Patoka Lake Drop

[BASSIN11]

Question For You Guys Out There. I Know When They Pull A Lake Down The Fish Move Out To Deeper Water But When The Water Starts To Warm They Want To Move Shallow What Happens When Both Are Going On The Same Time Such As Now At Patoka?

[ss]

The water at Patoka doesn't drop fast enought for it to have much effect on the fish. Especially because there is so much shallow cover in that lake, the fish have lots of places to go to feel comfortable. Right now, the warming of the lake and the longer days have more influence on where the fish are than anything else.

[bassmanic1]

Hi ,
Why Do You Put Caps On Every Word ? That is very strange . Anyway , the bass in the main lake arent affected that much by water level , one flip of the fin and they can dive 40 foot . They are live there 24 -7 so they know by pressure changes whats up . I would worry more if it hits during the spawn .
Tight lines

[Moose1am]

Excellent Question Bassin11:

Bottom line. When lake levels fall the fish will move out to the first drop off or drop futher down in the water column on a point or sunken island for the most part. Warming water in the shallows will bring the fish up into the shallows on a stable lake. That you and I know. How those two things actually work on the fish is hard to tell. I can only guess at the results. Here is what I do know however:

I would think that at Patoka the fish will be responding more to the warming water temps and not so much to the dropping water level. They are not dropping the lake that fast. IMHO.

Patoka is running 1038 CFS out of the dam right now. The lake has dropped 0.2 ft in the last 24 hours. The lake level is at 536 now. That's summer pool. Patoka Lake has been above summer pool for the last 9 months it seems.

Now there are a few things to know and you stated both of them already. When the water level drops fish react and head to deeper water. I think that's true. Those fish that don't react may get caught in the shallow waters and perish. So those that learn to notice the water level dropping and get out of the shallows live to spawn another year.

We know that fish have very sensitive lateral lines and can sense water pressure waves created by other things in the water. That's why fish can zero in on a bait in muddy water. They say a shark can smell blood trails from a mile away but what a lot of people don't know is that a shark can sense vibrations in the water from afar. While scuba diving in the Gulf of Mexico my scuba partner speared a Bonita (type of ocean fish). The spear went all the way though the fish and the fish was caught on the fishing line. The spears are connected to the spear gun with a long line to avoid loosing the spear or the fish. While the fish was attacked to the line it was still free to struggle. The fish was thrashing violently and trying to swim off but the line held him attacked to the diver with the spear gun. Now I knew that the sharks were soon to appear. I knew that the sharks would sense this fish's vibrations as it swam erratically in the water. A wounded fish will attack a predator very fast in the open ocean.

Sharks can feel these vibrations and will key in on this. Plus low frequency vibrations travel much further in air and water. Whales can use low frequency vibrations to communicate with each other over miles of ocean. Low frequency sound waves are used to communicate with US Submarine from far away base. Low frequency sound waves are used by Elephants to communicate with each other from miles away.

And before we dove that day the captain of the boat (very smart man) advised everyone that if they were to spear a fish that they were to IMMEDIATELY bring the fish to the surface and put in on the boat. Well my partner decided that he wanted another Bonita and didn't surface. Visibility was only around 40 ft in all directions this day. It was not long before the sharks appeared. First the small sand sharks appeared. I could do a 360 and view sharks in all directions circling around us. I tied to get my partners attention and he refused to stop fishing. So I made a decision. I gave him the signal that I was out of air. At that time he is suppose to accompany me to the surface immediately at a normal rate of decent or give me his air hose so that we can buddy breath and rise slowly to the surface. Now he ignored me and at this time I decided that it was not going to be me that got bite by a shark. I know that the sharks are more interested in the fish on his spear guns fishing line and not us. At least that's the theory. So I started to ascend to the surface and left him there. He saw me leaving and decided to follow me up eventually. We surfaced about 50 to 100 ft from the boat and swam over to the safety line and then followed that line back to the boat. I got out of the water. As I surfaced the captain was telling everyone else to get out of the water. He has spotted some 6ft sharks in the water and wanted to get all the divers out and move to a new safer spot. My partner for the day surfaced and had two fish by now. He was lucky that the sharks didn't attack him as he made it back to the boat behind me. Normally I would have been with him but this guy was an idiot and I was not going to let him kill us both. BTW I didn't know this guy from Adam. He was just one of 30 or so divers that went on this trip. My friend and partner got sea sick this day and was puking on the boat and could not dive this day. So I was paired up with this idiot with the spear gun as his partner also got sick. I would not dive with this guy ever again.

I learned this day that sharks can sense vibrations of a wounded fish and move in quickly.

