Mild Winter Effects

[james_677]

How will this mild winter we are having effect the fishing this spring?

[stratos185]

Fish will benefit from it and fisherman will regret it because there will be lots and lots of bugs.

[MetalFish513]

Agreed the bugs are going to ****! and just remember for those who use bug spray, rinse your hands off before touching your lures or you can forget about catching fish.

As far as the effects of this mild winter go I'm going to guess that there will be an earlier spawn this year and with the said bug "problem" that top water will be better than previous years. Could be more like a bug "blessing".

[Netboy Extraordinaire]

No shad kill. Fish will be fatter than normal because the water did not get so cold that their metabolism was still warm enough to eat all winter. More fish will spawn early versus their normal spawn time. A lot more bait in the water in the spring since there was no shad kill for them to gorge themselves before they spawn. More bait available for them to eat and recover after the spawn so the fish caught in the summer will have more weight on them than normal.

[riverrat12]

I'm allready catching blues below the dam, when normally they would still be in there wintering holes.And as mentioned about shad kills you should see the size of some of the gizzards I've been catching...huge. I feel a big one coming....course I allways feel that way LOL. Just have to get my river down alittle. Chuck

[mkmsports41]

Just remember fish have small brains. They concentrate on two things, eating, and making babies. They do not know what month it is. All they know is water temp. Water temp is the key.

[sweetwater]

Just remember fish have small brains. They concentrate on two things, eating, and making babies. They do not know what month it is. All they know is water temp. Water temp is the key.

Water temp is part of the key. Other factors include but are not limited to the length of day, moon phases, cold front passages, water level fluctuations and of course water clarity. As far as bugs go, what will determine populations more than anything is the conditions available to them when they are ready to reproduce. If a cold winter will keep the populations down then why does the coldest U.S. state have one of the worst summertime mosquito problems? http://alaskatrekker.com/mosquitos.htm

[Netboy Extraordinaire]

17 Boat Fishers of Men Tourney at Barren on Saturday produced 4 sacks over 20, with two of these over 23 lbs. Considering early March after 65 and tornados on Friday then Cold front comes thru with winds on Sat then Snow Sunday, the fish had to be confused. 2 sacks over 23 and almost 1/4 of the field bring in sacks over 20 bolds well that the winter has been mild and BIG BIG BIG fish yet to come