After looking at the previous thread regarding the water temps on the Big Lake, I was talking to the guys about it at Fibbers (Fishing Resort Bar I work at) tonight and there was a huge variance in the thought about if it has one and how deep it might be, anyone have any insight into this???
Mark
Is is constantly moving up, down and lateral. This is why guys run speed and temp probes on their riggers. Probes allow you to find the ideal water temps for the species you are looking for.
Mark,
I make a living using the Thermocline as a guide for fishing
lakes…Especially Bass, Walleye and Trout…
The Thermocline is where the optimum blend of oxygen and water temp is found for most species of game fish.
Bass are still holding in the thermocline (about 23-25 fow) during the day here in deep lakes of 80-100 fow…unless you find “green” vegetation in about 13-15 fow, which augments additional oxygen and forage base.
Dissolved oxygen is directly affected by temp (plants in most cases only grow in certain temp and light levels) in non turbulent water, turn over can alter the DO/temp. So yes there is more than just temp but they are relative.
By deff…
A thermocline (sometimes metalimnion) is a thin but distinct layer in a large body of fluid (e.g. water, such as an ocean or lake, or air, such as an atmosphere) in which temperature changes more rapidly with depth than it does in the layers above or below. In the ocean, the thermocline may be thought of as an invisible blanket which separates the upper mixed layer from the calm deep water below. Depending largely on season, latitude and turbulent mixing by wind, thermoclines may be a semi-permanent feature of the body of water in which they occur or they may form temporarily in response to phenomena such as the radiative heating/cooling of surface water during the day/night. Factors that affect the depth and thickness of a thermocline include seasonal weather variations, latitude and local environmental conditions, such as tides and currents.
Tom:
I am all over the lakes of our area, but was commenting on Lake Superior. I have been exporing her a bit and was watching a water temp chart on one of the science .coms… With the wild temp flucutation in the past week, I was wondering if da Big Lake set-up and how deep… I was thinking much shallower than shown in the info AnglerII posted because of the vastness, depth ands most importantly the wind… I now know my theory was way off base!!!
Mark
The biggest influence on that lake is wind. The wind can blow pools of warmer water completely into oblivion in a couple hours if it come from the right direction with enough force. One of the factors that drives that big lake is the very cold deep water. After a certain point the water temps simply cannot increase or decline, so a thermocline is relative to that. Now throw a good blow on the water for a day and you’ll likely find that what was is no longer.
We’ve run temp probes and had decent trout water only to run completely our of that band and not be able to get back into it.
I’m of the school that finding the forage will find a guy the fish if the temp ranges are conducive to both the prey and the eater. Slicks carry a ton of food in them at this time of year as well as the warmer water.
I always have found fish relating to the slicks where the water is warmer. If they aren’t in the slick itself they’ll be along the edges and underneath.
My Bad…Your right Tom, big lakes like Superior have a little different application than the smaller inland lakes…which was where my perspective is.
I wasn’t trying to correct you Tom, just offering my perspective. Honestly there are some real good thoughts here that can help people figure things out. From the standpoint of water temps and wind on the open lake, the wind can move pockets of warm water around as easily as the wind can a sailboat. Part of that reason is that the super cold water doesn’t allow surface heat to penetrate very well…that warm water pools and floats atop the cold water. When the wind starts it moves the surface water first, then the shoreline water where the wind is blowing the warm into has to decide where to go. An interesting part of this action becomes a rip tide where the displacement of incoming water brought on waves goes back into the lake with a “current” almost opposite of the wind at times. I’ve watched people corking minnows in the harbor at Two Harbors where they can’t hardly keep the floats away from the structure even when the wind “should” be taking the floats away from it. The rip tide is so strong it drags the line and floats against the wind well enough that nothing seems to resolve the problem.
Like I said, the wind, in my opinion, is the biggest influence on that lake since the radically cold water under the surface limits so well how much heat will and can go deep before the cold negates it’s travel downward.
Stretches of three or four days of no wind and clear sunny skies can help develop a deeper warm water pool over the cold water but the minute the wind starts up, that puddling of warm water will get broken down into micro-pools that move around like ghosts. Long bands of warmer water can be found all along the shore in the summer when warm water gets moved out in the lake where colder surface waters can get drawn up from the deep by the wind, and a lot of people fish those with success. All it takes though is a slight shift in wind direction and those bands of warm water get broken down in a hurry.
Right behind the influence of the wind lies the water temp. Everything is tied together and that’s the real beauty of this thread…everything said thus far pertains directly to successfully fishing that big pond.
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