sunday temps?

[dtrs5kprs]

Anyone have current temps from Sunday afternoon, especially from Kimberling back towards Campbell?

[J.E.]

Kprs,

Left the lake Sat. from the Campbell area, 48 deg. in the morning and 50 deg. in the afternoon.

[Bill Babler]

Man what a drop. Haven't been up there for about 8 days, but Pete Wenners was yesterday and said water at Baxter was 52.5

When I was there 8 days ago we had some surface temps at 69 in the back of some of the shallow wind blown pockets.

Temp at the dam yesterday afternoon was 55. Fish were biting as good as they could possibly bite.

[Phil Lilley]

"Fish were biting as good as they could possibly bite."

What does that mean? Did you fish?

[dtrs5kprs]

If the shallow stuff (pockets, coves, up the rivers) have cooled that much, am I wrong for thinking the best bet will be to target fish that had not made the shallow move in the first place? Thinking of fish that might have still been staging, especially from Kimberling eastward.

[Sam]

Surface water temp is an indication of whether the whole lake is warming or cooling, of course, but I don't think it's too important in day to day fishing. The water the fish are swimming in changes temperature a lot slower than the layer on the surface.

That's especially true in the spring when the lake is warming. The water on top gets warm and expands - and that makes it lighter so it tends to stay on top.

Before this cold snap, surface water temps were getting 'way up there. Last Monday around Gage's it was 61 degrees in the morning and 65 in the afternoon. But my sensor is on my trolling motor just about a foot below the surface, I know it's a lot cooler down where the fish are. The ones I caught felt pretty cold when I was unhooking them.

In the summertime, we sometimes take the grandkids swimming in Tablerock or Bull Shoals. We go out in my fishing boat, and we put on life vests, jump in, and bob around in the water to cool off. At that time, surface temps will be showing well into the 80's and it feels like a warm bath up around your shoulders - but it's downright cool down where your feet are. There's a big difference in temperature just a few feet down.

Where there's a current, like up in James River, I'd guess the water temp must be fairly uniform top to bottom. In the lake, though, the temperature even 12 or 15 feet down wouldn't change very quickly with a few days of warm or cold weather. If it's windy the surface temp would have more effect because of the surface layer getting mixed more with the layers below.

I've thought about making a PVC extension pipe for my live well intake, so I could snap it on and pump water from 4 or 5 feet down into my live well in the summer. I'd only be able to use it when the boat's sitting still, but in the summertime the cooler water would sure help keep the fish alive. There's that big a temperature difference just a little ways below the surface.