Smallmouth prospects?

Hey everyone, my year of fishing begins bright and early next week.

Just wondering what water temperatures and water levels are at for right now? This should hopefully enable me to narrow down a gameplan for smallies.

Also - does anybody have a link where I can actually see a graph of the water levels? I've looked at the Xcel Energy website that has been linked around but either I'm not seeing a graph or else it's not there. I'm not all familiar with the numbers so if I cannot compare them to the "norm" then it doesn't do me much good.

I think that's about it, and I won't even touch the walleyes. Thanks for the input!

andrew

Andrew,
Here is the latest level report: http://xcelenergy.com/About_Us/Our_C...ischarge_Rates

and here is the historical data: http://www.dnr.wi.gov/org/land/facil...eau/water.html

enjoy the smallies, they are a lot of fun to catch!

HRG

The Flowage is at full pool. Surface water temps on opening weekend really ranged - from 49-50 on the very north end in 20' feet (AM) to 56-58 in shallow water on the south end (PM).

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Originally Posted by LundAngler

The Flowage is at full pool. Surface water temps on opening weekend really ranged - from 49-50 on the very north end in 20' feet (AM) to 56-58 in shallow water on the south end (PM).

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Is there bottom turnover on the flowage as we see on some of the lakes in Central Il? If so, I assume it hasn't happened yet being it has warmed up quite enough? Just curious.

Thanks!
-M

Excellent thanks for the info!

Spring turnover happens soon after ice-out when the surface warms to 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit - that's the temperature at which water is most dense. It's not a particularly significant event, since it usually happens before opening day.

Surface temperature on Friday the 5th was 42-44 degrees. It did warm to the high 50s lakewide by Saturday evening, but was back down to 48-50 by Sunday morning, and probably didn't change much with the clouds and rain all week. If the forecast holds for sunshine next week, we should get to the mid-50s and some decent prespawn action, but I don't think it's going to peak until sometime the following week, roughly a week later than normal. Memorial Day weekend should be decent this year - usually the smallie action has already dropped off considerably by then. I'm confident enough that I decided today to push back my vacation plans - I would have been arriving right about now for the annual 10-day SmallieFest, but I'm waiting another week.

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Originally Posted by BlueRanger

Spring turnover happens soon after ice-out when the surface warms to 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit - that's the temperature at which water is most dense. It's not a particularly significant event, since it usually happens before opening day.

Surface temperature on Friday the 5th was 42-44 degrees. It did warm to the high 50s lakewide by Saturday evening, but was back down to 48-50 by Sunday morning, and probably didn't change much with the clouds and rain all week. If the forecast holds for sunshine next week, we should get to the mid-50s and some decent prespawn action, but I don't think it's going to peak until sometime the following week, roughly a week later than normal. Memorial Day weekend should be decent this year - usually the smallie action has already dropped off considerably by then.

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Thanks Blue! I am up there the week before Memorial Day, hopefully the weather will hold out for us. Looking forward to it.

Take Care,
-M