2023 04 02 Nickajack (TN river)

[coldfront]

the heavy winds from Saturday finally laid down after the passage of the big front this weekend (heavy weather in Arkansas and further south)

took the Vexus AVX 1880 out to check a few things out (electronics, a few areas for GPS waypoint work before the weeds come up...)  out on the water at noon.  off at 4PM.

main channel (river) water temps were 60.9°F to start and up to 61.9°F when I took the boat to the trailer.  found 62°F - 63°F in some backwater 'pockets'.  a few smaller fish in the first spot.  all very light colored/pale.  in the 1-1.5 pound class.  first on came on a berkley max scent hit worm.  all the rest on the zoom 6 inch lizard (watermelon red)...

moved to another section of lake 'just to look' and found the first 'nice one'.  solid 3 or so...


a few more nips and some smaller fish... then moving down range a bit more hit the best of the day.  just a 'nice' 4 lb fish or so...


question for all you folks who see/think about these things:
water temperatures were 'right' for spawning activity.  full moon is in two days...  no bloody tails noted.  but wondering a bit about the 'vent' on these fish.  red.  protruding.

figure these are just pre-spawn fish moving in and looking...  thoughts?

[Donald Garner]

CF, congrats on another successful outing.  Tks for sharing the trip and those pictures with us also

[Mike Cork]

Sounds like a great trip, thanks for sharing.

With regards to your spawning questions. I imagine, like ours, your spawning is being drawn out longer than usual like ours. Bass don't spawn all in one day obviously but rather over a couple months. This year our first wave was halted. The weather was great the water warming, the moon coming around, and then bam a major cold front. Everything backed off. Then our fish backed off further because our water management people started drawing down the lakes for fear of flooding, we were getting water so fast the lakes were rising and they pulled the plugs. High warm water sent the fish to the shallows, then a cold front and falling water cause them to bail on all thoughts of spawn...

We are seeing some bedding bass again but they are really scattered. Might be great for this years spawn survival rate. If the spawn gets drawn out until the vegetation takes root, the fry can hide from predators.

[coldfront]

thanks Mike.  know most anglers look hard to water temps for spawning activity.  it's a good indicator.

that being said, TVA has now gone to 'filling' lakes a little later.  used to be April 15.  now it's May 1.  lots of fish WANT to push up into the shallow sloughs to spawn, but with limited water, I think they are holding off a bit...

interestingly enough, I do think that the BIGGER fish tend to spawn on the early side of the range.  deeper water and little cooler temps...

[caddyjoe77]

thanks Mike.  know most anglers look hard to water temps for spawning activity.  it's a good indicator.

that being said, TVA has now gone to 'filling' lakes a little later.  used to be April 15.  now it's May 1.  lots of fish WANT to push up into the shallow sloughs to spawn, but with limited water, I think they are holding off a bit...

interestingly enough, I do think that the BIGGER fish tend to spawn on the early side of the range.  deeper water and little cooler temps...

definitely agree the bigger ones are going earlier.  One thing that I dont believe a lot of people take into account is "its 60 on my graph"  -- well that dont mean its 60 in that pocket or warm enough to get the fish to even come up to check -- if that water is still cold where they are in staging I personally think they wait a few days.  They've been doing this a heckuva lot longer than we have. 

[alvaro1]

Water temperatures and full moon could trigger spawning activity, but the fish with red, protruding vents are likely pre-spawn fish.