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Thread: Warm Spots!

  1. #1
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    Default Warm Spots!


    Today while looking at the window at the melting snow on the ground I noticed something that I had never really paid much attention to before. The snow at the base of my maple trees and all the other trees was melting faster than the surrounding areas. There was no snow within a 1ft radius of each tree trunk. Both the North and South East and West side of the base of the trees were free of snow. It's only about 45 Deg F outside today but the Sun finally is peaking out from behind the clouds today. I wish I had taken a thermometer out there to measure the temp of the ground at the base of my trees. But I must assume that the area at the base of the trees is WARMER than the Surrounding Earth in my yard. I have read that Submerged trees in the water heat up the water surround the tree when the sun is shining. I have read that the north shoreline heats up faster than the southern shore line in the springtime. I think what I was seeing today was an example of the tree's wood heating up the surrounding area. Everywhere else there is still 5" to 6" of snow on the ground excepit by those trees and my rock or sandstone wall. The sandstone rock wall is heating up faster than the surrounding soil too.

    Something to remember when you fish cold water on a nice sunny day. A few degrees difference may bring the fish to that area. No wonder crappie like to hang around wood brush piles. Remember that dark colors absorb heat energy and light colors reflect heat energy away. Think how hot it gets when you car sits out in the sun and has dark or black seats and a black roof vs white seats and a white car?

    In the winter time I would suspect that if the crappie are along a steep cliff that they may be shallow up agains the rock wall of that steep cliff.

    But how do the crappie at 30ft down know that the shallow water areas are warming up. Do you think that they can see the sunlight and figure out what I just figured out?
    Regards,

    Moose1am

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    That was a good read Moose1am. I wonder if the snow melt around your trees are due to the fact that trees are water. I wonder if heat disapates from the smaller branches down through to the trunk. I have such limited thought and know nothing about much.








    Quote Originally Posted by Moose1am
    Today while looking at the window at the melting snow on the ground I noticed something that I had never really paid much attention to before. The snow at the base of my maple trees and all the other trees was melting faster than the surrounding areas. There was no snow within a 1ft radius of each tree trunk. Both the North and South East and West side of the base of the trees were free of snow. It's only about 45 Deg F outside today but the Sun finally is peaking out from behind the clouds today. I wish I had taken a thermometer out there to measure the temp of the ground at the base of my trees. But I must assume that the area at the base of the trees is WARMER than the Surrounding Earth in my yard. I have read that Submerged trees in the water heat up the water surround the tree when the sun is shining. I have read that the north shoreline heats up faster than the southern shore line in the springtime. I think what I was seeing today was an example of the tree's wood heating up the surrounding area. Everywhere else there is still 5" to 6" of snow on the ground excepit by those trees and my rock or sandstone wall. The sandstone rock wall is heating up faster than the surrounding soil too.

    Something to remember when you fish cold water on a nice sunny day. A few degrees difference may bring the fish to that area. No wonder crappie like to hang around wood brush piles. Remember that dark colors absorb heat energy and light colors reflect heat energy away. Think how hot it gets when you car sits out in the sun and has dark or black seats and a black roof vs white seats and a white car?

    In the winter time I would suspect that if the crappie are along a steep cliff that they may be shallow up agains the rock wall of that steep cliff.

    But how do the crappie at 30ft down know that the shallow water areas are warming up. Do you think that they can see the sunlight and figure out what I just figured out?

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    Default Reason moose

    Tree trunk exposed to sun. heats up. Melts snow around it. Just like steel rod in the ground. Same results. Good observation. How I know? NASA study in 50's. Moon shade effects study if I remember. Now that is if I remember. haha
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    I think this is one reason why people paint the base of their trees to reflect sunlight to keep from burning them up in the summer.

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    One other thing to look for in cold weather are shallow coves or pockets with dark bottom, if the the water is clear enough they will warm up quick on a sunny day.

