Patoka Update

[Moveon]

Its been a rough year for Patoka so far with all the rain, constent cold fronts.......on and on. Bottom line is the lake is high, and the back water is muddy, the bite has been on again off again but the surface temps are up in the 60's and this should help to stabilize the bite. My advice for this time of year and the conditions that you are going to find right now is to stay west of the 145 bridge working the shallow waters of Flemming, Painter Creek and Southlick...........throw the basic springtime combos of spinnerbaits, jigs and creature baits...................good luck!

Find structure around the warm shallow waters with darker bottom and you will find the active fish. That's where the food will be and the fish follow their food supply.

Water in the depths is still pretty cold compared to the shallow waters and life slows down in the cold dark waters. Therefore the fish will be found in areas with long periods of sunlight. These area heat up faster in the Spring. This means areas with good exposure to the Southern Sun that's protected from Northern winds. North winds help cool off the surface of the water. So you get sun to warm up the water and cold winds cool it back down. It's a tug of war game and some area get and stay warmer longer than others. Think sunshine, calm areas and dark bottom with the right type of bottom material for fish to spawn in/on and crayfish to live in. Remember that Crayfish need to eat too. So think about what they eat and where they go to find their food. Dead fish sink to the bottom and collect in certain areas with slack current in moving river systems. In a lake the type of bottom might be more conducive to life as a crayfish. Think rip rap structure that not only helps the crayfish to hide from predators but the rocks collect sunlight and help warm the water up. And algae will grow on the limestone rocks.

[Thermodude]

Find structure around the warm shallow waters with darker bottom and you will find the active fish. That's where the food will be and the fish follow their food supply.

Water in the depths is still pretty cold compared to the shallow waters and life slows down in the cold dark waters. Therefore the fish will be found in areas with long periods of sunlight. These area heat up faster in the Spring. This means areas with good exposure to the Southern Sun that's protected from Northern winds. North winds help cool off the surface of the water. So you get sun to warm up the water and cold winds cool it back down. It's a tug of war game and some area get and stay warmer longer than others. Think sunshine, calm areas and dark bottom with the right type of bottom material for fish to spawn in/on and crayfish to live in. Remember that Crayfish need to eat too. So think about what they eat and where they go to find their food. Dead fish sink to the bottom and collect in certain areas with slack current in moving river systems. In a lake the type of bottom might be more conducive to life as a crayfish. Think rip rap structure that not only helps the crayfish to hide from predators but the rocks collect sunlight and help warm the water up. And algae will grow on the limestone rocks.

The only problem is its "Patoka" not your normal run of the mill lake.................................you can throw logic out the window once you launch your boat!!

[Moveon]

The only problem is its "Patoka" not your normal run of the mill lake.................................you can throw logic out the window once you launch your boat!!

The In-Fisherman Critical Concept Series would probably classify Patoka as a Hill Land type Reservoir. But the main thing about Patoka is the water clarity and the amount of timber that was left standing before the lake filled up with water. That gives Patoka Lake a lot of cover for the fish to hide in and can make fishing though the timber difficult. That's getting better or easier now that the lake is older and some of the side branches and tiny twigs have fallen off the main parts of the submerged trees. The upper parts of Patoka lake are more like a lowland reservoir in that those areas are much shallower and have a lot of flat areas surrounding the old Patoka River Channel in the upper reaches of the Patoka River Area. Then there are old deep rock quarries in the Little Patoka River Section's upper reaches. Those should be reachable now that the water is high. Lick Fork is another long creek arm that has varying depths and different type of soil and timber. Then there is the Painter Creek Area that is chock full of rocks and submerged timber. Though out Patoka Lake there are submerged roads and submerged old bridges or bridge abutments. These concrete structures can be found in some areas down to 30 ft deep in the lake.

Every lake I've ever fished has been a challenge at first unless you go with an experience fisherman that's fished the lake before and knows it well. I sort of like the challenge of figuring out a new lake. Yes it can be frustrating at first but after you learn the lake and where the fish are it's a lot of fun. I see it sort of like trying out a new Golf Course.

I've caught bass in the shallows along the bank and also in the deep submerged tree lines.

I'm thinking that one of the keys to finding good bass and crappie populations is to fish the lake a lot and try to eliminate water that does not hold good populations of fish.

