Haven't we had this discussion before? Hot surface temps are not necessarily a no-go:
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"Will Schultz" said:
As of right now the surface temps are high but a couple feet down the water is much cooler. If we get some decent wind to mix the water temps will be back down. With high surface temps you want to limit handling, unhook them and get them back down from the surface quickly. At night the surface temps only drop a few degrees by morning so actually early mornings are your best bet.What we have right now is just hot surface water, if this keeps up without a cooldown and the water gets hot down deeper then it isn't safe for the fish. Recovery for them becomes very difficult and mortality increases substantially. If we hit a point when fishing for muskies should stop it will be posted here but for right now a well handled fish should be fine.
If a lake is hot throughout like Mike says Osterhout is, then it's a no-go.
I think Will was talking about Murray in that post. Murray will recover if we get some cooler weather. Oster ,Ovid and Austin are most likely done for now along with lakes like Lower Crooked and most likely Campau. The temps are going back up now and I dont see any let up. This is bad news for our inland waters Musky fishing. Time to look at the bigger lakes up north and to St. Clair for now.
But the fact remains that any bigger,deeper lakes will have cooler water under the hot layer but bringing muskies up through that layer will not be good. Michelle and I are bummed out beyond the average bummers ha ha .
Next stop for us will be a return to Hamlin and maybe a shot at Elk or Torch. Mike and Michelle
Much depends on the lake. For example the springs in Austin will allow the lake to cool very fast. Any lake deeper than 10' still has a lot of cool water but with the windless days we've had there isn't any mixing happening right now.
Mortality increases when the fish can't find cooler water to recover and there is minimal oxygen. With the weeds in full swing on most waters and no algae blooms, that I've heard, oxygen should be fine.
My opinion is that fishing is still OK as long as you use common sense – water release, no measurement, no photos, etc.
fished campau today and some into the night.. Heard some kid say on their boat it was 74, but i dont know how it can't be hotter. Although it did not feel like 80 degree water to me thats for sure.
Besides the typical circus with jet skis and power boats within casting distance on both sides id say that lake is avoidable for a while. Fishing was pretty brutal today at least.
So how do you know if it is safe to fish? I am assuming that most of the temperatures readings are from the surface. So what is the temperature at 5' of water? Does anyone have a way of measuring this? It seems like the season has barely begun and the water is too hot. I am just trying to figure out when we should leave the inland fish alone? If there is a good risk of killing a fish then I will just wait for LSC.
Ed,
There is a way to measure temps at depth:
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My birthday's in June, BTW. 😀
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