Northern lakes and give Patoka a break.

Several reasons: One is that most all of the northern lakes don't have the facilities (ramps, parking, hotels, meeting place, etc.) to handle 100 boats average each. The permitted ones won't even allow that number of boats. Lots of guys from the south and central don't want to have to drive all the way up north to fish a tourney. And the towns around many of these lakes are generally considered to be "not tournament friendly".

You're right, I haven't thought about the facilities situation. Too bad they don't do more to improve the parking and such. It's a big hassle to have to meet at the Wawasee high school parking lot and then try to find a place to park the trailer behind that factory/warehouse or whatever it is. Not to mention that Syracuse ramp, OMG.

More people these days. I long for the old days when you didn't see very many boats on the lake. Today you can't find a cove on Patoka Lake on a weekend where you can't see other people or boats.

But Patoka has had constant pressure even since the day it opened.

What IN needs is more lakes and less boats per acre. More lakes or reservious would help.

I often wonder if fish recognize a bait as danger and avoid it. I am not sure if they do or not. They have tiny brains but it's amazing what power even a tiny fish brain has.

When I was younger I fished KY lake and we used the same baits all the time. White or spotted coach dog bombers. We fished the same parts of the lake every year for a week in the spring and another week in the fall. Sometimes a week in the summer. We caught our fair share of base back in those days. But KY lake is so much larger than Patoka and there must be a lot of bass on KY lake that have never ever seen a lure.

I know I hooked into one 4 lb Largemouth Bass at the Mouth of Panther Creek one summer day. I was fishing a Buck Perry Spoon Plug by trolling it using a deep sea type rod and reel with lead core braided line. I was trolling in 30ft deep water when the bass hit and came to the surface and jumped two times before throwing the bait. But I proved to myself that Buck Perry knew what he was talking about. He had used spoon plugs for many years and had caught a lot of big bass with that method.

I lost my spoon plug that day soon after I caught that bass. That area is full of stumps. I was unable to use get the spoon plug free from the snag. I was by myself that day. KY lake was like glass that day. I should have used my plug knocker to retrieve my spoon plug but I dind't. I must have forget to put it in that tackle box before I went out fishing. We would take 5 tackle boxes with us on each trip and most of them ended up staying in the cabin. We normally only took two tackle boxes out on the lake with us. But I was alone that day and only took one tackle box with me in the boat. I think I was in my bass boat that day. Can't remember which boat I was in now. I just remember it was hard holding onto the rod with that spoon plug bouncing off the bottom of the lake. I needed a heavy duty rod holder and a trolling plate to slow my boat down.