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    Dark colors absorb heat; light colors reflect it. That's why ice fishermen are warned to be careful around piers and trees sticking out of the ice - those areas are the last to freeze and the first to thaw. It's also the place we are most likely to catch fish through the ice, but that probably has more to do with cover and food than heat - Roberta
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    Default Warming Long Post in Two Parts coming up. Over 1400 words here and the limit is1000

    Part 1:



    Roberta:

    I think that the heat or the tiny bit of extra warmth that is surrounding the dark colored wooden objects in the water is why the algae grows there first in the early spring time. After a long cold winter when life slows way down the early warm days of spring stimulate the growth of algae once again in the shallow warming waters. It's also why the minnows show up there to feed on the tiny bugs that feed on the algae. Zooplankton (Tiny Animals) feed on the phytoplankton (tiny Plants single cells plant organisms). All because the area surrounding that darker wood is radiating out the extra heat into the immediately surrounding waters. Chemical reactions (life) occurs faster with it's warmer. Chemical reactions slow down when it's cold. Aquatic Life speeds up when there is heat added to the water. Maybe only a foot or so out before the water is colder. That first foot of water surrounding the tree may be just a fraction of a deg warmer than the ohter waters especially in the late afternoon after the sun has been shining on the tree all day long in the cold winter time. What I was trying to imply is that during Winter a slight warming spell will warm up dark colored trees on the North Bank and in early March or even in Feb on a nice calmn warm day you may find lots of fish (crappie) in area that warm up just a bit more than the surrounding waters. Someone else talked about a shallow bay with a dark bottom on the North side of the lake. That too may warm up on a sunny afternoon and call the fish in.

    I had read that the trees warmed the water around them but never really thought that much about it until the ohter day when I could visually see the difference in the temperature around the trees in my yard. Seeing the snow melting so fast at the base of those tree and even the smaller shrubs that are in my yard made me stop and think... just how much is that temperature difference between the bottom of the trees and the yard a few feet away from the tree. Would a temperature difference of only 1 or 2 deg F make the snow melt that much faster. I only wish I had taken the time to go out an measure the soil temperature in a few places to find out. But I didn't want to bad enough.

    The Sunlight is the key to life. Where there is sun there is warmth. Where there is warmth there will be life. Even in the very deepest parts of the Earth's Ocean's there is life where there is heat. Chemical reactions can also produce heat and the earth's mantle is full of energy and heat or should I say molten rock. That molten rock comes up out of the mantle in the deeper parts of the ocean where the earth's crust is thinner. That molten lava heats up the ocean waters many miles down beneath the surface of the ocean. The heated water can sustain life down there. Tube worms as long as 6ft grow on the bottom of the ocean near this hot lava vents. Hot water and sulfur form the basis of life in these regions. Now we are talking about places that are miles down in the ocean and where sunlight can not reach. That is a different form of life than what we have previously known about. In the past most deep ocean bottom dwelling creatures depended on the dead life at the surface dying and falling into the depths to provide food for animals living of the ocean depths. All that food that fell to the floor of the ocean was produced in the presence of sunlight at or near the surface of the ocean.

    I think that the mantle of our earth is melted by radiation. Uranium which we mine out of the earth is very heavy. Would it not sink to the middle depths of the earth or be pulled deeper into the mass of motlen gas when the earth was first formed? Something is heating the inner earth and I think it must be radioactivity or the decay of the different heavy elements deep inside the earth. Now if you belive that the earth was once a buch of hot gases that cooled and solidified while flying though space then you know about how the earth was formed. The surface of the earth cooled and solidified the earth's crust where we live today. But the earth's crust is not very thick and most of the earths mass is made up by the mantle and the core of the earth. Since we can't see the inner earth all we can do is send sound waves down into the earth and listen for the echos and then try to figure out how they bounced off things deep underground and came back to our sound receivers. By timing the sound waves we can tell what is below the earth's surface. Sort of like using a depth finder to see what is below the surface of the lakes we fish. Certain rocks and soil types transport the sound waves faster than others. And liquid hot rock (Molten Lava) would behave differently to sound waves than solid rock.

    But I digress as normal LOL

    Bottom line is that the heat at the surface of the earth where we all live is generated mostly by our sun and heat sustains the beginning, middle and end of the life cycles of plants and animals on this earth.

    So find an area with warmer waters and you will hopefully find more fish to catch.

    The hard part is finding and knowing where the warmer water will be. I have not figured that out all the time. And there may be so many warmer spots that there won't be enought schools of fish to occupy all of those spots. So finding the best warmer spots is the key. Only time on the water searching out those spots will help you learn the patterns.

