What will this weather do to the bass fishing?

[fishinvol]

I saw where the highs this weekend will only be in the 40's with the lows in the 20's!! The weather guy said the cool weather may be here for another week or so. Isnt' this going to mess up the spawning fish,if the water temp drops too fast?emoScratch

 

[Liveliner]

Just a week of cold weather in itself will not change the water temp all that much. If will effect small streams that run into the river and will have a slight effect in the creeks. Now if we should get a large volumn of cold rain and/or snow, that may register a drop in the temps.

The sun beaming down into the water heating the bottom has the greatest effect on the water temps more than any other factor around here. Cold air has less effect than cold water runoff from small streams. Same as warm air has less effect than the sun's rays to the bottom.

 

[Fishin Fool]

The water temps may drop a little but the sun during the day will warm them up quickly as strong as it is. Now catching them is going to be a different matter entirely..........

 

[Andrew]

The bass will spawn regardless. If they have to go back deep to find the right temp to spawn they will do it deeper than usual. The water won't cool off too much. From what i saw they said it will be back to 70 by first of the week.

 

[polo-dog]

Here's what I thought yesterday, I still think this is the way it will be:

I think that with the really cold night time temps that the water will really cool off in the next few days. I would expect that the water in the mornings will be in the mid to upper 60's and maybe even the low 60's by Monday morning. The sun will be out most days and that may help keep the water warmer and the torrential rain that we had last night will put a stain in the water that will help it warm up in the shallows because of that sunshine. If TVA lets the water come up then the creeks will warm up a lot faster than the main lake next week because the muddy water will stay in the creeks and not make it out to the main lake. If they spill the water out the dams then most of the water will get a stain and the sun during the day may warm things up a bit. I would expect first that the fish will get close to cover, then as it really cools off to drop back to the first drop. The kicker in all of this is the spawn, the full moon being just past and the water being so warm there may have been a significant spawn in the last week or so. The male bass for those fry should stay with the fry no matter what happens to the temp. I hope that the timing of this cool down will not hamper this year's fry. It is my impression from what I have seen on the posts that not many big females have been caught shallow which in my mind means that there is a good chance that most of the females will spawn on the next full moon phase which is more common from year to year. The crappies usually spawn in late March and the bass usually don't spawn until April in my exerience here on Chickamauga. Both the water temp and the number of hours of light in the day seem to affect the spawning activity of fish in the articles that I have read and from what I remember from school. I am hoping that in this year's case the spawn will be next month, missing this cool down of the water that will happen in the next few days. I am encouraged however by an article that I just read at this website: http://digital.library.okstate.edu/OAS/oas_pdf/v58/p35_43.pdf
It was an article that tried to figure out what variables were most important in bass fry survival and it seems to show that the water temp isn't as important as other factors. The most important factor seems to be slowly rising water levels and I would expect a rise in the next few days. As long as TVA doesn't decide to drop the bottom out of the lake in the next few weeks, spawned fry hopefully will do well. The next two weeks is usually when TVA brings the water up the most and so that could be really good for this year's spawning class. Let's hope so.
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Fishing is a deep sport.

 

[churly]

last night we fished the dog fight out of HBSP and had 9.34# we had a total of about 15 fish with 7 keepers all of the keepers but one were fat 3lbers, they looked like clones. They bit way better than they did the day before, but they were in much deeper water than they have been. In other words, the cold didn't slow them down, but they did seem to relocate. FV-the bank I have been catching my fish on was dead last night! If I were to fish this weekend I would hunt a slough that is not fed by a running stream and out of the wind, those areas will have the warmest water. Good Luck- I'll wait till next week to go after them. Dont laugh at my partner, he swells when we catch fish!emoLaugh

 

[fishinvol]

I was going to say!! Man he looks mad as h#@^!!! emoLaugh