Post spawn, already!?! May 2, 2009

You may recall from my post last week, that I mentioned the near 90 degree air temps and how this would mess up the fishing...well, I was right.

Last weekend, the fish were still pre-spawn. Water temps were in the mid-50's and the fishing was fantastic! Well, we had about 4 days in a row of 80-88 degree air temps. This made the water temp rise very quickly.

The result was this...

The water temps prior, were not high enough to push the males to the shallows and start making beds. But, the females were ripe. I believe that the spike in water temps caused a false spawn. The big females that I caught last week that were full of eggs, were spawned out this week. I looked everywhere and did not find a single bed. Nor did I catch a single male that I think was protecting a bed.

Hopefully, I'm wrong. If I'm right...hopefully not all of the females dropped their eggs. Generally, not all of the fish spawn at the same time and the bigger fish typically spawn first.

To add to the problem, we are supposed to get about 4 days of rain, which will bring the river up considerably. These up's and down's in water conditions are the reason why we have such huge swings in year class success and failure. It's the nature of a shallow river.

No pictures from yesterday, as I was by myself. One video posted with a few of the smallies I caught.

Totals for yesterday were: 18 Largemouths, to 2.5 lbs and 9 smallies, to 4-0.