    Timing is everthing in life. Be there at the wrong time even if you are in the right spot and you still won't catch fish. You may see them on the depth finder but sometimes they just won't eat. Maybe they are sleeping off a good morning breakfast of minnow or crayfish. I would think that a fish with a stomach full of shad would not be willing to chase a fake looking jig but that a crappie that has not eaten in a day or so would be eager to hit that same jig. I have learned that fish in captivity and in water at 74 to 78 deg F can feed twice a day and feed well on minnows. My captive crappie will eat two or three chubs in the morning and be ready to feed again at sunset. I have not tried feeding them in the afternoon to givet them three meals a day. It's just too expensive to do that three times a day. I am about ready to go out and buy some more minnows today because I ran out of minnows about three days ago and I know my crappie must be hungry. I don't have anything to feed them. The bait shop owner didn't give me the extra minnows like his son normally did. He only gave me three dozen and I really doubt that he gave me the full three dozen and they didn't last me a week. His son will give me about 5 dozen when I pay and only ask for three dozen. I guess he want's to keep me coming back and wants to support my project.

    Crappie like to stay around cover. That we know. But we can only guess as to the real reason why they are there. Are they there for the food that the wood provides? We know that wood decays in the water. It rots. We know that wood also decays in the forest. Life grows on the dead wood and bacteria and fungi live and eat the wood. But what eats the bacteria and or the fungi? Could the zooplankton eat the bacteria and fungi? I bet they do. And the minnows come into the wood pile to get breakfast. Minnows eat the zooplankton. Studies have been performed using fine mess nets that are dragged behind research boats and they studie the life that is captured in these plankton nets. Some areas with lots of nutrients have billions of these small creatures in a small area. In areas with the right nutrients these small organisms can thrive. As the wood in a brush pile decays that were once tied up in the wood strucuture are released back into the surround soil and or water. Those nutrients Phosphorous, Nitrogen and carbon as well as sulfur are what the tiny phytoplankton need to live and grow along with sunlight.

    I won't get my Ecology Text book out but a lot of what I am telling you all comes from my studies in Ecology and Chemisty at Purdue. I also studied Oceanography, Geology, Environmental Pathology and took many biology course as well as BioChemistry along with Genetics. All those courses and the information that I learned let me see life in a different way these day. They say you are what you eat. But I also say you are where you have been. One's life experiences make you who you are.


    Quote Originally Posted by Roberta
    Dark colors absorb heat; light colors reflect it. That's why ice fishermen are warned to be careful around piers and trees sticking out of the ice - those areas are the last to freeze and the first to thaw. It's also the place we are most likely to catch fish through the ice, but that probably has more to do with cover and food than heat - Roberta
    Regards,

    Moose1am

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    Part 2:



    I am wondering what type of aquatic insects inhabit the bottoms of our lakes. Also I wonder if these tiny laval phases of the mayfly, cadis fly and midges occupy the warmer waters at the bases of submerged or standing timber in a lake.

    I know that big crappie come into an area of Patoka Lake that is full of submerged timber in the early spring. Early April. I know that this area is not very deep. Basically about 12ft deep to 10ft deep depending on the level of the lake which is run by the Corp of Engineers for flood control purposes not for the fish. I am thinking that this huge forest of threes is warming up the water in this area and that it's providing food for the cycle of life and that is why these big crappie are there feeding heavily before they go further into shallower water to spawn. Furthermore this happened in the up river area of the lake where there are more nutrients in the water. But the time these water from the river enters the main section of the lake a lot of the nutrients of already settled out of the water in the upstream sections. All the mud banks have lots of nutrients in the mud. This time of year Late Dec and Jan when the lake is at 533 or 532 ft asl there are a lot of areas up river that have been exposed. Only the old river channel remains deep enough to get a boat into these area and then you can't go there because the entire area is closed off to protect the waterfowl. But you can see where the banks are exposed if yo have a good topo map of the lake.

    I read that the big crappie USA winners at the Grenada Lake in Mississippi were caught in the upper reaches of the lake East of the Bridge in the upper reaches of the Yalobusha River area. Most of that area is about 4 ft deep other than in the old river channel. Buch Brush and stumps are the main source of cover in this area according to the FHS map information on Fishing Area 2. I found out about this lake by reading the post on crappie.com and by going to the cabelas crappieusa.com web site and reading about the crappie fishing tournament that was held by crappieusa on this lake last spring.

