The effects of weather on lake forage.

[Mark Gross]

How do you guys compensate for the effects of extreme weather on lake forage?

Iknow here in Minnesota extreme long ang cold weather have a great effect on bait fish for instants.On some of the more shallow lakes extreme cold can cause large kill offs of fish.Likewise the extreme mild conditions can result in an over abundence of fish available.In Mil Lacs lake last year there was a phanomina were there was not nearly enough forage fish and the Walleye would bite on anything that hit the water. You could boat 30,40,50 or more fish in a very short time.

How is the weather in your region going to effect your catches this year.Will some of the eastern parts that have seen record droughts for several years going to have more water from all the snow ?

How about areas that have gotten record snow or cold further south?

How is this going to effect your tactics and stratagies? Or will it ?



Just curious.

 

[James D.]

here in oklahoma this winter has been interesting with the number of snow storms we've had. I don't think it will bother the fishing season much at all here. the weather changes fast here from one day to the next this time of year. The lakes had minimal "freeze over" time. We could use some rain to bring some of the lakes water level up so that the weedbeds can start. If we don't get rain, I will have to find some alternate spawning locations for the lake I fish. Other than that, I don't expect any changes will be needed here other that the normal stuff.



jd

 

[Scott Hammer TOXIC]

You are more than curious, you are downright nosey!! LOL Winter always affects a lake environment. Severe cold = severe baitfish die off. Mild winters (the norm out here in the East) normally allows gamefish to feed at will throughout the winter and it does get tougher to get high # of fish days in the spring, but the flipside of that is that eventually your fish get bigger/faster. The drought is for the most part over, Lake Anna is back to full pool when it was 6 feet down this summer. It will be a spinnerbait heaven with all of the shoreline growth that is now submerged. Problem with that is that the vegitation that grew is not aquatic and will die off soon after greening up this summer. So it's got to be fished early and often. It will provide excellent cover for fry before it dies off. The cold just drives the fish deeper in the thermocline. Colder = Deeper. They usually fire up a lot hungrier when springtime comes because colder water also means slower metabolisms, less feeding over the winter, and a huge appitite come spring. That's when you have the best chance to catch that "wall hanger" (replica please) of over 10lbs (Virginia standard). That's why I'm hittin' the water Monday when it is supposed to be 40 degrees with 17mph winds. I wanna be there when they wake up for breakfast.



TOXIC

 

[Andrew Zuber]

Another effect cold winters have here in Michigan is the kill off of much of the shallow vegetation. Last winter was very mild here and, subsequently, we had a lot of carry-over in the shallow water weeds. Normally, the ice will take care of the lilly pads and other shallow weeds...Not so last year...most lilly pads made it through the winter and were able to grow even thicker during the season. Made it tough to get a lure through some of those areas...



az