3-2-16 Looking for Position Forcasting the Weather

[Quillback]

1 hour ago, abkeenan said:

I think I've said this before here but my Uncle (who NEVER FISHES and uses Zebco's when he did in the 80's and early 90's) caught our Table Rock family record in a 8.5lb largemouth in early JUNE full of eggs. Caught it on a weightless Kalin grub swam on the surface. Just saying.

I read somewhere that the big females don't lay their eggs all at one time, something to do with not all the eggs maturing at the same time.

[Hunter53]

5 hours ago, Ham said:

IMO, One of the things that really helps bass populations be more stable than crappie populations is that the spawn is spread out. Some fish come early and some come in much later. I have seen small largemouth spawning in July in Louisiana. I would guess that the late spawners are less successful as a whole than the fish that make up the main wave, but it protects the population from a random bad weather event or in Bull Shoals case a rapid rise in water levels.

With the weather we are having, the April fish may be the late spawners.

There is a fisheries biologist here in Nebraska that says the spawn is determined by the photo-day length and not by the temperature.

This gets brought up every spring when the people up here always start asking about the walleye spawn due to whatever weather we are having at the time. The biologist every year posts the same thing; they will be spawning the same time every year due to the length of the photo-day. 

I have no idea as I am not a fisheries biologist but he is; so I will go with what he says.

[Ham]

14 minutes ago, Hunter53 said:

There is a fisheries biologist here in Nebraska that says the spawn is determined by the photo-day length and not by the temperature.

This gets brought up every spring when the people up here always start asking about the walleye spawn due to whatever weather we are having at the time. The biologist every year posts the same thing; they will be spawning the same time every year due to the length of the photo-day.

I have no idea as I am not a fisheries biologist but he is; so I will go with what he says.

So...fish spawn first in Florida because they like a shorter photo period than Canadian fish?

[Hunter53]

35 minutes ago, Ham said:

So...fish spawn first in Florida because they like a shorter photo period than Canadian fish?

Like I said I don't know. Call up a fisheries biologist and ask them. 

Better yet; email them and post their response. If it differs from the biologist up here I will post it and ask him about it.

I posted and asked the biologist up here to explain why southern fish spawn earlier. If/when he answers I will post it here as well.

It would be nice to get some biologists thoughts on when/why the spawn happens then just us all taking a guess at it.

[Old plug]

Post are not clearing after Inpost them. Go back to post something else and they re-appear  

[Ham]

I would imagine that it is a combination of the two and that natural select has favored fish that spawn at a certain photo period which is correlated with the best temp on average for that area. I caught post spawn fish at a power plant lake in Texas (Montecello) when fish at nearby Bob Sandlin and Cypress Springs lakes had not begun to think about spawning. That pushes me pretty hard to think water temp is involved. 

[Hunter53]

I would think water temp plays some part as well but is it the main factor or is photo-day the main factor?  

Up here on a certain lake the walleye will be on the dam spawning the first week of April no matter what the water temp is/has been. I know I have been fishing for them in snow wearing a parka and bibs and also been fishing for them in a t-shirt. 

On that lake at least for the walleyes; it really seems the time of year is most important.

[Quillback]

13 minutes ago, Ham said:

I would imagine that it is a combination of the two and that natural select has favored fish that spawn at a certain photo period which is correlated with the best temp on average for that area. I caught post spawn fish at a power plant lake in Texas (Montecello) when fish at nearby Bob Sandlin and Cypress Springs lakes had not begun to think about spawning. That pushes me pretty hard to think water temp is involved.

The bass at Swepco (warm water power plant discharge lake) spawn end of January into February.  But I believe they have Florida strain genes, which complicates the matter.

[Hunter53]

I got one response (on a the forum up here) so far about my question on why southern bass spawn earlier. It was not from the biologist; still waiting on his response.

Here is the response I got.....

"Time zones are set by longitude boundaries. Length of days/nights are more due to latitude boundaries. The length of day in the central time zone at summer solstice will be different at different latitudes even though all are in the central time zone. In the summer Winnipeg's day will be longer than Dallas's day, the reverse is true in winter.Thus the land of the midnight sun phenomena or the winter dark phenomena in the arctic regions."

That may explain why bass spawn earlier in the south if in fact the photo-day is the main factor. The southern days are longer than up here in the winter.

 

[vernon]

As I understand it, it's kind of like grass coming out of dormancy and trees budding.  Regardless of the weather in any given season, the cool season grass (fescue, bluegrass, ryegrass) around Kansas City usually starts greening up by St. Patrick's day.  Again, this is supposed to be due to additional sun and/or light of day.  I guess a foot of snow would pretty effectively cancel out the exposure to the light though.  Kind of like if a lake was iced over for an extended period of time in the spring.  Otherwise, the photo-day is the single most significant factor.  The Old Farmer's Almanac alludes to this frequently as well.

 

But then, what do I know?  Like Mr. Babler, I'm better at forecasting the weather than explaining such biological phenomena.