    My point is that the upper reaches of lakes not only warm up faster but they are more fertile. You can tell that a lake is fertile by observing the color of the lake. Unfertile lakes are sterile and have very little life. They may have wild pH swings from morning to night if they don't have much buffering chemicals in the water. Little life will grow in an unfertile lake and the water will be clear do the lack of algae growing in the water. Where on the other hand life abounts in warm fertile reagions of a lakes upper basin. The water may be muddy to stained and that is where you will find the bigger female crappies getting ready to spawn. By instinct they must know that they need to spawn in an area that will provide plenty of good food for their brood when they hatch. The area they choose to spawn in must have protection from the waves and be in an area with good water quality and exposed to the sunlight. The right depth and the right bottom material are also keys. I am beginning to think that we will find more of these good spawning areas Up the rivers in our main lakes. The rivers leading into the main lakes here in the Midwest and most likey most other parts of the country have to travel though the farm land areas. Those farms are fertilzed every spring and a lot of the fertilizer is not taken up by the crops. A lot can be seen in the drainage ditches. Have you ever driven by a drainage ditch that borders a corn field in IN or some other farm state? Next time you drive by a ditch look at the water flowing in the ditch and see if you can spot lots of algae growing in that water. At times in the spring the water in the ditches is almost green. That is caused by the fertilized washing off the fields into the ditches. It does not take very much Phospate to create an algal bloom. Phospate is what is called a limiting nutrient and without it life won't exist. But give life a tiny bit of the phospate and it grows wildly. It does not matter how much nitrogen you put in the water as without that phosphate the life can't use all that excess nitrogen. That is the law of limiting nutrients. But getting back to the discussion. When all the excess phosphate is washed into those ditches it eventually leads down stream into larger stream and into a lake or a river. Patoka Lake is most familar with me as it's feed by the Patoka River and located in Southern Indiana and near Jasper, IN. Actually closer to Birdeye and Celestine IN than to Jasper. But it feed by the Patoka River which flows not only though the Hoosier National Forest but though the heart of some of Indiana's Best Farmland. Where to you think that phosphate ends up? It ends up in the headwaters of Patoka Lake. When the IN fisheries biologist goes to put out his sample nets to catch and record the crappie in Patoka Lake he goes upriver from Kings Bridge to do that work. That area is richer in nutrients that the main lake since it's the first area that the nutrient laden water comes into. Now a lot of the nutrients will eventually get into the main lake and the Patoka River is not the only feeder stream that comes into the lake though farm areas. Lick Fork also has a big creek that feeds into Patoka Lake and it's known for producing some nice slabs too. The little patoka river also feeds into Patoka Lake and joins the Patoka River right east of State HYW 145. Go under the bridge and head to the left to go to the Patoka River area and go to the right to go into the Little Patoka River Area. Both are easily accessible from three boat ramps. Osborn, Little Patoka River Boat ramp and Walls Boat ramp. But you can also reach these areas by launching from the Newton Steward or the South Boat Ramps which are both located in the Newton Stewart Recreational area. There is a no paved ramp at Kings Bridge also from what I have heard. I have not been to that area yet. I need to drive up to Patoka some day and check that road out and find that ramp and take a look at it. I just checked out the Little Patoka River Boat ramp this fall and just started fishing at Walls last spring. I had spent all my time fishing Lick Fork and out of Newton Steward in the past. But that was when the lake first opened and dad an I fished it together. We would camp out at Newton Stewart Main Camp ground and or just drive up to the lake for a day and then go back home. It was a 2 hour drive back then as we had to travel all the way across Evasnville to get up to Jasper and Patoka Lake. Today it's ony an Hour and 15 minute for me to reach Patoka as I moved about 20 miles closer to the lake. Painter Creek is another feeder creek that feeds into the main lake. Patoka is not the most fertile lake because a lot of the area around the lake is upland forest. It lies in the Hoosier National Forest so there in virtually no development around the lake. So there is no RAW Sewage being dumped into the lake or any septic tanks along close to the shorelines. Therefore the lake is a good source of drinking water for towns surround the lake. Which reminds me of a good bass fishing spot. LOL

    The End!

    <|
    Regards,

    Moose1am

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    :D :D :D

    Informative post Moose. Maybe put something together for the ARTICLE section!!! (that 1000 word limit is a hint)

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    Geez, didn't even attempt to read that thing.

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