From all indications the bass fishery at Clear Lake should literally explode during the next three years because of the millions of juvenile bass in the lake. If even a small portion of these fish make it through the winter there should be plenty of 12-15 inch bass next summer.
Of course, there is also a downside to having too many of the young bass. The lake can support only so many fish and it all depends on the population of such baitfish as the silverside minnows, young bluegill and crappie. Another factor is the potential return of threadfin shad. If these baitfish show up in abundance next year, the bass fishery will be in good shape.
The big “if” in all this rests with the threadfin shad. During the summer the shad were absent. In fact, the recent annual seining studies conducted by Vector Control resulted in only two threadfin shad being netted. Threadfin shad are considered the perfect food for largemouth bass. They are easy for the bass to catch and they are a very high protein source. It”s the old story of any predatory fish. The less energy it has to expend in foraging for food the larger it grows.
The lack of large bass is another topic of conversation at Clear Lake. During most of the tournaments held this year the big fish of the event has been well under 10 pounds. In fact, only a few 8-pound-plus bass have been weighed in.
The results of the Triton Boat Owners Team Tournament held last weekend are a perfect example. The big fish of the tournament weighed only 7 pounds and there were only four that weighed 6 pounds. Compare that with a few years ago when the big fish of a tourney was usually more than 10 pounds, and more than 250 8-pounders were documented each year.
There is a possible explanation for this. The older and larger bass have reached the end of their life span and died off. According to fishery biologists, the average life span of a bass is seven to 10 years. They will reach their maximum weight at the age of 6-8 years. As they get older they actually tend to lose some weight because they aren”t as healthy as the younger fish. You will see very few sores and parasites on a fish in the prime of its life. This year many of the larger bass being caught have had sores and parasites, an indication they are getting older and weaker.
It”s not just the bass population that is in a state of flux. The crappie and bluegill populations also have seen a dramatic decline in adult fish. Two years ago the lake was literally awash in adult crappie and fishermen reported catching up to 100 per day. But the crappie fishery started to decline last year and that decline has continued through this year.
The good news is that a lot of juvenile crappie are starting to show up. The same applies to the bluegill. It will at least two years before these juvenile crappie and bluegill are large enough to keep, but the fishery is on the rebound.
Biologists will tell you it takes only a few adult fish to repopulate a lake. Typically a female bass will deposit up to 20,000 eggs in a single nest. About 2 percent will hatch and grow to adulthood, which means that a single bass can provide 200 additional bass to the fishery. The same applies to crappie and bluegill.
Whereas most of the tournament fishermen would rather catch a few big fish, the average recreational fisherman would rather catch a lot of bass and doesn”t really care how big they are. As far as I”m concerned I would rather catch 10 fish a day that weighed less than 3 pounds than one fish a day that weighed more than 8 pounds. All this proves once again that Clear Lake is a very complex lake and small events can have major implications for the environment.
