Got out at Barrett before dark, as usual. Air temp was pleasant, whatever temp that was. Water temp was already 72F at the surface. Slight light wind as usual in the early morning. Also as usual headed across the lake to a couple familiar points. Got a couple fish on the pompadour and on a crankbait. Headed over to Hauser and never found what I'd call a pattern. Got fish on a little jig, the crankbait, a popper, the pompadour, a small chatterbait and nothing on the beaver or the jerkbait. Water is a little less green in main lake and maybe a little better in Hauser. Fish are definitely slower and harder to find. Got a few with big heads and no bodies to speak of, see last picture. I don't know how that poor fish functions still.
Hopefully it will pick up a bit soon and hopefully the larger fish will get healthier again.
He weighed 2.4 pounds, if he was healthy he'd be a great fish
Yea wonder if this biggie’s with the skinny body profile, have either still have Senko’s or other plastics inside them and still blocking their guts or just expelled the plastic and now able to eat their natural meals?
I’ve said it before if someone or company can make a Gummy Bear type soft bait that dissolves or passes thru easily in the fish’s intestine that’s gotta to be a million dollar product or more . Now add some vitamins or minerals inside the soft bait then you gotta a winner!
We had a Private Membership Only Lake here in Orange County called Oso Reservoir. For several years the Bass caught in the Daytime were big headed skinny as a Bluegill looking Bass. I was lucky to be able to fish it after hours. The Bass we caught were thick and healthy and fought like crazy. I’d come down and have lunch and listen to the guys complaining about the woeful state of the Lake and listen to the theorys of what needed to be done to “fix” the Lake. They imported Bluegill, fed the Shad, conditioned the water with chemicals. The healthy fish eventually started to show up again. We knew however they were there all the time. They just came up at night. Perhaps those skinny fish were full of plastics, every once in a while they would choke up piles of plastic worms, not common but it did happen.
falafeluver wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2026 11:56 am
Yea wonder if this biggie’s with the skinny body profile, have either still have Senko’s or other plastics inside them and still blocking their guts or just expelled the plastic and now able to eat their natural meals?
I’ve said it before if someone or company can make a Gummy Bear type soft bait that dissolves or passes thru easily in the fish’s intestine that’s gotta to be a million dollar product or more . Now add some vitamins or minerals inside the soft bait then you gotta a winner!
“We found that fish retained the lures in their stomachs for 13 weeks without regurgitating them,” one of the lead authors of the study said, according to Bangor Daily News. “They also began to act anorexic and lost weight within 90 days of eating a soft plastic lure.”
To me, that might be one reason for the skinny ones that should be bigger. The bass could still be picking up all the lost and loose ones at the bottom from earlier this year before the opener and went into their feeding habits pick up.
Starving themselves for weeks, unable to eat or if they do eat, it’s being vomited out. Imagine us trying to a meal and can’t get anything to digest.
Yea, if the kid’s project turns into a good product, I’m dumping all my Senko type and other worms and plastic baits into the recycling bin. Maybe the larger companies will follow suit, it doesn’t matter to me who sells it for the benefit of our fisheries. So maybe I don’t catch as many but who cares?
Fish have the ability to regurgitate but seem to mostly do this when stressed out. I have seen lots of fish (including bass) vomit up bait in the water when hooked. But apparently bass do not vomit up indigestible material. I have caught several bass at Barrett with soft plastics in their throat. I always remove them. I don't know if the bass find the plastics on the bottom and pick them up or if the lures come off during a fight and another bass grabs the lure. It's a good reason to use O-rings on Senkos, it makes them much less likely to come off the hook. The TPE plastics (e.g. Elaztech) are much less likely to come off the hook. Nose hooking regular soft plastics on a drop shot is very prone to bait loss, TPE much less so. The Zman Senko style baits would be a lot less likely to come off than a regular stick bait: https://www.basspro.com/p/z-man-zinkerz ... 6qEALw_wcB .
I have a giant (150 mL) size syringe and tube extension for pumping out fish stomachs to see what they are feeding on. Maybe I will bring that to Barrett and see if any of bass that look underfed have soft plastics inside. It's the same idea as a throat pump that fly fishermen use for trout but much larger size. https://www.bassresource.com/fish_biolo ... -pump.html
The amount and variety of plastic sources in our waters (fresh and salt) is troubling. The 'starvation by plastics' hypothesis seems like a reasonable one, and if true, needs to be remedied. I've never fished a plastic worm, etc. but I pick up dozens from the Murray shoreline whenever I walk there. Those are just the ones that make it to shore. I'm sure the bottom is littered with them. Are the 'zombie bass' found in most lakes?
Yes I’m sad to read that and sometimes finding 2-3 plus so stuck in their throats and still trying eat but at least able to pull them out and putting them in our recycle bag.
Wonder if there’s any studies or natural products that can be used or given to the fish that acts as a “laxative” to help them further speed up the digestive process. At the same time, dissolve them upon expelling them, yea, I know it’s all micro plastics another issue but this gives the fish a chance to eat again like they should be able to and live out the rest of their natural life.
This will hopefully bring back the 4,5,6,7, 8 pounders plus.
falafeluver wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2026 11:56 am
Yea wonder if this biggie’s with the skinny body profile, have either still have Senko’s or other plastics inside them and still blocking their guts or just expelled the plastic and now able to eat their natural meals?
I’ve said it before if someone or company can make a Gummy Bear type soft bait that dissolves or passes thru easily in the fish’s intestine that’s gotta to be a million dollar product or more . Now add some vitamins or minerals inside the soft bait then you gotta a winner!
Went up to Bass Pro Shop today and found these. Says they decompose faster (but not how much faster) than traditional plastics. I bought a bag and will report back.
Baits would float back in the day and end on the banks. Now with the amount of salt they put in them to make them sink, they end up at the bottom and we all know a bass will hit a dead sticked bait.
I think we are looking at a baitfish (AKA Shad) population crash and the food chain is not able to support the fish population. It happened there in the mid to late 90s, and was much worse. I assume it will get worse before it gets better?
. Now add some vitamins or minerals inside the soft bait then you gotta a winner!
