At what stage are the LMB ?

[lobinero]

On my recent outing to DVL 4/5/14 water temp was 61 and warm up to 63/65 depending were you at. It was cold in the morning and post frontal after last week's system (showers). There is a growing algae bloom which makes sight fishing harder to do. We caught some fish early and it slowed down considerably without a breeze and flat water. Fish At DVL like some ripples. It did pick up a little in the afternoon. The bite was less productive than the last two weeks. I even caught a bass that was suffering from plastic poisoning. This poor fellow had roe although you could feel a huge abdominal cavity and I thought she was done spawning. She was also skinny for her size and had like sores in her mouth. She spitted 4 plastic worms, had a magnum lizard still and when I cleaned her, still had 4 more senkos in her gut. She had a plastic addiction!

My questions for the knowledgeable ones, At what stage are the LMB at DVL? Is the spawn mid ways, or are are we in the last wave? Visibility does not help and I know many spawn deep, but I don't see a huge amount of shallow beds like in past years.

[HawgZWylde]

The lake is in pre and post spawn. No the spawn is not over, it comes in waves. The last time we had some good warm weather we had a wave of spawners but not so much since the weather and water temps dropped.The big girls usually spawn the earliest, sometimes as early as late January or early February. It wasn't massive by any means. I suspect this warm weather will trigger another spawn. I would like to throw in that the last couple of years the number of visible spawners were much lower than in the past and same with the number of DD's which is why I and a number of others don't seek bed fish. Especially if you run across a DD. It takes a special fish to reach that size and a lot of it has to do with genetics. There simply just isn't very many that get that big so I feel it's best to leave the giants alone so that as many of their eggs and fry as possible have the chance at surviving and pass those genes on to the next generation. I've seen bed fish well into summer and I've seen juvenile LMB's as late as August. Right now the reaction bite is REALLY good for pre and post spawners between 2-4lbs with the very occasional 5-6lber using several different reaction baits.

The last drawdown coupled with a massive Striper population has damaged the LMB population. Some will argue themselves blue saying bee ess. But those of us who fish this lake every week in all weather know that this is a damaged fishery and we should do everything possible to increase the chances of LMB survivability, especially those DD's. I still say they should get rid of Stripey limits on this lake because they not only eat all the forage species, they successfully breed en mass.

And here we are in yet another huge drawdown before the lake was able to fully recover from the last one...

[Skinny]

I caught two fish that also spit up senkos when i caught them. Neither of them had hooks attached to the worms or in their face. I suspect they might have been discarded by anglers into the water because they were beat up in the middle where the hook goes. Im as guilty as the next guy but after i caught those im going to start making an effort not to do that anymore. Hopefully Karma will be on my side and i will get a giant toad in exchange.

[Dontgetfdup]

How bad is the algae? I'm going fishing Thursday and if the algae is bad at DEL, I'll just go to perris!

[Skinny]

How bad is the algae? I'm going fishing Thursday and if the algae is bad at DEL, I'll just go to perris!

On monday it wasnt horrible. U can find some areas where its not bad at all. I was getting em on spinner baits and squarebills.

[619Angler]

How do I catch one of those stripers? Ive been trying to catch one in DVL for a while. At least a half a dozen times the last couple of years. I'm making the trip up there again 4/9 and hope to help you out with that striper problem.

[Brent]

On my recent outing to DVL 4/5/14 water temp was 61 and warm up to 63/65 depending were you at. It was cold in the morning and post frontal after last week's system (showers). There is a growing algae bloom which makes sight fishing harder to do. We caught some fish early and it slowed down considerably without a breeze and flat water. Fish At DVL like some ripples. It did pick up a little in the afternoon. The bite was less productive than the last two weeks. I even caught a bass that was suffering from plastic poisoning. This poor fellow had roe although you could feel a huge abdominal cavity and I thought she was done spawning. She was also skinny for her size and had like sores in her mouth. [U]She spitted 4 plastic worms, had a magnum lizard still and when I cleaned her, still had 4 more senkos in her gut. She had a plastic addiction!

My questions for the knowledgeable ones, At what stage are the LMB at DVL? Is the spawn mid ways, or are are we in the last wave? Visibility does not help and I know many spawn deep, but I don't see a huge amount of shallow beds like in past years.

Please say you're not "cleaning" spawning fish. That's a real crappy thing to do during the spawn and will be seriously frowned upon by the regulars that fish there like myself.
I strongly urge catch and release, especially during the spawn. There have been numerous posts regarding the damage done to the fishery and depending who you talk to will depend on the opinion you get.
Take it from the regulars, the fishery is suffering right now and keeping spawning fish definately will not help.
Discarding used baits into the lake is littering and all baits should be kept until they can be thrown into the trash for the very reason you mentioned.

If we don't take care of the lake, the lake can and will be taken away by MWD.

Brent

[DarkShadow]

This poor fellow had roe although you could feel a huge abdominal cavity and I thought she was done spawning. She was also skinny for her size and had like sores in her mouth. She spitted 4 plastic worms, had a magnum lizard still and when I cleaned her, still had 4 more senkos in her gut. She had a plastic addiction!

Sooo...

Do you pan fry those babies or grill them?

And did you get rid of the roe? Because if you didn't, I've got an awesome recipe:

[Brent]

On my recent outing to DVL 4/5/14 water temp was 61 and warm up to 63/65 depending were you at. It was cold in the morning and post frontal after last week's system (showers). There is a growing algae bloom which makes sight fishing harder to do. We caught some fish early and it slowed down considerably without a breeze and flat water. Fish At DVL like some ripples. It did pick up a little in the afternoon. The bite was less productive than the last two weeks. I even caught a bass that was suffering from plastic poisoning. This poor fellow had roe although you could feel a huge abdominal cavity and I thought she was done spawning. She was also skinny for her size and had like sores in her mouth. She spitted 4 plastic worms, had a magnum lizard still and when I cleaned her, still had 4 more senkos in her gut. She had a plastic addiction!

My questions for the knowledgeable ones, At what stage are the LMB at DVL? Is the spawn mid ways, or are are we in the last wave? Visibility does not help and I know many spawn deep, but I don't see a huge amount of shallow beds like in past years.

The irony in cleaning a spawning fish full of roe and then wondering where the hell all of the beds went is tooooo much!
Genius status attained my friend!

DS, you are the best s#!+ stater I know and I can't wait to see what's next. The sushi photo is making me hungry though.

Brent

[Lady Quagga]

At what stage are the LMB? Well apparently, the ones youre catching are at the stage where you need to start making the crema and start heating up the tortillas.