By Mark Zurbrick
Special to GUIDON

When I meet anglers on the banks of a pond or stream, I often start our conversation with a greeting common to all anglers; “are the fish biting?” or the even more succinct “catching any?’’  The initial response can run the spectrum from and angler happily saying “you bet” while lifting up a hefty stringer of fish to frowning angler who grumbles “not a bite.” Rarely does our conversation end there. With little prompting, the successful angler will launch into a detailed cast by cast description of their fishing trip, while the fishless angler will ask me for suggestions that will help them catch a fish. 

Admittedly, I have a pretty limited knowledge of the hottest baits and secret fish catching techniques and would give of my own fishing skills a grade of “C. Nonetheless, I may have some “insider” stuff that could help make your next fishing trip a success.

For the past decade, Fort Leonard Wood’s Game Wardens and the Natural Resources Branch staff have been counting and interviewing anglers, collecting data on more than 23,000 fishing trips. This information helps us better manage the post’s fishing waters. For example, knowing how many anglers are fishing at a particular pond helps determine how many catfish are stocked into it, or what fishing regulations would be most effective in gaining more and larger fish for anglers to catch. 

This angler use info can also help anglers.

All the remaining “hints” are based on simple premise. The more anglers at a particular pond at a particular time, the more “competition” there will be for the available fish. For instance, two ponds are of equal size and each has the same number of catfish swimming in it; however,  pond A is visited by 100 catfish anglers while Pond B is fished by only 20 catfish anglers.  Assuming that all anglers possess of equal catfishing skill, an angler visiting pond B has a five times better chance of catching a catfish than if he or she went to pond A. 

So with that in mind…

Try fishing in the early spring or late summer and fall. Ninety-five percent of all angling trips to our ponds and lakes occurs from March through October.

Within the eight-month fishing season, about 10 percent of the fishing trips occur in March; however,

40 percent of the fishing trips occurred during April and May, when many sportfish tend to be more catchable due to warming waters prompting post winter feeding and spawning behaviors. Angler use drops off quite a bit after June, with about 20 percent of trips in July and August, and only 10 percent of trips in September and October.

Try fishing on the weekdays. About half of all trips are taken on weekdays, with the other half on the weekends. The likelihood of seeing another angler on a particular pond is twice as high if you try to fish that pond on a Saturday or Sunday. If you wish a better chance of having a pond to yourself, try fishing between Monday and Friday.

Try fishing the in the morning. About 35 percent of all angling trips are taken in the late morning to middle of the afternoon. Another 45 percent of angling trips occurs from the late afternoon into the evening hours prior to 10 p.m.  Less than 5 percent of angling trips occur late at night. About 20 percent of fishing activity takes place in the morning hours. Watching the sun come up on a pond could make for cooler and less crowded fishing trip, especially later in the summer.
Try fishing those ponds further away from cantonment or of a larger size. While looking at the total number of angling trips to a pond or lake is a fair indicator of it’s popularity, it doesn’t reflect how “hard” an impoundment is being fished. For example, two impoundments both receive 100 fishing trips a season; however, one pond is two acres while the other lake is 10 acres, resulting in fishing pressure in trips per acre that is five times greater in the smaller pond compared to the larger lake. In other words, there are five times more baits and lures being cast into each acre of the smaller pond when compared to each acre of the larger lake.

 

Small impoundments such as Indiana Avenue and Breeden Spring Ponds get nine times more fishing pressure than our three largest lakes, Bloodland Lake, TA250 Lake and Penn’s Pond. Similar size ponds located further away from the cantonment such as, Range 27A, Cook, Macedonia, Knight, Route 20 and Babb, receive four times less angling pressure than similar size ponds nearer to the cantonment such as Range 25, Gravel Pit, TA228 and Bloodland Pond. Granted, some ponds get a lot of angler attention because they have good numbers of large fish, but some of the more lightly fished ponds have equally good fish populations.

While these location and timing hints may help you, remember the old angler adage “the best time to go fishing is when you have the time.” Take the time to go fishing, so that the next time a game warden or biologist asks “fish biting?” you can lift a stringer of fish and tell proceed to tell a fish story.