Bad fishing and hot water

I traveled 8 lake miles. Coolest water I found was 86 degrees and the warmest was 98 degrees. :yikes

Makes you want to keep moving for the breeze at running speed.

Absolutely correct :Fire

I take frozen French fries with me. By 10am, I put them in a mesh pouch and run down the river until they are crispy.

I saw 88 at night last weekend. It's going to be a tough summer for fishing i'd say.

Hot surface water doesn't mean that the deeper water is also hot. Drop down 15' and see what it's like. I used to freak out over high water temperatures, but if you have a thermocline in that water, below it can be colder than you'd think. I've been diving in fresh water where it was mid-80 degree water on top, but just above the thermocline it was comfortable & loaded with fish. Below that thermocline, it was 52 degree or colder water. Feel what the fish you're catching feel like. If they're cooler than the surface, you'll need to keep looking deeper until you match the temperature of the fish with the depth of the water they're in.

Jim

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Originally Posted by Yak Fish

Hot surface water doesn't mean that the deeper water is also hot. Drop down 15' and see what it's like. I used to freak out over high water temperatures, but if you have a thermocline in that water, below it can be colder than you'd think. I've been diving in fresh water where it was mid-80 degree water on top, but just above the thermocline it was comfortable & loaded with fish. Below that thermocline, it was 52 degree or colder water. Feel what the fish you're catching feel like. If they're cooler than the surface, you'll need to keep looking deeper until you match the temperature of the fish with the depth of the water they're in.

Jim

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Water deeper is cooler for sure , but below the thermocline is wasting time for sure too

Find the bait , the crappie will be close by, one of the best bites is a summer bite .
Small jigs , light line , lite bites , slack line on the fall ….

I found the fish at the 10-15 ft level just above the thermocline. Nobody was interested in eating.

Sent from my SM-S711U using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

I do love to watch the yellow 4# line twitch as it falls

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Originally Posted by Ranger690

I do love to watch the yellow 4# line twitch as it falls

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Definitely fun, Dayton ... but, have you ever had the line go slack as you were slowly reeling up your jig from directly below the rod tip ?? Had that happen to me several times, but the most (famous ??) fun time that happened I had a 1.5# Black Crappie jump completely over the front end of my buddy's TX17 on hookset and land about 3-4ft away on the opposite side of the boat. :yikes And I certainly did not "jerk" the fish that distance, as I was using a 5' UL rod & 4# mono "Vertical Casting" a downed tree at Watts Bar Lake & that was back in the day when my "hookset" was merely a quick wrist snap.