A friend of mine has the Humminbird 1198 and I've been out on Patoka Lake with him in his boat. He's also been fishing Patoka since it first opened and has two camps up at the Newton Stewart Area. We used his Humminbird Side scanning Sonar to find plenty of brush piles all around the lake in very deep water. If you go along the banks Norh and South of the Fisherman's campground and look up on the East Bank while going North on the Lick Fort Branch you will see high hills along the bank and some deep ruts where the water has carved out a valley into the hill. Those small valleys or cuts into the hills have been there for over 30 years now. And if you look down in the water at the base of each of those cuts you will find some huge brush piles or piles of old timber that's either washed down into the water from the hillside over the years or were placed there by someone. We found at least four of them and it was looking like each cut had big brush piles below the area where water rushes down the hillside and into the lake through the cut. These could be prime spots to try out some deep water baits.

This time of the year the water is still warming up from the long cold winter. It's not quiet as warm as it will be later this summer when there is a thermocline formed. But if you check out the very shallow waters in the back ends of the bays there will be some shad activity. The Shad go there to feed on the algae and phytoplankton blooms that first start in the warming most fertile waters. Area that flow though the near by farms carries nutrients into the Lake's water. Where those waters enter the lake is where the food chain starts. Try getting back in there and casting some small weed-ess baits into the shallows and drag them by some stumps or brush piles. You will probably have to research the area first before going back to fish it later. That way You will know exactly where the stumps are located so you can ease back into the shallow water and make a long cast so as to not spook any fish back in there. Those fish in shallow water are wary. They have to worry about hawks and eagles or other birds of prey swooping down on them so they are instinctively wary when in shallow water. And remember that they can see out of the water and into the air to some degree. So don't be casting shadows over them or making any noise in the boat. For crappie I like to cast out with 2lb or 4lb test line and use a small 1/32 oz or 1/16 oz lead head jig and a 1.5" long Tube jig with a slip float and thrill bobber stop. This rig can be fished though the area to find the fish. I love using ultra light rigs to do this for crappie. Once in a while a bass may grab the small jig too. I've even caught drum (white Perch) and some catfish while using this setup. Squirmin Squirts are good and you can buy them from Bass Pro Shops. I like the White Lighting Color best. Add a minnow or a Berkley Crappie Nibble to the hook to entice the fish more.

Anther spot to fish in the summer months is the submergent vegetation edges. Both the Inside edge and the outside edges are good areas to check out. Fish over the top of the grass right along the edge and see what happens. A good deph finder using Side Scanning Sonar or 360 Sonar can help you pin point these edges easily. Wish I had the Onix with 360 and a Min-Kota that would help me follow the contours of the lakes I fish. If only the digital Lake Master Maps of the lakes I fish were more highly accurate and not off by 10 to 20 ft in some places. The one lake I fish was sampled by a Indiana DNR Fishery Biologist Lady and she didn't get anough data points to make the map more accurate. I watched her doing the survey on my favorite lake that I fish. It was early March and cold that day and she was cold and wanting to finish up quickly. So she skipped over some of the drop off that I like to fish. These drops are irregular and need to be surveyed with many data points to make an accurate map that shows the cuts and points of the area. And her grid lines were 100 yards apart where the should have been 10 ft apart to get better data on my lake. The reason I want the higher accuracy is because I like to try to troll crank baits right along the edges. And the edges in this Pit are man made and quite variable. Some areas the points go way out into the main lake where 40 yards up the lake they only go out half as far. And they vary back and forth along the Eastern Shore line. The first time I drove my boat along this area parallel to the shore line about 25 yards out from the bank I noiced that the depth was going up and then back down about 5 different times. So I found out that this area had many variations in the depth with just one pass over this area. If I had pass over the same area just 10 ft to the West I would have gotten a different picture of the area. But today with the Humminbird Onix system and the Humminbird Auto Chart one can make a better map. This new Humminbird system lets you make your own detailed maps of the lakes you fish. They even have a Lake Master Digital Map of Patoka Lake that I like to use when fishing up there. It will show you all the channels, points and underwater humps etc. It's a hydro-graphic type map with 1 ft contour lines that are most likely estimated by a computer. Again the more data points recorded and used by the map makers the better and higher the accuracy of the underwater terrain. When I was taking a Class in Physical Geology our Professor taught us how to make a top map. That's where I learned about USGS top maps and how they are made from aerial photographs and stereoscopic views. These days they use survey points showing GPS location and elevation about seal level to put into a computer running autocad or similar software and then let the computer figure out where to draw the contour lines on the map. The contour lines can be artificially show in 1ft increments or 10 ft or 20 ft or even 50 ft intervals. Some very steep sided area of deeper lakes are best shown with 20 ft contour lines. While other shallow lakes with little variation in the lakes bottom contour are best shown with 1ft contour intervals.