Heating and Cooling of the Lakes in FALL

Went fishing at Patoka and took some water surface temperature readings. I found that the back of the creeks in the shallower water was warmer at the surface than the deeper waters in the same creek arm.

I was thinking that the shallows having less water in them would change temp faster. I did expect the back of the creeks to be cooler than the deeper areas of the creek arm, but I found just the opposite.

I suspect that these creek arms had cooled off and then warmed back up with the sun. I must have caught them on the warming trend.

I was at Patoka Tue and again Wed and got the same temperature readings in the same area. We had lots of rain on Sunday and I wonder if that rain warmed up the back of the creek or cooled it down Sunday?

Anyone fish the back end of South Lick Fork last week and take any surface water temp readings that they care to share?




Regards,

Moose1am

Sunday the water surface temps in some of the major creek arms and side bays off those creek arms was around 69 deg F or 70 deg F. It was warming in the back end of the secondary creek arms.

Lots of sun and blue skies on Sunday. And Monday was a lot warmer with temps in the mid 80's. Nights are still cool but these daytime temps are heating the back of the bay's shallow waters up during the daylight hours. They will continue to cool since we have longer and longer nights and shorter days. But with 80+ deg days it's going to take a while longer before the water cools down into the 50's and the fall bite starts.

Lake was still high at around 539.6 ft amsl. Got a bit of rain last Saturday. Hopefully it didn't raise the lake level higher.

I personally think that the fish have gone into the shallows along the bank. That or the edge of the deeper weed bed.

We fished brush piles in the 22ft to 15ft range and didn't see many big crappie. Saw a few 9" fish but that was about it. The bluebird skies had moved the fish off what was productive spots last week before all the rain. I suspect that since the lake has risen almost 2ft that the fish were going into newly flooded areas. I based this on the fact that I saw a guy catching some nice 13" sized white crappie in close to the bank in only 2 ft of water near lay downs.

Also saw a lot of baby shad in the back 1/3 of the bays. I caught one huge catfish that fought for about 10 minutes before I even got it to the surface. He was in 30ft of water down on the bottom. Caught that fish on a drop shot rig with a live 2" long shiner minnow. I was using 6lb test line and a loop know with a #2 gold wire hook. Fish was hooked good in the upper lip. The fish sure put up a fight. I had to loosen the reel's drag a few times to let the fish take out line without breaking the fishing line. The fish from head to tail was longer than my live well is long.

Later that evening I saw two more catfish in the back of the bay in 4ft of water or less. I had one of these fish follow my lure back to the boat and he almost took it but turned away when he saw me and the boat. I was only using 2lb test sten at that time on a 5 ft long St Croix UL rod and a Pflueger Trion GX reel. He would have taken my line and snapped it if I had set a hook in him. I barely got the other cat in using 6lb test line and a heavier Spinning reel and heavier 7.5 ft Graphite spinning rod.

Regards,

Moose1am