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| I was thinking about this some and maybe one of the reasons why some lakes turn off during a turnover is an oxygen depletion from the mixing of oxygen in a lake throughout it's entire volume creating less ppm. Lakes with less water volume below it's thermocline would be affected less by turnover then ones with alot of oxygen depleted water. Just some thoughts. | |
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| Todd,
You are probably onto something here... but with the lack of DO data noone will really know the answer. From an emperical point of view... it would make sense. Maybe if more people read Larry Ramsell's article on Dissolved Oxygen... someone would make an affordable meter for us to fix on our boats. Then give the fisherman a decade or so to develop trends... and we might have another awesome tool for eliminating unproductive water. Until then... this is something we will all have to just "think" about. | |
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| I would think that both DO and water temperature work together here
When turnover comes, (assuming we all know the process of top levels sinking due to temp), the fish lose a very important layer of water...the thermocline. The thermo, being the most oxygenated layer is being dispersed among the low oxygen layers below it. With dying weeds, water loses oxygen, it moves up (due to temp), and so the low oxygen levels have mixed throughout the lake.
With our home tank, we have seen the same thing when power goes out. (thank God it has not been more than a day or so). The oxygen level gets depleted, and the fish just shut down....they sit on the bottom and don't move.
I usually have the Boat away by the end of turnover (due to deer and bird season) Maybe I need some Jigs...
Steve | |
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| I'd be willing to bet that turnover on the deeper lakes with low oxygen content in the deep basins could explain why some HUGE fish are caught in extremely shallow (green) weeds. They get temporarily pushed out of their typical locations and seek the oxygen rich shallow, weedy areas to maintain their comfort zone.
Perhaps instead of avoiding lakes in the process of turning over, we should be targeting them considering this shallow-water window of opportunity at an otherwise DEEP WATER musky? | |
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| The weed bite during turnover has always been my bread and butter. I was on the lake one day in the fall with clients, and we were having a great day with like five or six fish in the boat, when we ran into the biologist out there on the lake. He said he did Dissolved Oxygen checks, and that the lake was definitely turning over at that time. Many muskies moved to the green weeds, and were very active. This happens every year during tunrover. Most people think that the fishing sucks during this time frame, but it doesn't. The fish just move around a bit. Also, I have always heard people saying that the lake smells funny during turnover, but I have never noticed that. Has anyone really experienced that. The water does murk up a little, but never really smelled bad from all of the an-oxic water being brought up.
Chad | |
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Turnover and oxygen