Month: January 2016

The new year has finally brought with it winter! Well….sort of. Despite some freezing nights and a few blustery days, the water temps are still higher than normal for this time of year. The fish don’t seem to mind though. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I have seen larger concentrations of shad this year than I ever have before. Why is this?
Well for one thing, we got a ton of rain last month. The rain washes vital nutrients such as iron, nitrogen, and phosphorus into the lake. These nutrients are essential for the survival of phytoplankton, microscopic organisms that live in the upper part of the water column. But why do we care about phytoplankton? Well if you dig out your old biology textbook, you will remember the good old food chain. Phytoplankton are the bottom of the food chain, which means that they are vital to the rest of organisms higher up on the chain. Shad rely on phytoplankton as their primary food source, so more plankton means more shad. And more shad means more catfish! Another reason we are seeing such a large number of shad this year, is that water temps have remained mild. During a harsh winter, it is not uncommon to experience what is know as a shad kill. Smaller shad are not tolerant of extremely low temperatures, and after a hard freeze you can usually see them washed up on the banks by the thousands. Unless we have a brutally cold February, I seriously doubt we will see a shad kill this year. That is promising for the future, as shad make up the primary forage of most other fish in the lake. Now that we’ve talked science, let’s get to the fun stuff! Here are some pics of our January catfish so far…..