01-06-2006, 03:47 PM
Stock-dam bass a fall fight worth hunting for By Steve Nelson, Special to the Journal
There are thousands of stock dams scattered throughout western South Dakota. Some are small - an acre or less - but some are much bigger. Their primary purpose was and still is watering livestock. But over the years, they've come to offer much more than a drink for cows and horses.
Many are stocked with fish. Most have largemouth bass, some have a largemouth bass and bluegill-perch combination, and some have trout.
This is about the bass, old bucketmouth. This is about fall - fall fishing for prairie bass.
The excellent bass fishing we enjoy in the spring is often forgotten in fall. There are a variety of reasons, hunting seasons being the main one. In the fall, the dams early are still mossed-up and difficult to fish. Cattails, bulrushes and other vegetation have grown thick in the shallows, making it difficult to fish from the shore.
And the fish themselves, well, they also can be difficult. But they can be caught. They're getting bigger after feeding all summer. And as the water cools, the fight that they had in late spring, and lost in summer, returns.
The fall season is really two seasons - first being early fall, when the vegetation is still thick and the water warm. The second season usually follows a good, hard frost when the weeds go down and the water cools. Tactics are quite different for each.
My son, Chris, knows these tactics well, in part through years of fishing with the old man but also through his own intuition, exploration and study. He loves to fish the walleyes of Oahe and Lake Sharpe, the two huge lakes in his backyard at Pierre. But he also has a passion for the big bass, those in the 3- to 5-pound range that may slowly suck in a piece of plastic, hardly moving the line, or bang it with the fury of the savage sub-surface hunters they are.
Big bass fight. A walleye can't even come close in comparison. Bass jump, they charge a small boat, and like a rodeo bull trying to shake a pesky rider, they mimic that hard action by a shaking of the head that can throw a lure completely out of the water. They go deep, then rush toward the surface at a speed that no angler can keep up with, no matter how hard he reels. When successfully landed, they deserve to be set free.
Fishing professional Mike McClelland of Fort Pierre once told a seminar audience in Minneapolis that catching bass was easy: "All you need to do is find a stump or a dock."
It was an oversimplification that upset some bass lovers. But in a way, McClelland was right. Find structure, and you'll find bass. Look for a pile of tree limbs, an old stump sticking out of the water, even an opening in the reeds. Be accurate with your cast. Put it right up where the bass hide.
Bass want to hide, to be in a place where they can ambush their prey. That's usually in the shade along the shoreline, or under a cut bank.
Chris was reminding me of that on a recent bass trip.
"Dad," he said, "you've got to methodically cast every foot of this shoreline. Somewhere along there is a big bass."
About that time, he set the hook. We were using Berkley power lizards on a weedless No. 4 hook. Use big hooks. A 4-pound largemouth can eat a baby duck or a huge bullfrog with room to spare. You can see or feel the pick-up, and then you set the hook - hard, very hard. If you've done everything right, the battle will be on.
It could be the biggest fight you'll have all fall.
Steve Nelson lives in Pierre, where he writes about the outdoors and continues his love affair with bass - both black and white - and the central South Dakota outdoors.
[url "http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/01/06/news/outdoors/348outdoors.txt"]http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/01/06/news/outdoors/348outdoors.txt[/url]
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There are thousands of stock dams scattered throughout western South Dakota. Some are small - an acre or less - but some are much bigger. Their primary purpose was and still is watering livestock. But over the years, they've come to offer much more than a drink for cows and horses.
Many are stocked with fish. Most have largemouth bass, some have a largemouth bass and bluegill-perch combination, and some have trout.
This is about the bass, old bucketmouth. This is about fall - fall fishing for prairie bass.
The excellent bass fishing we enjoy in the spring is often forgotten in fall. There are a variety of reasons, hunting seasons being the main one. In the fall, the dams early are still mossed-up and difficult to fish. Cattails, bulrushes and other vegetation have grown thick in the shallows, making it difficult to fish from the shore.
And the fish themselves, well, they also can be difficult. But they can be caught. They're getting bigger after feeding all summer. And as the water cools, the fight that they had in late spring, and lost in summer, returns.
The fall season is really two seasons - first being early fall, when the vegetation is still thick and the water warm. The second season usually follows a good, hard frost when the weeds go down and the water cools. Tactics are quite different for each.
My son, Chris, knows these tactics well, in part through years of fishing with the old man but also through his own intuition, exploration and study. He loves to fish the walleyes of Oahe and Lake Sharpe, the two huge lakes in his backyard at Pierre. But he also has a passion for the big bass, those in the 3- to 5-pound range that may slowly suck in a piece of plastic, hardly moving the line, or bang it with the fury of the savage sub-surface hunters they are.
Big bass fight. A walleye can't even come close in comparison. Bass jump, they charge a small boat, and like a rodeo bull trying to shake a pesky rider, they mimic that hard action by a shaking of the head that can throw a lure completely out of the water. They go deep, then rush toward the surface at a speed that no angler can keep up with, no matter how hard he reels. When successfully landed, they deserve to be set free.
Fishing professional Mike McClelland of Fort Pierre once told a seminar audience in Minneapolis that catching bass was easy: "All you need to do is find a stump or a dock."
It was an oversimplification that upset some bass lovers. But in a way, McClelland was right. Find structure, and you'll find bass. Look for a pile of tree limbs, an old stump sticking out of the water, even an opening in the reeds. Be accurate with your cast. Put it right up where the bass hide.
Bass want to hide, to be in a place where they can ambush their prey. That's usually in the shade along the shoreline, or under a cut bank.
Chris was reminding me of that on a recent bass trip.
"Dad," he said, "you've got to methodically cast every foot of this shoreline. Somewhere along there is a big bass."
About that time, he set the hook. We were using Berkley power lizards on a weedless No. 4 hook. Use big hooks. A 4-pound largemouth can eat a baby duck or a huge bullfrog with room to spare. You can see or feel the pick-up, and then you set the hook - hard, very hard. If you've done everything right, the battle will be on.
It could be the biggest fight you'll have all fall.
Steve Nelson lives in Pierre, where he writes about the outdoors and continues his love affair with bass - both black and white - and the central South Dakota outdoors.
[url "http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/01/06/news/outdoors/348outdoors.txt"]http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/01/06/news/outdoors/348outdoors.txt[/url]
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