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Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | At the risk of being Andy Rooney-like. Did you ever notice that some places/bodies of water with the same type ecosystems, water types, baitfish types, and migration cycles, get hot when the others are dead as a stone?
i.e. Lake Erie at Huron Ohio gets red hot for monster walleyes from October to virtualy ice-up, while Saginaw Bay proper and other BIG water places where walleyes are plentiful goes in the sewer bite wise.
Then in July/August things slow down on a lot of these lakes and get hot on the Bay. I kinda know some of the obvious answers, given the seasons cycles of both the baifish and preditiors each body of water has.
Yet, I've scratched my bald head to infection, trying to figure out what physical, natural, or man-made difference on each body of water, makes one spot hot and the other dead at certain times of the year.
Any thoughts on this subject by you guys who often fish many bodies of water around the same time each year? | |
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Member
Posts: 2567
Location: Manitowoc, WI | I'll take a stab at it.....the best fishing I've had on Saginaw Bay was weed related. Lots of fish and some big ones too. I believe you have two different types of fish on Saginaw, Dan. Inner Bay and Outer Bay fish are definitely two different breeds. I wonder what kind of bite they have there out by the Charities and beyond when the lake temp. drops in the fall? I know you fish the Inner Bay more, if not exclusively, so I think that may be the difference.
Huron bite.....the bite here is good one year, bad the next, from what I know of it. Rarely do they have two good years in a row. That, to me, is baitfish related. Specifically, smelt and alewife location related. When the bait moves in close in Huron, the bite takes off. Usually, we're talking about inside 3-5 miles from shore with alot of big fish. When the forage base is high, the bite is tough. When it's low, the bite is awesome. I haven't fished it in the last 5 years, but I keep up on it based on the reports in WC. Was lucky enough to hit it good back in '96 with alot of fish and many big ones too. | |
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We do have this phenomenon somewhat on Winnebago. Its always been my experience fishing on the East side that the best bite is always May and June, and the slowest in September and October.
Often wonder if its just me, or is there something radical happening to turn the fish on and off like they do.
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Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | Jerry.
I've always thought that baitfish and to a degree water temperature were the ruling factors in virtualy every species migration and timetable to move and feed anywhere. And agree to a certain point about your inner/outer Bay analogy. But that's when the DNR was using brood stock eggs taken from everywhere. The Tittabawassee River, Muskegon River, Lake Erie and even a few from Canada one year.
I think now with our DNR's egg taking/hatching/rearing habbits centering around one source (the Tittabawassee River) the last few years, you may start to actually see a more reliable movement/foraging pattern taking shape in the coming years. It may be already starting with fewer big fish showing up in the Saginaw these last 2 years, yet tens of thousand of those naturally hatched little rascles in their in droves this fall and winter.
And that HUGE natural reproduction we seen this year on the Bay, might throw all of our open water theories in the dumper soon as well. These natruals may have come from one main source or several rivers, creeks or streams. Each of these group could imprint different and have their own environmental nitch and habbits in the Bay.
Edited by walleye express 2/10/2004 2:31 PM
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Haven't I read that walleyes were tracked coming up from Lake Erie to spawn in Saginaw? | |
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Member
Posts: 1406
| Wind out of the East fish bite the least!!!!!I swear by this old wivestale, anyone know where it originated from? | |
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Aaawwkkkk! Wind from the east, go fish the west!
Hey Tyee, am planning Depere around noon Saturday, and I'm asking others along as well. You planning to have a bag of hot breakfast burritos in hand for us?  | |
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Member
Posts: 2567
Location: Manitowoc, WI | Dan,
I've wondered often as to why some fish are more migratory than others. We have this same phenomena here in Green Bay. There are DePere fish, Menomonee River fish, Bay de Noc fish, Cedar River fish, Sturgeon Bay fish and fish that spawn along the Western shores of Green Bay. I think the Green Bay fishery, within the next 5-10 years, will become known as one of the best in the world, with the exception being Lake Erie.
