Moving Water

[Fishing Rhino]

I had the opportunity to fish Lake Champlain this past week (Wed - Fri) with a friend. The weather broke perfectly for all the fishing. All the crap happened at night. We did fish in some rain early on Thursday and Friday morning, but we had broken skies with some sun and nearly calm winds. High temps were in the 70s for the three days.

There was a serious downpour on Thursday night. On Friday, we were fishing an area beneath an old railroad trestle, and I had to keep moving the boat back toward that area to maintain position. There was no movement of water.

Then, eddies began to form around the abuttments, and water was flowing to the west through the opening, and I had to keep moving the boat away from the opening beneath the trestle to hold position.

The only thing I could think of that would cause that phenomena was that there was more rain that fell on the east side of Champlain, and it took a few hours for it to raise the level of the east side which then would cause the water on the east side to move westward.

I'm not sure what it all means, but I'll certainly file it in my memory banks for future reference.

[Lund Explorer]

The only thing I can think of is that water seeks its own level. But, I would go you one further.

Fishing Lake Michigan, and the channels that connect to the smaller lakes inland show a consistent ebb and flow that runs in roughly a one to one and a half hour cycle. All of these smaller lakes are fed by a river system that has somewhat darker colored water than in the big lake. Where you have a narrow channel between the two bodies of water, you can actually watch the two colors move back and forth.

During times right after a heavy rainfall inland, the current seems to override this natural cycle and the current runs out into the big lake constantly. Conversely, I was heading off the Pier at Pentwater MI ahead of a major storm one morning. The clearer big lake water moved all the way through the channel and almost 3/4 of mile into the smaller lake, much like a storm surge. Depending on the season (spring or fall), fishing near where the two waters meet is quite often productive for a number of species. In the spring, Fish will seek out the river's water as it is warmer. In the fall, the reverse is true.

Regardless, I always try to spend extra time fishing this type of moving water. In your case, did you notice how the fish reacted to this new current? Was the fishing better or worse than the day before?

[Fishing Rhino]

The only thing I can think of is that water seeks its own level. But, I would go you one further.

Fishing Lake Michigan, and the channels that connect to the smaller lakes inland show a consistent ebb and flow that runs in roughly a one to one and a half hour cycle. All of these smaller lakes are fed by a river system that has somewhat darker colored water than in the big lake. Where you have a narrow channel between the two bodies of water, you can actually watch the two colors move back and forth.

During times right after a heavy rainfall inland, the current seems to override this natural cycle and the current runs out into the big lake constantly. Conversely, I was heading off the Pier at Pentwater MI ahead of a major storm one morning. The clearer big lake water moved all the way through the channel and almost 3/4 of mile into the smaller lake, much like a storm surge. Depending on the season (spring or fall), fishing near where the two waters meet is quite often productive for a number of species. In the spring, Fish will seek out the river's water as it is warmer. In the fall, the reverse is true.

Regardless, I always try to spend extra time fishing this type of moving water. In your case, did you notice how the fish reacted to this new current? Was the fishing better or worse than the day before?

The fishing was good before the water started to move, and the spot continued to produce when the water started to flow. There was another, larger opening a few hundred yards away, which also produced some good fishing. The odd thing was, the current flowed for maybe fifteen minutes, stopped, then started to flow again.

There were leaves and bits of algae in the water, so it was easy to see a current or lack thereof. It was glassy calm, so wind was not a factor. It was small disturbances in the surface of the water at the corners of the abuttments which first caught my eye.

Those two openings were the only places of all we tried that produced good numbers of fish. We called the bass cookie cutters, because they were all about the same size, two pounds. All but one were largemouth. We had a couple of fish break off which we surmised were pike because the line was cleanly cut off.

While we didn't catch big numbers (other than those two openings), I'm looking forward to going back. For those three days, we had the lake to ourselves. No jet skis, no water skiers, no pontoon boats, and aside from a couple of boats fishing for panfish under one of the bridges, no fisherman.

My buddy was a bit disappointed until the last day when we fished beneath the bridge, but I wasn't. Back home, with the weather we had, there would be plenty of fishermen on the water. Not summer numbers to be sure. But in the main bodies of water we fished, we were the only boat at the ramp, and did not see another boat on the lake. There had to be a reason or two, but I'm guessing the main reason would be that the best of the fishing was over for this year.

[grampa1114]

The old railroad bed that you were fishing is between No. Hero and the Adirondacks...You experienced the influx of water off the mountains into the lake and then the bounce off the island. Interesting stuff.....

[J Francho]

You get weird things like that on big lakes. Heck, the outlet on Port Bay had alternating current a couple weeks back.