Lake Temperature Gages

[Phil Lilley]

How helpful would it be to know real-time what the surface water temperatures were on various area on Table Rock?  How valuable would this information be?

There's a young man here in Branson that may help.  He wants to install temperature devices at marinas on Table Rock to take water temperatures and broadcast them on the internet.

But he needs your help.

Interested?

https://www.gofundme.com/trlwatertemps

[Champ188]

It would be awesome and invaluable to have that information.

 

[Ben Gillispie]

Phil...thanks so much. Guys, if you have questions, please ask either here or on the link above. I would absolutely love your feedback.

[Ben Gillispie]

@Champ188 this is good to hear! If you have any more feedback, I'd love to hear it! If I can get this off the ground, I would love to have some conversations with you and other wise-fishermen and women about the specifics of what temperatures mean what for different species...i.e. crappie, bass, etc. 

Thanks for the comment. Love your posts on this forum...they've helped me tremendously. 

[fishinwrench]

Surface readings aren't gonna be that helpful really.   

Having a monitor at 5' and another at 15' (at various locations) would be useful info that would be worth funding.

[Champ188]

Every bass fisherman that I know depends on surface temperatures because that is what modern electronics provide. Yes, it's possible to use a temperature probe with 15 feet of cord but who does that? Very few. For my purposes, surface temperature is an important point of reference.

[fishinwrench]

Surface temp is a good reference when out in the boat, but for an online monitoring database being able to compare REAL temps lakewide would be awesome.    

A cloud covering 1/3 of the lake will alter surface temps as much as 8 degrees some days.  That could have you chasing rainbows.  

[Ben Gillispie]

7 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

Surface readings aren't gonna be that helpful really.   

Having a monitor at 5' and another at 15' (at various locations) would be useful info that would be worth funding.

This is more than possible fishinwrench and would simply be an improvement because this would obviously almost double the cost of doing this project (two sensors at each site). 

It doesn't mention a depth I would set these gauges as this has not been determined and is one reason I'm asking for feedback

SO, if you'd like temp readings from TWO depths from a dozen spots live online, better put back 3 or 4 of those swim baits. I've got to start somewhere!

[Ben Gillispie]

6 hours ago, Champ188 said:

Every bass fisherman that I know depends on surface temperatures because that is what modern electronics provide. Yes, it's possible to use a temperature probe with 15 feet of cord but who does that? Very few. For my purposes, surface temperature is an important point of reference.

Multiple depths is not an issue. If we had to settle on one depth these initial sensors would be at, what would it be? 5ft is no issue, nor is 15ft, but both as I get started would increase costs. These will be on dock and I can set them as shallow or deep as needed. I was actually considering about 5ft initially. 

[Old plug]

Water temperature can vary all over the place on the surface. If there is a sunny day and the water temperature is 50 degrees it 1it could be near 60 on shoreline boulders depending on wind time of day etc. In the spring that is where you want to be. But it might have some value no doubt about that. I would never depend on anything like that. There are just to many things that can influence that quickly. Such as wind ,clouds ,current and on water structures like docks. If you put your gauges on docks they may very well read cooler than the temperature around the docks.