Expect evening bite to pick up

The New Moon occurs today at 7:14 p.m. and will be of medium-strength because the moon is six days away from its apogee. Therefore, there will be three moderate feeding migrations over the next three days that reach a 5 or 6 on the 1-10 scale, with 10 being the best rating.

The peak period will occur at sunrise, noon and sunset. If there happens to be a warming effect over the next few days, it should benefit the early-morning bite. This time of year fish, and bass especially, feed several times a day, as they move closer to shoreline vegetations.

Throughout the rest of the week, expect the evening bite to pick up and become the major daily feeding migration as the first-quarter moon approaches.

Fishing Flash

Lake Istokpoga's level is at 38.96 feet above sea level today. The FWC and Highlands County aquatic weed managers will be treating approximately 1,200 acres of hydrilla by helicopter in seven locations: the north end, east side, the east and south sides of Big Island, south of Bumblebee Island, and south of Windy Point boat ramp.

The hydrilla in front of No Name Creek, Istokpoga Canal, West Wall, Lykes Cove and many open water areas south of the Islands was not targeted at this time. For all you hydrilla fishermen out there, there is still plenty of the "perfect bass-habitat." One spin around the lake will reveal where the bass will be moving to after the Aquathol-K contact herbicide kills their current home.

For all you non-hydrilla fishermen, the good news is that all the fish in the targeted hydrilla areas will be moving into the nearest healthy vegetation, which will most likely be Pencil Reeds, Arrow Heads and Spatter Dock.

The FWC biologist keeps insisting that when they kill the hydrilla, bass will then select the pepper grass, which is close to many of the targeted hydrilla areas. Yet when I talk to Istokpoga anglers and anglers from all over Central Florida about locating bass in pepper grass, few believe bass select this vegetation except in cases where it happens to be the only "healthy vegetation" available.

I guess it will take real proof, such as the FWC using their electro-shock boat in the acclaimed pepper grass areas to produce data that supports this claim. To be able to read total "pedal time" and the numbers of bass according to size would really help anglers' understanding of the bass population facts.

Take for instance the north end of Istokpoga, out in front of the U.S. 98 boat ramp. After this large area - which presently holds a lot of bass because tournaments release all their bass there each week - is treated, will the bass populations with in the pepper grass areas increase? This is one question that would be interesting to know. For if it was true, it would mean many bass anglers out there don't know what they are talking about; and I'm not talking about just any old angler, either. These are veterans of the art, and far more qualified than me to speak from experience.

"When a shiner doesn't produce in vegetation it means the bass aren't there, and pepper grass happens to be one such example of this!" is what I was recently told by one of Istokpoga's finest bass guides. "In this lake that type of grass doesn't provide ideal conditions for bass to thrive in like pencil reeds, cattails, and hydrilla does."

The general consensus among bass anglers on the subject of pepper grass is when it is the only healthy vegetation in the lake, the bass will be there. Or, if it is the major vegetation in the lake, the bass will be there. However, if and when hydrilla arrives, the bass will leave it in favor of a far superior habitat in which to thrive.

When I listen to all sides of this controversial issue, I can't help but think: maybe it's time to designate areas within lakes for hydrilla management where the main objective is to leave adequate acreage for bass to thrive and maintain that size area and nuke everything else. Everybody wins, and we still get to kill the weed on a regular basis as we do now - perhaps a chemical lab will invent a product that kills hydrilla completely sometime in the next 100 years.

Perhaps using pepper grass as criteria upon which to develop a hydrilla management plan is tantamount to "grasping at straws" when one doesn't know what to do next.

The Monday Morning Lake "Josephine" Black Bass Fishing Tournament is open to the public and launches every Monday morning at 8 with weigh-in at 1 p.m. Entry fee is $10 per boat with a "winner-take-all" payout. One person or two per boat, three legal (more than 14 inches) bass per boat, and one bass over 22 inches per angler. For information, call Paul Tardiff at 863-385-8007 (home) or 863-273-4062 (cell).

The Wednesday Morning Black Bass Tournament will be on Lake Josephine, Nov. 18 Next week's event, Nov. 25, is on Lake Jackson. Launch time is 7:30 a.m. and weigh-in time is at noon. Entry fee is $30 per boat to be paid at the ramp. For complete information, call Paul Tardiff, home: (863) 385-8007, cell: (863) 273-4062, or Dwight Ameling (863) 471-3305.