These fish of Green Bay are found throughtout the Bay year round, but they tend to migrate North and South. The Green Bay/DePere fish, which in the Wi DNR's estimate number 75,000-100,000, tend to spawn on the Fox River in DePere. These fish move out into the Bay and make for a great early season bite along both shorelines in Door, Oconto, and Marinette counties in Wisconsin. In the meantime, the Bay de Noc and Menomonee River fish are also river spawners and they begin to move South out of the Bay de Noc and Menomonee areas. Then there's the Sturgeon Bay fish, which I feel are the biggest fish in the Bay. They spawn along the Sturgeon Bay shorelines and move to the deepest water in the Bay. They are the most nomadic, as they have been found in Little Bay de Noc and Southern Green Bay. With all these different migrations taking place, without tagging and marking of fish, it would be impossible to track them.
In July and August, the bite is concentrated along deep reef edges in Sturgeon Bay, near Chambers Island, and the reefs/points near Cedar River and Big Bay de Noc. These fish are caught mainly fishing spinner/crawler rigs over deep structure. One would be hard pressed to find a decent shallow bite, as the weed growth takes over and chokes the shallows. So, what does it all mean????? I wish I knew. My point is that there are places in Green Bay that are still waiting to be discovered. Deep water suspended bites over featureless areas are my goal for this year. The biggest fish caught each summer are usually caught off Chambers Island and the deep water in between Cedar River and Menomonee. These are suspended fish caught by trout and salmon fisherman. I know of 5 fish over 13 lbs caught in the last 5 years using dipsey/spoons combinations. They're out there just waiting for someone to figure them out.
The common bond all of these fish share is a preferred baitfish/forage. The deep water fish are chasers, looking for schools of smelt and alewives. The shallow water bite found in the early season are perch/bullhead predators, as I've had a few guys want to keep them for the table. While cleaning, I've found their bellies full of shiners, perch, bullheads, sheepshead, and even crawfish.
It's those deep water fish that make me wonder about the deep water off the Charities in Sag. Bay. In prefish three years ago, we caught some fish out there that were just huge. We didn't even realize how big they were until the first day weighin. My partner only took one fish out there for the day and we didn't think it was that big. Turned out to be 10-13. We had two fish that were alot bigger than this one in prefish. Is this another area that needs more exploring and is just waiting for someone to figure it out? | |
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Member
Posts: 714
| Dan,
One thing I have learned over the years here in Minnesota is that many of the "stocked" fish will always relate to weeds as opposed to the more classic walleye structures during their life span. There have been several studies that have concured with that therory the last couple years. Seems that the presence of Pike have a big influence on these fish as they grow. It has to do with the phermones that are given off when Pike feed on the smaller fry, and that instills a protectionary reaction within them, which in turn makes them relate to the weeds as a safety area which they use all their lives. The DNR has even gone so far as to studying and now implementing a "schooling" of fry before they are released into the wild. They are now administering phermone tainted water into holding tanks that resemble those that are given off by pike when they feed. At or about the same time, they administer some water tainted by the smell given off by walleye fry when they are injured, thus they equate the two different smells to each other. It is amazing how much difference it makes in the survival rates with stocked fry, or fingerlings.
That may have some bearing on your weed related fish and why they are there.
Jerry,
I have very limited experience on the "Bays", but I am wondering about the different "classes" of fish you describe. Just in the last few years, our fisheries people (MN.) have discovered that on Mille Lacs (132,000 acres, about 200 square miles) that we have 3 different classes of walleyes, which sound somewhat simular to what you described you have on the bay. We have a shallow water class which pretty much lives its entire life cycle in less than 20 feet of water. We have a deep water class that, until recently we did not understand, that lives their entire life cycle in deep water, including spawning. And there is a class of fish that migrate(like your deep water fish you describe) which move with the water system from deep to shallow and back to deep. These fish are the least structure oriented of the three groups, and usually the largest. It could be that those different fish you described are much the same as the different catagories I've outlined. The deep water roamers are the largest.
I would tend to believe that the presenece of bait fish is important, but could the changes of the currents in the bay (i.e. from north to south) have an equally important role in the location of those big fish during the season? If I remember correctly, later in the season, regardless of the wind, that area where the land forms a point around Menominee and out towards the Chambers Island is always the roughest water on the Bay, because of the currents converging. I would think that that would have alot to do with those fish being there around the Island. If you can figure out how they relate to those currents, you would really be on to something.
Edited by JLDII 2/10/2004 11:19 PM
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What Gives?