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Location: Des Moines IA | Ok so reading the Doug Johnson chat, and some of his other articles on the web has me wondering ..... How do you locate current in a lake? Can you look at a map and somehow conclude where the current goes? Or do you have to go out on a windless day with a bunch of big sucker bobbers and watch where they go? Then once you find the current, what if it weather conditions or water levels change where the current flows?
Is there an easy way to find current consistently?
Edited by MuskieMike 3/29/2006 10:28 PM
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Edited by Sponge 8/23/2006 9:44 AM
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Posts: 3508
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | After watching DickP's Shield video, it seems that in finding "unnatural" current, there must be a prolonged period of wind and wave action in one direction, to in effect "push" or "pile" extra water in a particular area.
I would think that this type of current would occurr in neck down areas (which could be large as well) between any two large bodies of open water. With excess wind action in one direction, water will be pushed to one of the two main water bodies...and kind of.."stack up" so to speak. Then, when the wind dies down, the water will then work to level itself out, thus creating current.
I'd maybe look at the map for the neck down areas...not extremely small, and I would think it would need a little length to it...not just two points making up a saddle area.
Steve |
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Posts: 1769
Location: Algonquin, ILL | On LOTW you can look at the channel markers in most cases the will not only show you the direction of the current but also the speed by observing the angle the marker is in relation to the surface, The Angle direction would be the current direction, the sharper the angle the faster (Stronger) the current
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Posts: 1996
Location: Pelican Lake/Three Lakes Chain | On LOTW, there are many areas with natural current. Usually these are related to neckdowns of some sort, but not always. These are easiest to find in the late fall and spring, as they are the last to freeze up and the first to open up.
That does not dictate the way the flow will be on any given day. For instance, on one weed covered point up there, I have seen the weeds leaning in exact opposite directions in the course of a few hours. This has everything to do with wind current and back flow.
Another area I fish on LOTW (a neckdown) is a known current area. At times the current there rivals any river I have ever fished, it will actually "swing" your bucktail on a retrieve. Pretty extreme conditions for fishing a lake.
I don't know if I have offered any answers to your questions or just confused things, but nearly every neckdown will have current in LOTW. Many times the direction of the current will be different depending on the direction of the wind, or even how hard the wind blew the previous day. You can generally predict which areas will have current, but sometimes direction of the flow will be opposite of what you would expect. If you find areas that generally hold current, you have found areas that will generally hold fish. |
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Posts: 1996
Location: Pelican Lake/Three Lakes Chain | To help clarify my answer with an example...if you have the LOTW map in front of you, and I am talking the NW Angle, take a look at the Big Narrows area. This whole area is a neckdown, and you can even see the "natural flow" of the current by the shapes of most of the islands up there. This area nearly always has some type of current moving through it. |
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How do you find .....