Just a few degree drop can make a HUGE difference!

After having a very good Spring of catching bass, trout and musky/pike things got extremely tough this weekend. We were excited with the upcoming weather conditions (stormy and overcast) for Friday nite, Saturday and Sunday's fishing trips only to get our butts kicked pretty good during all three days of fishing. I was scratching my head until I noticed a significant temperature drop in outflow temps which started Friday afternoon and continued until Sunday around 4pm. I am not sure why the temps dropped so quickly when the weather was hot and muggy but I think it had to do with electricity production from a smaller reservoir located on top of the mountain adjacent to the Kinzua Dam. After checking the graph (which I screen shot below), it shows the temperature drop beginning Friday and ending Sunday afternoon. We did have some action but the lethargic behavior of the fish kept me thinking it was a temperature thing but I wasn't sure until I found the proof. We ended up traveling several miles South to find warmer water and the fishing was a little better (after we tweaked our stragegy a bit) but still very tough given the current weather pattern we had at the time.

The temperature graph attached below shows the sharp drop in temps beginning Friday and ending Sunday afternoon. You can also see another big drop in temps (down to 50.5 degrees) on the right side of the graph which just happened last evening and then it bounces right back up to 56-57 degrees. Another likely period of electricity production of colder water being released into the river at Kinzua Dam.


Attachment 23724

The cold front that moved in just in time for the Holiday weekend did not do us any favors. We managed a mixed bag of fish each day (throwing artificial lures exclusively) but had to work our buns off to do it. No muskies hit the bag and only rose 2 fish in 8 hours on Sunday. We went out early on Monday for a 1/2 day chasing bass/walleye and had awesome action for about 90 minutes or so and then things went dead for us.