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Where did it go?
I was on Lake Wylie one day last week, running around fishing. Early in the morning I came to a tree that was laid over into the water. The water was calm, the light was low, I just knew there had to be a bass in that tree. I threw my topwater bait past the tree, landing the lure with barely a ripple. I twitched the bait a few times, and then let the bait sit motionless in the water my bait was within 3 or 4 feet of the tree, I twitched the bait harder a couple of times to really make it dance and then stopped it cold. SPLASH! The water erupted as a solid three and a half pound bass came up out of the tree to engulf my bait. I tightened the line and pulled the fish to the boat. Being the tournament fisherman I am I thought ?where is the nearest tree in the water like that one?? Searching my mental database of Lake Wylie?s shoreline cover a couple of trees came to mind, ?there?s a good one right around the corner? I thought.
I pulled up the trolling motor and jumped down behind the steering wheel. I had ?found another gear? and was on the move. Racing around the point on my way to the next tree, the mental image of the fish smashing my bait and the splashing of the water replayed in my mind. I was certain I was going to get to see a different version of the scene play out at the next tree. Woo Hoo! I was excited, the promise of a fish catching pattern was right in front of me. As I rounded the point headed to the next tree, I couldn?t see the tree but it was early and the light was still a little dim. As the boat came to a stop I jump up, drop the trolling motor and grab my rod, I?m going to catch another one! I keep looking for the tree, it?s right here, but its not here! Where did it go? I look up at the brown house on the point, yep, that?s the right house, and this is where the tree is supposed to be. I scanned the shoreline again, then I saw the tree?in a pile on the bank. The property owner had cut the tree into pieces and piled it to burn. I just stood there staring at the hacked up pieces.
The mental image of the fish smashing my bait as it came over the tree was the only thing that got smashed! As I sadly pulled the trolling motor up, dropped my rod and eased off to the next tree, I was truly saddened. The tree had yielded many good fish for others and myself over the years. I thought of the grandfather with his grandchildren I watched catch a dozen slab Crappie off that tree last spring.
As I road down the lake I started thinking, the water is way down making it easier for folks to get down on the shoreline and clean exposed debris from their property, but why? Why would someone want to remove a tree that a fisherman can regularly catch a fish out of, or that stump, that rock pile too?
I thought maybe these folks don?t understand the importance of shoreline cover, such as the tree. Maybe homeowners don?t understand that predator fish, like the bass, use shoreline cover as a place to hide and ambush prey. Maybe they don?t understand that prey species use it as cover to hide from predators. Maybe they don?t understand that many species of fish will use the cover the tree provides to spawn in a semi protected space. Maybe these folks don?t understand that after those fish spawn many of them will herd their fry (baby fish) to the tree where the fry can hide and parents can better protect their fry from predators.
I began to think about how important that tree and the others like it around the lake are to the fishery as a whole. Then I began to remember the other piles of sticks and stumps I had seen piled up over the past couple of weeks while the water has been down. I shuddered as a cold chill ran through me. The thought of a lake with little or no natural shoreline cover is the thought of a tough fishery. As I mentioned in my previous article Lake Wylie is full of fish, but without shoreline cover for them to relate to, they have a tendency to move out off the bank, suspend and follow the baitfish schools. Anyone who knows fishing will tell you; a suspended fish is probably the hardest fish to catch!
So, before you clean up that tree that fell, or remove that stump that is now exposed, ask yourself ?is there any place on my shoreline for the fish to hide?? What does it really hurt to leave a little shoreline cover in the water; the fishery sure could use the help!
There is NO substitute for time on the water!
2007-09-18 07:15:26
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