How to find the Thermocline?

[AricStoner]

How to find the Thermocline?

I am wondering if anyone could help me out here. I am having trouble trying to find the Thermocline in whatever lake I plan to fish. As a fish & wildlife student I feel I have developed a pretty good understanding of exactly what the thermocline is, and even more so I know that different types of lakes stratify differently. This variety effects the limnotic levels (epilimnion, metalimnion, hypolimnion) for each, and therefore they can be varied as well.

However one thing I still can't figure out is exactly how to find each. Is there resourses I can look into at the MNR or whatever that has information about this, or is there a method one could use to determine where the thermocline is? Thanks.

Aric

[JT Bagwell]

If you have a good LCD Sonar unit you can see it right on your screen.

On mine it shows up as almost a shaded area.

JT Bagwell

[Glenn]

This article explains it:

http://bassresource.com/fishing/thermocline.html

Enjoy!

[Nick_Barr]

Also as JT said on my hummingbird it shows as a shaded fuzzy line.

[Chris]

Thermocline is a transitional layer of rapid temperature change between surface and the bottom. If you take your boat out into 15 ft of water and lets say your surface temp is 78 degrees.  As you measure the temperature the deeper you go the temp gets cooler by a few degrees. Lets say at 5ft the temp is now 73 degrees. The temp gets about a degree cooler each foot. Then lets say at 8 ft to 10 ft you have the same temp. That's the thermocline and you will notice on your depth finder that most of the fish and bait fish are hanging at that depth. The upper level 1 ft to 7ft would be the epilimnion or warm layer and 11 ft to 15 would be the hypolimnion or cold layer.

[Michael H]

in summer you can just use a fishfinder and on the screen ther will most likely be no fish under the  Thermocline becasue of crapy water