Understanding Warmwater Lakes
In warmwater fly fishing, especially bass fishing, we often just throw poppers and streamers with little emphasis on understanding the reasoning for these tactics
March 2023
In the trout world, anglers would agree that a basic understanding of insects, fish behavior, hydrology, will all help you catch more fish. But in warmwater fishing, especially bass fishing, we often just throw poppers and streamers with little understanding of the world beneath the surface. In this article, we're going to take a dip into ecology to investigate the world of warmwater lakes.
Cold Lakes vs. Warm Lakes
One of the primary distinctions between trout and bass lakes is how much nutrient input a lake receives. Oligotrophic lakes, commonly associated with cold clear waters, are low in nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, and abundant dissolved oxygen. The counterpart, eutrophic lakes are most often associated with murkier water, with higher nutrient availability like nitrogen and phosphorus, and less available oxygen. You might think of eutrophic as a strictly negative term, like the Dead Zone of the Gulf of Mexico, where eutrophication is so bad that almost nothing besides decomposers sucking on dead nutrient loving algae can survive due to insane oxygen depletion. But a healthy eutrophic lake can support lots of life, including gamefish. These eutrophic lakes are where bass thrive.
Bass Lake Food Webs