Bass fished the Chick 12-10, Jmax and CCSM

[Jmax]

Got up to find everything at my house frozen. Temp was 22 degrees and the boat plug hole had something on the inside well frozen to it. I had to get real hot water to pour into the boat to get it loose in order to put the plug in. CCSM was also having his share of trouble and ran late. As we went to the landing I suggested changing plans and switching from crappie to bass becuase it was so cold. He agreed and we launched at Harrison state park to avoid a longer cold run from 58, it was about 7:15.

We started with worms, me with green pepper/red and CCSM with junebug. Right off I caught a keeper spot and we thought it might be a great day. We fished a long time with several hit before CCSM finally was able to sink his hook into the next one a keeper LM on his junebug. We hit several places and did not get into them and the line kept freezing on the eyes of our rod and in our reel. We finally were motoring over an old creek bed out in the main lake when I saw several large schools of shad on the depth finders. We switched to, me a silverbuddy and CCSM used what he called a stumpbumper, kind of looked like a little george. We caught seven jigging these off the bottom.emoThumbsup

We left there and went up Wolftever and the water was a lot colder. We went back to the finesse worm and fished a bluff and caught three on it. We left there to go up further but the water temp dropped to 45.4 and after about an hour we gave up and went back to the main lake to where we had found the water temp in the low 50s. There we managed a couple more on the worm pattern.emoSmile

We left at 2:30 and all in all under the conditions we felt we had a fairly good day and boated seventeen.emoBigsmile I am just now feeling like I can feel the ends of my fingers.
Keep em' wet, JmaxemoCool

 

[polo-dog]

Guys, great to hear that you braved the cold! Must not have been unbearable, and great that you guys were able to get on some fish. How many of them were keepers? 17 bass with the weather the way it is sounds great to me. Was the water back in the creek still stained? Was it sunny out there today? I was at work all day and never had time to look out. Were the shad that you marked shallow or deep? How deep was the creek channel? Could you see other fish under the schools? Sometimes the schools are humongous this time of year, were the schools big or small? I would expect the water to be warmer on the main lake until we get some warm late winter rains. Thanks for the info. Were most of the fish on the main lake that you caught on channel bends, points or in any particular place?

 

[Jmax]

Wow polo you ask a lot of questions, here we go, I will try to hit them all. Only the first two were keepers, go figure.emoScratch Yes we were very pleased with seventeen with the weather the way it was.emoThumbsup In the creek it was very stained and very cold, the water I feel had a lot of New water in it from run off and it dropped the temp. The sky was mostly clear and blue with wind which made it even tougher.emoRolleyes Shad marked were fairly deep in about 16 to 20 feet. They were very large schools and you could not see through them to the bottom so I could not tell if there were fish under them or not but the ones we caught told me there was.emoBigsmile Yes the water was a good 5 degrees higher in the main lake vrs. the creek. We seemed to catch most of the fish where there was a bottem break or slope that changed the depth a little. The only exception was the three on the steep bluff that was just off the bank and those were also deep and we were just letting the worm slowly fall and bounce it off the edge as it went down.emoSmile The rest were out in the open water or at least on the serface it looked open. The creek that I spoke of out in the main lake was 16 to 20 feet and the bass were on the bottom. I think I got all your questions answered.

My advice to anyone that goes this time of year is to pull out, fish deeper and slow down. if you do those three things you will still catch fish.emoCool

 

[Jmax]

You know polo another thing that this time of year I would tell everyone to do is get yourself a nice snowmobile suit in a dark color so it holds the heat of the sun better. You can get a fairly cheap one in bass pro on sale every now and then for about $100.00 to $150.00 and it is worth the investment. Get it a little on the large side so you can still wear a coat under it and peal off layers as the temp warms up.emoBigsmile If you want to ruin a good fishing trip just do not ware enough warm clothing and you will suffer the consequences.emoCool max

 

[JerDog]

Can anyone confirm if the lake turned over yet? Does the Chickamauga Lake do that? I would suspect that it has and fishing deep is what is going to produce fish with water as cold as it is....

