Weird Spring!

[scrutch]

This weird early spring has caught me with my pants down! I recently went to one of my favorite haunts and noticed the main lake temps at 55 degrees. I am usually on these waters at around 40 degrees water temps. I wasn't surprised by the temps considering the warm stretch we've had lately (75-80 degrees every day!) UNTIL I went into the shallow water channels. There I found the temps to be 71 degrees!! Really? In MARCH! I immediately began casting and located a few juveniles, but no bigger fish. I went to look for signs of spawning and saw none.

I flipped a few docks and caught a couple 3 pounders. What's going on here? I marked almost no fish in the typical staging areas in nearby deeper waters. I'm at a bit of a loss here as to what stage these fish are in. The fish I caught showed no signs of spawning.

The only thing I can think of is the fish have followed the warm water to feed up pre-spawn.

I've never seen this lake heat up like this before. Usually the main lake is 3-5 degrees cooler than the channels. The channels typically heat up first (dirtier water, no wind). But never has it been 16 degrees cooler!

Weird!

[jmed999]

My lake has been similar. It heated up very quickly and I'm not catching them shallow like I was a couple weeks ago when the water temp was 59. Now the water temp is over 70 and it seems like they have moved back to deeper water for some odd reason. I caught a 6 lb'er a couple days ago and it was showing no signs of spawning (ie. wasn't fat with eggs like I expected) I'm not sure if they have already spawned or what.....I have to agree this spring is weird!

[mr.mallard]

same here in ark, fish that were shallow a few weeks ago are in summer like patterns

[scrutch]

Is it possible to have such odd weather that spawn gets missed? Usually it is a slow warmup. This year it happened in a week!

[CoBass]

Weird weather patterns here too. Record low temps all of Feb followed by record high temps in March. One of the local ponds I fish went from 39 to 55 degrees in a little over a week. The past 2 years it has taken until the second week of April to reach that temp. Last week was great fishing with the water warming up but we now have a cold front rolling in. Next few days are supposed to be in the 40's for a high and lows in the 20's. Not looking forward to what that's going to do to the water temps.

[flippin and pitchin]

What the heck ???? My buddy in Ohio is using the bar-b-que and I had snow this morning and it's 34 degrees tonight. Our usual mild temps are just not here. I told my other buddy ( I only have two friends total ) we should have some bedding fish on our home lake about mid August. One good sign is our daffodills bloomed while it snowed.

[ww2farmer]

Want to talk about swings in water temp, on my home lake, the main lake was 45 yesterday, the creeks and dark bottom areas were 60. Water is low and clear from lack of rain, snow melt runoff, etc....fish are up in that 60 degree water, but they are acting very weird. Just soaking up the warmth, suspended next to cover, or cruising around. Very VERY spooky too, almost more so than I have ever seen. Go 100 yards out in to the lake, and you drop 15+ degrees in water temp.

[scrutch]

Want to talk about swings in water temp, on my home lake, the main lake was 45 yesterday, the creeks and dark bottom areas were 60. Water is low and clear from lack of rain, snow melt runoff, etc....fish are up in that 60 degree water, but they are acting very weird. Just soaking up the warmth, suspended next to cover, or cruising around. Very VERY spooky too, almost more so than I have ever seen. Go 100 yards out in to the lake, and you drop 15+ degrees in water temp.

I see some striking similiarities here...I wonder what this could mean for this year's fish hatch.