Columnist Paula DelGiudice: Largemouth bass fishing picks up

Paula DelGiudice

Wednesday, April 21, 1999 | 12:25 p.m.

Paula DelGiudice's outdoors notebook appears Wednesday. Reach her at PDelGiudic' @compuserve.com.

The warm weather that settled into Southern Nevada last weekend should improve fishing conditions tremendously.

Early spring temperatures at the end of February and into the first week of March created conditions that provided for the taking of two huge largemouth bass from Lake Mead.

With the cooler weather the past few weeks, fishing conditions have been difficult -- even forcing the cancellation of one day of the BASSMASTER KMart Las Vegas 150 tournament.

April and May are ideal times to fish for largemouth bass because they are spawning then. While bass don't bite when they are actively spawning, anglers catch big nest-guarding males and females. Because the big fish spawn first, action for the bigger fish seems to be better early in the season.

If weather conditions are conducive, the bite continues. Cold weather makes bass sluggish and the bite takes a nosedive. In addition, winds make the water inhospitable and downright dangerous.

The cool April weather never lasts for long, however, and anglers watch the barometer waiting for the poor weather patterns to change.

The warm weather should turn the poor fishing around quickly in many of Southern Nevada's fishing holes.

* SHEEPISH ATTITUDE: Hats off to members of the Fraternity of the Desert Bighorn and Nevada Division of Wildlife staff for the recent completion of two bighorn sheep guzzlers in the Meadow Valley mountain range. The "sweat equity" put into the guzzlers in the Meadow Valleys, situated between Caliente and Las Vegas east of Highway 93, will help extend the range for desert bighorn sheep well into the future.

* CATFISH HUNTING: The initial plants of channel catfish in Las Vegas area urban ponds has been delayed due to problems with obtaining the fish from commercial growers.

"We hope to begin stocking fish within the next two weeks. Our plans are to stock twice as many fish as normal for the initial plants," said Jon Sjoberg, supervising fisheries biologist for the Nevada Division of Wildlife.

An increase in price per pound of fish provided by NDOW's former supplier has prompted the agency to search for another supplier, according to Mike Wickersham, regional manager for NDOW.

"We're interested in providing as many fish for anglers as we can for the money we have budgeted for catfish," Wickersham said.

Sjoberg also said that it is difficult to guarantee stocking dates for catfish because they are purchased from private suppliers outside the state. The rainbow trout stocking schedule is more reliable because those fish come from NDOW's Lake Mead Hatchery.

Rainbow trout are planted every two weeks during the cool months while channel catfish are stocked during the warm weather months. Stocking occurs in ponds at Floyd Lamb State Park, Lorenzi Park and Sunset Park.

* TRUTH IN VIDEO: "The Sacred Hunt II: Rite of Passage," produced by Randall L. Eaton, Ph.D., dispels the theory promoted by some media and anti-hunting groups that hunting leads to violence.

Released in 1998, the video documents the phenomenal success of a 13-year program in Idaho for delinquent boys in which they had to hunt for food in the wilderness. Eighty-five percent of the boys did not get in trouble after their subsistence hunting experience.

"There are only a few paths a young man can walk that allow him to link the instinctive with the spiritual. They include sex, war, sports and hunting. Only hunting profoundly connects a young man to nature and motivates him to fiercely protect it," Eaton said in the video.

"The taking of a life that feeds us is transformative. Direct participation in the food chain converts it into a love chain."

Eaton is convinced that proper initiation in hunting engenders a deep respect for all life. He believes that there would be fewer environmental and social problems if the majority of men were properly initiated into hunting.

For more information call toll free 877-SACRED-1.