Author Louie Bartenfield with a pair of healthy Carters Lake spotted bass.
photo by Richard Simms
If there is one thing I've learned about Spotted Bass over my years of fishing Carters Lake (in North Georgia) it's this, bait is everything.
To understand any predator/game you should pay attention to what it eats. Food determines where or how deep a bass spend the majority of it's day/night and how they hunt/position for the kill.
Carters Lake has a wide variety of forage available, the more popular being Bluegill, Yellow Perch, Crayfish, Threadfin Shad, and Gizzard Shad. This has been the base forage for many years. But now there is a new player in Carters, one that seemingly has changed (at least in the short term) the Spotted Bass fishing in a positive way. It's the Alewife.
A few years ago I caught what looked like a 8-10 inch Blueback Herring on a topwater bait while bass fishing. While fishing the lake at minimum a few times per week for years I started seeing more and more what appeared to be Bluebacks spit up, floating, or while throwing net. The spring of 2010 our DNR discovered while conducting their annual shocking program that the bait fish were actually Alewife Herring rather than Bluebacks. This made perfect sense with their spawning patterns and positioning in the water column.
No one is exactly sure how alewife got to Carters Lake. They were not introduced on purpose. It is possible someone carried some in from elsewhere for bait, released some of their leftovers and the rest is history.
Such introductions are illegal by the way as exotic species can sometimes do great harm to fisheries when introduced improperly.
Alewife are a type of Herring and are nearly an identical match with their cousin Blueback. Alewife feed primarily on Algae/Zooplankton which could clear the water even more and cause more and more Algae blooms throughout the season. I've read where many fisherman at Dale Hollow Lake in Tennessee (another home to Alewife) have said the water clarity is much clearer now than before the Alewife.
Spawn: Based on what I've encountered the Alewife spawn at night and seem to spawn a little deeper in 3-8ft where Bluebacks spawn in virtually 0-1ft of water. In April 2010 while on a night trip I witnessed Alewife spawning in unbelievable numbers all across the lower end of Carters. It was amazing to see !!! We could take a spotlight and shine across a point/hump and literally see thousands of big 8-10 inch Alewife coming to the surface. The water temperature was in the mid-upper 50's. I've read that female Alewife can spawn 7-8 times in their life and produce too many thousands of eggs to count.
The population at Carters has exploded, from being basically non-existent to acres of alewife schools seemingly over night.
How Alewife are changing the fishery: The winter of 09' may be the most impressive of all winters I remember for tournaments with numerous 20 lb. bags and a load of 5-6 lb. spots weighed. My trips were fantastic as well with us boating a ton of big spots. I have had a few of my personal best months throughout 2010 such as June and September.
Historically June and September are tough months, but we blasted big spots in those months in 2010. Many of the fish caught are regurgitating Alewife so it's hard not to give some credit to the Alewife. I've found that the Alewife are making the Spots even more open water related as well. When I've caught a Spot that spits up an Alewife I've learned to back way off and start fan casting all around the area while watching my Hummingbird SI unit closely. The Alewife will draw Spots off into open water and often times you'll never know they're behind you.
Without any official results it seems the average size fish and average size tournament limit have both increased. How this will affect Carters in the long run is yet to be determined but one thing is for sure, I'm going to mimic this oily Spotted Bass treat every chance I get !!!
Learn more at Carters Lake Guide Service.