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I remember back in 78 and 79 when the Ohio river froze over. When the ice started to break-up it looked like ice flows in Alaska. It was ironic that when we passed the river that day in 78 we were headed to the boat show so my dad could buy a Procraft. I was 13 that year and remember being out of school for what seemed to be 2 or more weeks in a row.
The last time I have seen all of our local lakes freeze was 94 or 95. Ahhhh, the good old days.
I have been going down to Percy Priest about every two week to fish and they cancelled the tournament this last weekend because the lake was frozen
all around the marina, no one could put in. While the cold weather is uncomfortable and costly for heating, it will really be great when it does warm
up and the big fish come to the banks.....
Deep lakes take longer to loose heat and freeze later than smaller shallower lakes giving the same environmental conditions. Each ml of water takes a a calorie of heat lost to drop it one deg Centigrade. That's a lot of Kilo-calories of heat loss to freeze a big deep lake
Also the geese are there because of the open water and they are also helping to keep the water moving and thus keeping it from freezing.
Remember that moving water won't freeze nearly as quickly as still water. Currents created from inflows or even underwater springs can help keep the lake from freezing solid.
Also clear ice will let the sunlight though and help any green plants utilize the sunlight and thus produce oxygen. But if heavy snow falls on top of the ice it will bock the sunlight and reflect a lot of the light away from the lakes surface. That might help reduce the oxygen content in the water. Cold water holds much more oxygen than hot water as we all should know that by now. And the cold water reduces the metabolism of all the organisms in the lake's water. But if there are millions of shad trying to stay alive the snow cover may help kill even more of them. Shad will consume a lot of oxygen in the lake. And if they die and sink the bacteria that feed on the dead shad will consume oxygen in the process. But that may not occur until the water warms back up.
[quote=birdstrike;286666]This is interesting to me, the little lake that I live on does not freeze. It's only 15 acres and not one speck of ice. Wish it would freeze as every goose in a 100 mile radius is in it right now :) I'm guessing the high volume of water due to it's depth and it's relatively small surface area keeps the water from cooling rapidly. I Should start a new post on this I guess, good fishing!![/quote]
Well I fished Nolin Sunday afternoon for a couple of hours and I put in at Wax.
Lake is frozen just before the first island and was told that it was also frozen up river around the second hard bend. I found water temp from 36.7 to 38.2 and the water is clear. Got two hits and got one fish to the boat and it was a Walleye about 12" long. Did not boat a fish but needed to get out there for a while. Still having with trouble with "NBFS" and this helped a little! Will go a long way as soon as I get to set the hook on a decent jig bite!!
Dale Hollow is not and has never frozen over. You can launch at all the ramps
and fish anywhere you desire.
Bass Wishes
Bob Coan