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| I was out from 10am to 5pm today.....lost a 42" fish at 2:30pm at the net....only thing I moved all day.
I see this quite often, small windows in the fall. These fish are "supposed" to be putting on the feed bag? | |
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| Not sure I agree with the small window theory. I have thought about this some and it occurs to me that the winter home ranges take some fish out of the equation in terms of geographic availability to some presentations. I also believe these fish are quite sedentary compared to summer fish in relation to their movements around their domicile as it cools. I also percieve them as feeding opportunistically rather than regularly. ie IF their belly is empty and IF something wanders by and IF it looks tasty they MIGHT hit it. I think in the colder water they are not driven to eat. Think of it as the family sitting around right after thanksgiving dinner. Food consumption is sporadic at best.
And since I am perceiving(guessing) about all this I would also venture forth that the group feeding periods are probably no longer nor shorter than in summer, it is just the intermittent feedings that are severely affected, and many less fish participating in both. There still seems to be an evening bite even in winter as it gets dark, it's just that even though it exists there are so many fewer active fish at one time you may miss it or believe it not to be occurring. I was ignorant of the dusk bite in cold water until a very good Ohio fisherman pointed it out to me. As I pursued it further it became pretty clear that it occurs even when you are too chilled to hold the rod.
And you can see high activity days even in winter. When you have a fairly long 3-5 day span of negative weather and then have something positive(warming trend, high humidity, or clouds)you have days where there are good numbers of fish moving, and moving throughout the day, even comparable to warmer water days, but there are generally LESS actual biters, ie you don't have the 3-6 hookup days too much(at least I don't)but the fish show and go.
Add about a buck to this information and you can get a cup of hot coffee at Mcdonalds. [;)] | |
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| No complete answer for this one Jason. But I do agree that the actual "window" of opportunity is very small, time wise this time of the year. Greg M, Mark H, and myself were out on Saturday. We hit the water about 9:30 - 10:00 am. !st stop we made we had fish to the boat behind a jig, crank, Squirko and Little Joe. Also one strike on the Joe. 5 fish in one area about 150 yards long. Went to the second spot, 38" class fish bit on about the second or third cast. After the release of this fish 11:15 or so, we never had another follow or strike. Seems to me that we should have been there a little earlier? Don't know for sure about feeding windows but this seemed like the fish were only moving for a very short time. By the way, everything is pretty well iced up here today. I will be putting the boat away this week.[:((] | |
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| Jason...
I too have wondered this, the past two fall seasons have helped to substantiate the "small window" theory.
I was going to comment on this past Sat. but I see Mike addressed it in previous post. By the way..THANKS MIKE had fun and appreciate your hospitality.
On the previous weekend. I fished a total of 12-14 hours between Thurs afternoon, Friday, Sat. 14 fish followed or hit baits of those 7 were boated. All of this action on all three days came within about 2 hour time periods on each day.
After 2 days of seeing this I planned Sat. trip around a peak mid-day feeding window and boated 4 fish. Prior to and after the "window" time we couldn't buy a strike or follow.
???????????????????????? Good question
Mark | |
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| I have never really fished late into the fall until this year. And I can't say that I have experienced small feeding windows. But rather all day action with windows of little or no action. Maybe this pattern isn't normal, and the small windows are more typical. But in 5 days of fishing (water temps from 33 to 38) I caught 37 muskies. I had one day where I caught 14. I caught six from 9:05 am to 10:40 am, and the remaining eight from 12:30 pm to 3:05 pm.
It was the most incredible stretch of days that I've ever had musky fishing, and it happened to be five consecutive ones. But like I said, my feeding windows were very large, with periods of little or no action mixed in.
AWH | |
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| One fish may or may not indicate an activity period, one fish may have only been a straggler. Multiple hook ups in a short time,, then we can say, "there Moving!"
Activity periods or movements should NOT be viewed as feeding windows, fish feed when active but do NOT need to move shallow to feed. Fish "strike" a bait because there active not because there hungry. These activity periods happen once or twice a day on an average fishing day. If we experience an activity period early, then possibly a second movement may occur later in the afternoon. Anything more, is gravy for us. [:bigsmile:] | |
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| jerryb,
So your saying it should not be called "feeding window", but more like "activity window".
Which may be the major and minnors of the day? | |
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| Jason, The window that day was from 7:00 til 9:59. LOL Seriously I haven't seen a fish in two weeks now and brought all my gear home for winter storage. All the baitfish in the lake I fish have moved deep. I haven't seen any feeding or forage for two weeks.[:blackeye:] | |
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| The days don't last long enough this time of year.
Did your windows correspond with either the major or minor for those days?
Brian | |
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| Granted I only had one hit, but that was also the most amount of baitfish I had seen all day. It was 1/2 before moonrise.
I have seen then MANY times in late fall. 15 minutes of frantic muskie action..................then nothing.
It might happen twice a day, but when its 20 degrees out, its hard to stay out long enough to catch the second window.
During the warmer water times, at least you can raise fish when not a peak windows, and catch them sometimes too. | |
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Why are the "Windows" so small in the fall