Weather affects feeding migrations

This week, the last-quarter moon wanes into the new moon, which arrives next Sunday. This will cause fish to form the largest feeding migration of the day in the late evenings and the smaller feeding migration right at safe-light. However, depending on the timing of arriving weather fronts, it could switch and the early-morning bite become the major feeding period of the day.

If the weather forecast is anywhere near accurate for the next three days, both the early-morning and late-evening bites will increase in intensity and duration but then diminish later this week as a midday feeding migration is produced by the new moon.

The late-evening feeding migration will still be the best time of the day to head out onto your favorite lake. The bite starts at 5 p.m. and builds quickly for an hour and peaks at 7 p.m. and ends shortly afterward. The intensity rating will reach 6 or 7 at best Sunday and possibly one number higher Monday, and then every day after that expect the rating to drop by one number.

The early-morning bite starts at 6 a.m. and lasts for about an hour. It will peak quickly and decline even faster, ending by 7:30 to 8 a.m. If the barometer starts to drop during the mid-morning hours this bite could grow and become the major feeding migration of the day.

The nighttime anglers will see a steady improvement in the number of fish moving into feeding areas this week. Even though there will be steadily diminishing moon light each night, the moon is arriving at its apogee this Saturday, and this will create a weak midday feeding migration, which results in a greater nighttime migration.

Tonight, the bite starts right at sunset and last for a few hours. Monday and Tuesday nights it will start about an hour later and last an hour longer. The intensity rating should be in the 5-6 range and increase to a 7 by midweek.

Fishing Facts
Sometimes quick-changing barometric pressure takes over as the dominating factor in causing fish to form daily feeding migrations. For instance, if the barometric pressure drops sharply at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, and again on Friday, no matter what the lunar phase is, the fish will be feeding between the hours of 10 a.m. to noon during that three day period. This type of weather factor has dominated the development of daily feeding migrations over the past two or three weeks.

Fishing Flash
Lake Istokpoga's level is currently 39.44 feet above sea level, which means there is plenty of warmer water along the shoreline. Throughout the past week I have talked with several Crappie fishermen who are convinced that the population has greatly diminished over the past 10 years from over-fishing.

They believe that having a 25 Crappie daily bag limit is too much for the fishery to sustain, and thus the reason why less and less Crappie are caught each year. Also add to this the fact that many Crappie fishermen catch their limit of 25, put them on ice and return to the lake for another limit.

The FWC doesn't have the funds or the manpower to enforce the current laws so anglers harvest at will with no regard for the law or their fellow Crappie fishermen.

It was suggested that the Crappie limit should be at 10 fish per day with a 10-inch size limit. Besides what angler can eat more than 10 Crappie a day, let alone 25, unless, of course, he or she is harvesting the fish for profit. A Crappie boat with 12 rods in operation on a daily basis is more likely to be harvesting for more than just his own daily supper table.

If you have any thoughts regarding Crappie bag limits and size limits on Istokpoga please feel free to email or call me using my contact info at the end of this article.