A totally different topic, but another strange thing about this year is this. I've been fishing the same lake since the late 90s. Crawdads used to be everywhere, until about 10 years ago. They just disappeared. In June, this year, I caught a 6 pounder, and there was a decent size crawdad in his mouth. It was the first time I saw one in this lake, since they disappeared. Then, I started seeing more of them. And, most of them are bigger than the ones I saw 10+ years ago. I just don't get it. They disappeared (or at least, I didn't see any) for 10 years, and they came back (less numbers, though), and they're bigger.
I saw a real big crawdad this morning. So, I started throwing a crawdad plastic bait, which was 4", much smaller than the big one I just saw. After a few casts with it, I didn't get a bite, and was bored. So, I went back to topwater.
Here's another weird thing about crawdads. I don't use soft plastic baits much, but Jackall Cover Craw was/is my favorite for this lake. All the crawdads I've seen were red, and I used green pumpkin Cover Craw. It caught more bass than any other plastic baits (Fat Ika being a close 2nd.) The Cover Craw and Fat Ika caught many fish, after I stopped seeing crawdads, and the colors are different from the actual crawdads. So, I've been wondering if bass actually thinks those baits are crawdads or not. My guess is they just bite them, because they look good to them.
