winter bass fishing, how can I catch them at 45 foot deep?????

[kgbassin]

Try drop shorting or a spoon. When you get them up make sure you deflate the air bladder, fizz, if you are putting in the live well. Good luck.

Dan

Http:\\www.evansvillebassmasters.webs.com

Thanks to everyone for all of the information, hopefully I can try all of you all's techqines tommorowo!!! I have heard about the deflate part, but i am just fishing for fun is it okay to relase them after I catch them that deep, or should I take my time reeling them in like catfish, when u catch them really deep, to make sure that the air comes out of their bladders!!!!!

[CTFSHWHISKER]

there is hybrids in there,don't know how many are left but they did stock it,go into bardstown and see if keenes has any large minnows and drift them around and see what you get,there is a good supply of carp in there and they will school like that in the deep,i do know last weekend you did not need to fish over 9 ft deep to catch fish,crappie and bass,the main key was small baits and slow.if you do not have a permit be careful,he has been setting at the ramp if there are boats out there checking for permits.

[Moveon]

We should be careful fishing in the winter months for these deep water santuary fish populations.

[fishincreek]

We should be careful fishing in the winter months for these deep water santuary fish populations.

Why?

[Moveon]

I'd say give them time to decompress when reeling them up from very deep water.

I SCUBA dive and am well aware of the gas laws and how it affects a diver. I'd think that a fish is not any different from a diver in the sense that dissolved gases in the blood stream will behave the same in a fish's blood as in a human's blood.

Deep water fishing has a risk to those fish that are caugth and released. This is more true in the hot summer months but could be equally deadly to the fish in the winter months.

If you really care about protecting the fish resources then bring them up slower and have more fun in the process.

I'm not exactly sure how long it takes for a fish to fill or deflate it's air bladder. Different species of fish have different types of air bladder. But we are talking about sm or LM bass here. They have blood vessels that surround the air bladder and exchange gases between the two. I'm just not sure of how fast this occurs.

It's something I have thought about and tried to research a bit but have not had much luck in figuring this out with any certainty.

But I'd think that the longer it took to bring the fish to the surface the better off the fish would be.

Now if you only catch a fish or two this will not do much damage to the overall fish population. But if you cach and release twenty SM bass in 45 ft of water it could have a hue dent in the SM bass Popluation in the area.

Remember that the SM bass all group up together is big schools in deep water for the winter. If they all were to die after being caught and released that would be bad. It would be bad if 50% of them died later.

So I like your idea to bring them up slowly vs the fizzing operation.

Better to be safe than sorry. Besides with the cold water they won't be fighing as hard as they would in the summer time. Cold slows down a fish's metabolism and they are more sluggish in the cold water.

Thanks to everyone for all of the information, hopefully I can try all of you all's techqines tommorowo!!! I have heard about the deflate part, but i am just fishing for fun is it okay to relase them after I catch them that deep, or should I take my time reeling them in like catfish, when u catch them really deep, to make sure that the air comes out of their bladders!!!!!