Where have all the Large Mouth Bass Gone ?

[smurf]

Clanwilliam has been full for some weeks now,and the water is starting to warm up,so the fishing has started to improve.We have had two major events,the Winter Bass Classic and recently,the BFSA Money Trail event....and no large mouth bass were caught,even on the practice days...what is going on ? Bassmar,who spends the most time on this dam every year as a serious angler,has some startling statistics.Being a Captain of a 'larger than life' bassboat that operates out at sea,he keeps a detailed record of EVERY fish caught,like the ship's log of bass fishing,and it has shown a dramatic decline over the last few years,to the point where there are none now being caught.Any ideas on what has caused this decline ? Are these smallies so aggressive that they have destroyed their large mouth counterparts ? Have the local bank anglers targeted these shallower water inhabitants to the extent that they are virtually no more ?They seem to coexist quite well in our other impoundments,so why not in Clanwilliam...?

[dollar]

large mouth bass aint the easiest fish to catch. maybe they struggle a bit in the "colder places" of SA. vice versa by us in gauteng, small mouth bass used to roam free in some dams and lately no one hears of small mouth being caught.

[Brenden]

spearfishing and live bait Smurf, have you also noticed that the numbers of big smallmouth have also decreased. Ive done a few posts regarding the commercial industry at clan. I have also heard of a gentleman from Cape town making it a way to earn extra cash by selling the smallies he catches at clan but have no concrete proof of this.

[plasticman]

Couple of weeks ago I caught one in 25ft of water :blue-biggrin:

[smurf]

I have yet to spot someone spear fishing,but if I do,I will treat him the same as I treat a cormorant...prospective road kill :blue-evil: He will absolutely sh*t himself when he sees that I do not notice him in the water.But even still,the locals have been fishing the banks for years for fish for the pot,and fishing has always been good.I have noticed though,that instead of the lowly handline being used,there are plenty that now fish with rod and reel and artificial lures.

[Juba]

In my opinion the summer classic and fishing during the spawn has a massive impact!
We as bass fisherman are partly to blame! when I see a 3kg largie on the nest I go mal!

Also when the dam is low they get hammered with live bait!

When the dam wall is increased the largies will do much better!

[Peter]

It was very encouraging to see all the young smallies in such good condition at Clanwilliam on the weekend.

I think it is just a matter of the largies either hiding themselves very well or the smallies that have become very aggressive towards them.

Most of the locals that fish the area that I have noticed, are fishing in areas where one would predominantly find smallies, so I dont think they contribute to much in the demise of the largies. Over the past 2 or so years as the largie numbers have declined, I havent seen any dead fish on the bank, so I suppse its very difficult to make an assumption of what has happed.

:blue-badgrin: My 2 cents worth

[Capiez]

I've also heard of 2 guys from the West Coast that goes to Clan to spearfish.
Apparently they've shot some monster bass - smallies and largies.

[Bassmar]

Clanwilliam has always had Largies. They were very rarely caught and were mainly found in the reeds and backwaters in the river section. Very rarely were they caught in the main dam. You had to actually fish among the reeds and palmiet in the river to catch one. In about 20 years of fishing Clan up to 2007 I had caught two Largies in the main dam close to the river.

Then came the floods in 2007 and 2008. During this time the Olifants river came down in massive floods and a number of farm dams were breached. This resulted in both Largies and Carp entering the dam. Also before these floods Clan used to have absolutly no wood cover. This changed with hundreds of trees being washed into the dam and in most cases hanging up on the shores as laydowns. This provided perfect habitat for Largies. And the population exploded.
I have been keeping records of all the fish that I catch going back 30 or so years. I have been fishing Clan since 1976. Since 2007 I have avaraged 31 days a year at Clan. 12 hour days. From a high of 41 days in 2012 to a low of 22 days in 2008. And I fish the dam year round, not just the cooler months. I have broken down my catch stats into fish/day. I only count fish over 0.5kg. These stats are only for Largies.

2008 - 0.73 (16 fish in 22 days)
2009 - 3.65 (95 fish in 26 days)
2010 - 3.88 (97 fish in 25 days)
2011 - 3.40 (136 fish in 40 days)
2012 - 1.0 (41 fish in 41 days)
2013 - 0.14 (2 fish in 14 days)

As you can see there was a rapid increase of Largiies from 2008 and a just as dramatic decrease from 2012. This year in 14 days of fishing I have caught 2 Largies. Believe me these fish have not just become clever and are hiding from us. They have virtually dissapeared from the dam.

As I mentioned earlier, there have always been largies in Clan but they were mostly in the river. This leads me to believe that the reason that they never increased in numbers was due to the fact that they did not have sufficient suitable spawning habitat to produce large year classes. Then came two years of floods and thousands of Largies got washed into the dam. There was a population explosion for a number of years but without adequate recruitment the numbers eventualy dwindled. My records show that I did not catch too many undersize Largies.

The above is just my thoughts as to what might have hapenned to the Largies and could be wrong. However the fact is that they have virtually dissapeared.

[Riprap]

Interesting question! Bassmar, your records are invaluable, I really envy and admire someone that can stick to this discipline.

Smallies normally breed before largies and thus get the better sites. The males fast and guard the young same as LM males do. Let's assume the biomass of SM far exceeds LM and the SM males have returned to feeding when the LM males are guarding fry, which could just become an absolute feast for shoals of hungry SM when they pack up on the solitary LM males on the spawning banks. In other words, just perhaps the LM's have been bullied into submission and can't get a foothold......... :blue-rolleyes:

Also, the fact that no-one has ever mentioned a slot limit for Clan leads me to believe that the harvesting taking place is more or less sustainable particularly since the water level fluctuates so much annually. I have yet to see a bass leave the water and slither up the bank to catch a grasshopper due to pure starvation!
They normally stop growing and breeding yet nature has endowed them with that fantastic principle known as "compensatory growth" for when times are good again.

Interesting topic.

[August]

Sho, very interesting topic. Most other dams nation wide where both fish were in, the smallies always come second and slowly dissapear. Always wondered why this has not really happened in clan and kwaggas.

Have you guys seen the 6kg caught in clan on the cover of stywe lyne?

[gt]

there is no way a year later lm just dissapeard because of small mouth being so aggressive.

there is a guy spearfishing clan. i also know of some people doing it in the breede.

the big problem is the locals remove large females thus leaving bad spawn years. you only pick up the effects later. just take 50 locals catching 5 fish per week and then take that figure x 52 and then you will realize what amount leaves the dam yearly.

fishing in the spawn contributes to it as the blue gills will raid those nets once bass off the nest.

[August]

Ja, but, why only largies

[Brenden]

August its not just the largies. The average size smallie has decreased as well. The bigger fish have been harvested, however the last 3 yrs have been good spawns hence the number of younger fish have increased even with all the pressure the dam has had. I am happy to know that what I have been telling everyone has been confirmed by others. Hopefully we can try and get the local farmers involved to look out for these jerks. There is no other explanation to what happened to those largies, they were plentiful 2 yrs ago. In the last natinals I caught a huge bag of largies on the last day. Where have they gone otherwis?

[gt]

The largies cope with the heat a lot better ontop of they love live bait. Ask pm/malcolm regarding demo of live bait vs plastiek vs weather.

Smallies move deeper with heat and the locals do bank angling. I have seen pics of the locals where they string big big largies.2 by 4kg fish and a few 2-3kg largies.havent seen any smallies on the strings.