Catching Smallies Below The Thermocline

[OkobojiEagle]

Have you caught smallies below a well established thermocline?  How deep below?  Over what structure?

 

 

oe

[OkobojiEagle]

Pretty much as I expected... I haven't either.

 

 

oe

[scaleface]

LOL   I guess no answer is an answer .

[A-Jay]

I have not and have never had a reason to try.

 

For me the thermocline might as well be the bottom of the lake.

 

A-Jay

[Crestliner2008]

Since most bait fish reside (due to O2 levels) above the thermocline, I see no reason to fish below it. Most bass and predatory fish stay at or above it most of the season long. The exception being lake trout.

[OkobojiEagle]

I had read an article claiming smallmouth would occasionally "hang out" below a thermocline and could be caught there.  My mind had trouble believing that, thus the question...

 

 

oe

[Catch N Release]

  I cant say if there was a thermocline in Lake George N.Y.  But ive had Smallies biting good between 50 and 80 feet.Structure was deep humps..

[J Francho]

People have some impression that at and below the thermocline is done sort of dead zone - far from true.

[A-Jay]

People have some impression that at and below the thermocline is done sort of dead zone - far from true.

 

Maybe not, but I wouldn't call it overly productive either.

 

A-Jay

[Dwight Hottle]

Lake trout will venture below the thermocline to eat. So I would guess smallies might too. But good luck trying to target a predator in the dead zone.

[RoLo]

I realize that it flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but fish are cold-blooded creatures,

therefore they're relatively comfortable in ‘all’ water temperatures.  For this reason, the thermocline by itself

doesn't delineate the dead zone, the dead zone is normally determined by the “oxycline”.

 

The zone below the oxycline is variously known as the anoxic zone, anaerobic zone and dead zone.

Three things complicate the location of the oxycline:

1) For starters, not all lakes stratify, so a lake may have an oxycline in the absence of a thermocline.

2) Different fish species have different dissolved oxygen requirements

3) The oxycline can migrate independently above or below the thermocline

 

During the winter, the oxycline can lie considerably below the thermocline, which would then support fish life

below the thermocline. During the summer however, the oxycline may migrate above the thermocline.

This is caused by oxygen-depleting vegetable decay that can force fish to live well above the thermocline,

otherwise become a statistic (summer fishkill). I hasten to add that smallmouth waters rarely experience

summer fishkills like those seen in weedy largemouth waters.

 

Roger

[J Francho]

Why do trout, which need higher dissolved oxygen, live below the thermocline in Lake Ontario?

[RoLo]

Why do trout, which need higher dissolved oxygen, live below the thermocline in Lake Ontario?

 

Technically speaking, the 'thermocline' is a thin water layer that separates the epilimnion from the metalimnion.

So the presence of trout below the thermocline would indicate two things:

 

1) The presence of adequate dissolved oxygen in the metalimnion

2) An oxycline that lies below the thermocline.

 

Roger

[A-Jay]

Why do trout, which need higher dissolved oxygen, live below the thermocline in Lake Ontario?

 

Maybe they are just really good at holding their breath . . . . .

 

 

A-Jay

[J Francho]

What Roger said is what I was "trolling" for. The notion that it's dead below the thermocline is total nonsense. It may be true some of the time, but not even close to all of the time. As it relates to bass fishing though, it might as well be. Even at the deepest, I'm fishing less than 50'. I might be in deeper, but the fish aren't.