Another story about Sharks and approaching hurricanes. This one makes me really wonder more about how the weather effects the fish. This story is about a shark research project along the coast of the USA. I think it was along our Eastern Coast line. These shark researchers had caught several lemon sharks that were young pups and were living in this shallow water estuary along coast. They had radio collars attacked to these sharks and monitored their movements from day to day over a long period of time. Since these were younger sharks they stayed in the relatively shallow waters near the coast. The satellite data showed the sharks staying in the shallows for weeks at a time. There they could find food and were safer from other sharks. As these lemon sharks grew and got older they eventually would head off to the deeper waters and leave the shallows. Well this year a hurricane approached the East Coast. Before the Hurricane arrived all the young sharks left the shallows and headed out into the deep water. It was as if they sensed the approaching hurricane before it arrived. Not sure how they knew it was coming. But they all left the shallows. Was it the drop in air pressure alone? I don't know. Was it the increasing clouds in the sky or the increased winds? What I do know is that all these changes combined make the sharks leave the shallows and head out into the deep water. Then after the Hurricane came and left the sharks all returned back to the shallow water estuary until they grew up. This study has me rethinking my idea's of how frontal systems effect fish. Maybe this is why fish head out into deeper water after a cold front approaches. But my experiences have been that right before the storm approaches the fish eat best. I catch a lot of fish right before a storm arrives. But after the storm I find it much harder to find the fish and catch any.

Water pressure is what the fish sense. When the air pressure over the water increases or decreases it may not have that much effect on the water pressure. Remember that air is a compressible substance. There is a lot of space between the molecules in the air. These molecules repel each other but can be contained and squeezed together. This increases the air pressure in the container but the number of molecules remains the same. Water is a NON Compressible substance. It's molecules are already packed tight together and there is little space between the water molecules. It's volume won't change with increased pressure like air molecules do.

A fish changing depth from the surface to 33ft deep experiences a change in water pressure of 760 mm Hg or 29 in of water or 1 ATM of pressure. Normal air pressure at sea level is about 760 mm or Hg or 1 ATM. A fish at 33 ft will be under 2 ATM of water pressure. 1 ATM from the water and 1 ATM from the air above the water.

So a fish can sense the amount of pressure it's under.. maybe? So maybe changes in water pressure do affect the fish to some degree. Fish can correct for any changes in water pressure by simply going up a few feet or diving down a few feet. Depth changes increase the water pressure much more quickly and with greater force than any air pressure changes. Even when a hurricane approaches the changes in air pressure is very small compared to when a fish changed depths. But the sharks noticed something and all moved out into the deeper parts of the ocean. I mean every one of the sharks that were tagged and tracked left the estuary (big area) and headed out into the deeper ocean away from the coast line. And what was unreal is that all the sharks were out of the estuary before the Hurricane made landfall.

One thing that I did learn from Buck Perry (father of structure fishing) is that fish tend to be found in areas that have access to deep water. That means that fish can be found on sharp drops or along long points that drop off from the top or sides of the point into deeper water. I learned to fish for bass and my dad taught me to fish the points when I was just 8 years old. Dad caught a lot of bass out of KY lake and I have the pictures of large stringer of huge bass to prove it. LOL Buck Perry used scuba diving to help him form his ideas on fish behaviour.

This is also why a underwater hump or submerged island can be a good spot to fish. This is also why I think that fish use underwater creeks or ditches to get in and out of the shallows. It's like a spelunker using a rope to help him find his way back out of the cave. Or like dropping bread crumbs along your path when going deep into unknown territory. Fish follow the creeks and ditches out of the shallows when they sense dropping water levels. And if the water is rising the fish will swim in to the shallows to find new food.

I personally wonder if the fish can sense the depth of the water beneath them using sounds? There is a lot more to learn about fish I guess.

Question For You Guys Out There. I Know When They Pull A Lake Down The Fish Move Out To Deeper Water But When The Water Starts To Warm They Want To Move Shallow What Happens When Both Are Going On The Same Time Such As Now At Patoka?

[BASSIN11]

Thanks for the info from everyone

[raporter]

Was catching crappie at 2' above Walls ramp yesterday.

[idbefishing]

Was catching crappie at 2' above Walls ramp yesterday.

Hey what is the water temp up there?

[raporter]

52'. Was in South lick and found some 52' water there as well and that was where the fish were. Tried several places and still found some 44' water and no fish.

[Moose1am]

This time of the year the water temp is the key to finding the majority of the fish.

I know that in the fall crappie fisherman can't wait for the water surface temps to drop down to 50 deg F as that's when the crappie are heading into the creek arms to feed on the shad that have gathered there in huge numbers. And in the spring the crappie head into the creek arms and mouth of the bays when the water rises to 50 deg F.

This is prespawn time for crappie. They all will be migrating toward the staging areas. They will also head into the shallows to feed. But not to spawn. It's too early in Southern IN and this area for the crappie to actually spawn. Most of the females will wait until the end of March or early April to begin spawning when the water temps reach the mid sixty deg F.

52'. Was in South lick and found some 52' water there as well and that was where the fish were. Tried several places and still found some 44' water and no fish.

[raporter]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...yscrappies.jpg
Here are some Patoka crappies.

[YAZ]

Yuuuuummmmmm!

[lurer]

going to patoka at 4/8-13 what conditions are we lookin' at currently and any guesses on conditions then.