What happened at Rock Lake?

[ShadeTree]

On Sunday, November 18, I went to Rock Lake (in Lake Mills, Wisconsin) and did some fishing. Something happened that I don't understand.

It was shortly after sunset, the skies darkening, and the air temperature about 39 degrees. There was very little wind and no rain. From the shore I cast my hook, with a night-crawler worm attached, into fairly shallow waters. (Someone had told me that walleyes come into shallow waters there after dark to feed, so I thought I might catch a walleye). I saw numerous ripples in the water not far from my hooked night-crawler, so I thought there were some fish who noticed my bait. The ripples tended to move in the direction of my bait, leading my to believe that fish were swimming toward my bait, then swimming by it without biting. I don't know why they didn't bite. Do fish have a hard time seeing a worm in the dark waters? Should I have attached something else to my line next to my bait, to attract fish. Is a night-crawler an ineffective bait in the conditions where and when I was fishing?

[Klass Act]

Maybe the crawler wasn't what they were looking for. Those fish need big hunks of protein food at that time of year just before going to winter haunts. A crawler is a mere pittence in those situations and litteraly not worth the effort - energy expended vrs energy gained. Larger predators eat crawlers or crayfish all year long - if that's all they can get and the bait is the easiest thing around, but not at those times when that exchange of energy is lopsided.

If predators subsist only on crawlers and dads, they will be undernourished, stunted, and not live as long as when their diet is more varied. Just before ice up, they want to get as fat as they can to last the sparse times under the ice.

[KLN2]

Next time you're in that situation, have a crank-bait ready for them. :-)

[bob oh]

What kind of fish made the ripples? There are many, many reasons a fish doesn't always bite.

rod bender bob