From my experience the fish were skinny all year long. I fished Lowell up until mid august and every fish with the exceptions of one or two did not look good. I fish tournaments and all the others I know that fish a lot said the same and basically stopped fishing Lowell. Lack of forage is the main problem in my opinion. Fall of 2014 the fish were fat. All of 2015 the fish were skinny and small. Very few 3lb and larger fish. Just look at the open tourneys on Lowell. The total weights and big fish were way down. There was even a tournament cancelled in July. One of the reasons was lack of interest in some part due to the lack of big fish to catch. I think we went into the fall of 2014 with a perfect storm to kill off a lot of bass during the winter. Lowell does not have a lot of structure for fish to hide after the water recedes past the smart weed and is not very deep. I think what was left after years of heavy Ice fishing and summer fishing caught up with the perch. Combine that with a low water level were young fish didn't survive because of lack of cover and you go into the fall with a perfect storm of bass eating themselves out of house and home. I hope I'm wrong and the perch are in a big time down cycle and come back so the bass will but I'm not going to hold my breath. I wish the fish and game would get together with the clubs and volunteers to set up structure and supplement the perch population. I have know idea how much carp affect the bass pop but I don't see them as the main problem. Who knows? Just my opinion.