Also, with water temps around 48F, is this water temp cooler than most years, this early in the winter?...I saw that normal air temps should be 54F and 33F.

 

[Jmax]

The water that was 48 and less was up Wolftever and the reason there is the amount of water that comes in the creeks that feeds that area. When they are pulling water it even happens faster because so much of it is new water or run off that was in the back feeder creeks and shallow flats that cool so quickly. As the lake level falls the back water flows into wolftever and when it is like it has been lately with very cold rains it causes the water temp to drop very quickly in that area. Also the running water mixes as it flows and gets a more consistent temp in all depths. The good thing is it has a reverse in the sping and will warm quicker when the water coming in is warmer. I would think with the air temp as cold as it has been that it is a little colder than normally this time of year.emoCool Jmax

 

[SNUFFY]

I DOUBT THAT THE CHIC WOULD STRATIFY ENOUGH ,ESPECIALLY AT WINTER POOL,BECAUSE OF THE NEAR CONSTANT FLOW AND THE CLOSER TO THE ORIGINAL RIVER CHANNEL THE LEVEL DROPS , THE FLOW RATE INCREASE....AS SHALLOW AS THE CHIC IS IN THE WINTER I DON`T THINK IT WOULD TURNOVER...IT`S ALREADY MIXED UP PRETTY GOOD....WATTS BAR DOES IT SOMETIMES BUT NOT EVERY YEAR AND IT IS USUALLY AT FULL POOL IN THE LATE FALL

 

[polo-dog]

I don't think that there should have been any turnover thus far. From what I've read, true turnover isn't very common in riverine lakes and should happen when the surface temp gets to around , I believe, 39degrees. It's an interesting property of water that it is most dense when it is around 39degrees. When the water gets to that temp because it is more dense than the water below it, it will drop to the bottom. Up to that time the warmest water was on the surface but after the whole water column becomes ~39 degrees, then the top water continues to cool and the warmest water is then on the bottom and is 39 degrees. Therefore the water all "turns over" when the water temp drops below 39 degrees. Until that time there shouldn't be a turnover. It is much more problematic in non flowing waters in cooler climates where deep water that is low in Oxygen content because of decaying matter on the bottom comes to the surface and fish that stay at the shallower depths get caught in the low oxygen water and die. It's a common time for fish kills. That is my understanding of the phenomenon.

 

[Fishheadspin]

Chickamauga does turn over. It turns over at around 55 degrees ..you usually can notice a stained to mud color for about day or two. It usually occurs around the end of October to the middle of Nov. I did not see it this year but i have not fished Chick much this fall. I have noticed it in past years when i crappie fished everyday.

 

[ChooChooSnakeMan]

I just want to follow up and say that I had a great time fishing with Jmax, even though it was cold. I've always pretty much stopped fishing around early November, so this was the first time I experienced having to clear the ice out of my rod guides! We did have a good time and caught some fish, but it was cold. I'm going to hunt up a snowmobile suit like Jmax recommends. I noticed also that the fish for the most part hit real light. We both missed several fish that we let pick the worm up and move off several feet before setting the hook, yet no fish. That was kinda frustrating. We saw a big doe run out of the woods down to the shore and jump in right in front of us as we fished a deep bank across the lake from Harrison Bay Park. To our amazement she made a straight line for the other side. Now this was early in the morning with an air temp of low 20's and a water temp of upper 40's. I couldn't believe she made the swim across the wide part of the main lake. I've seen em cross the creek many times, but not the whole lake and as cold as it was. Well got to go and get some work done, but many thanks to Jmax for the invite and not revealing how bad he kicked my rear end with the fishing. He caught two for every one I caught! He knows his stuff!!

Take Care and Merry Christmas,

 

[polo-dog]

Here's a link to a dialog about lake turnover if anyone is interested: http://www.conservation.state.mo.us/fish/ponds/laketurn/
It is an interesting phenomenon, without it all of the fish would freeze every year potentially, water(H2O) is a very strange molecule.