Of course, Ford's not the only angler on these waters. "I know there are a lot of other bass fishermen who are successful doing other things," he admitted. "Many use spinnerbaits; many use crankbaits. Those are baits that can be kept down in that active feeding range. But you'd be surprised how many fish are caught using buzzbaits fishing above those fish."

Another detail of fish behavior involves the choices that bass make as to the kinds of trees to hang around near. "In the spring the trees start to grow leaves, and finding those trees with green leaves is important," Ford pointed out. "I don't know the reason why, but bass only like those trees that have green leaves. Say there is a greening. The water jumps up 5 feet and then goes back down. Leaves on some of the trees will have died, and the brushy stuff at and just below the surface will be dying and turning brown. Bass will not be on those trees."

According to Ford, it's a popular misconception that a connected lake's bass spawn much later than do bass in regular lakes, because the water is cooler owing to melting ice and snow feeding into the river's upper-Midwest headwaters. "There may be a week or two delay, but that's it," he said. "Of all the factors in the spawning, I think water temperature is the least important. I think they instinctively know that the time is right, based on the length of daylight. Another factor is the moon phase.

"It took me a long time to learn that connected oxbow bass don't spawn on the lake bottom like other fish, because they can't. I don't know if it was instinct or not, but they obviously learned that spawning on the lake bottom was not going to work, because the lake level is usually in constant change.

"I figured out that they spawn on logs that rise and fall with the water level. These are logs that are just below the surface that have been wedged between trees. They stay in place, but go up and down with the water. That way they are pretty much at the same depth all the time, giving bass a stable place to spawn."

All of that may seem to matter little, since sight-fishing for spawning bass in river lakes is generally impossible, the water being too stained most of the time to see them. But Ford asserted, fishermen who know where the bass are spawning know where to fish.