Record Warm Winter

[warezaholic]

I live in Michigan (near Detroit) and this winter has nearly been a record warm winter and this brings the question= How is this going to affect the spring spawn for Crappies in the shallows?

Is water/weather temps the primary spawn factors?

["G"]

Length of daylight hours has a lot to do with it also

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[CrappiePappy]

Length of daylight hours has a lot to do with it also

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According to a study : (copied from a BPS article posted by Keith Sutton)

"..... a study done on Missouri's Table Rock Lake by fisheries biologist Dr. Fred Vasey. Vasey learned that "the first (crappie) nests to appear had an average of 13.2 daylight hours," and "the last nesting sites occurred when the daylight averaged 14.6 hours." In other words, you can determine when spawning will begin and end, and therefore postulate when it might peak, by calculating the number of hours between sunrise and sunset on a given day."

Generally speaking, it takes about 30days to add 1.4hrs of daylight, so you have a 30 day window for the weather & water conditions to be stable enough to get off a good spawn. Adverse conditions can extend that window, or completely close it. Perfect conditions can cause the spawns to occur more quickly.

[warezaholic]

Thanks; then the time to start the hunt is mid April? I still can't help but think the warmer weather won't play into this somehow. Eastern lower Michigan has only had temps above freezing for only about 20 days all winter (averaging about 38/40 deg. F & up to 60/65 for nearly as many days)

Maybe the bass and walleye are gonna have an early spawn!?!

[warezaholic]

My fishing days have ALWAYS been completely Hit & Miss (more miss than hit) but because of recent advancement with electronics, fish finders & GPS, my outings are about to a little more Hi-Tech with aids & lures, as well as getting a little "good advice" before I go feeding those finicky fish "Free Minnows"!

I grew up in the 60's using only "live bait" but either bullheadedness or ignorance (not knowing how to use lures) has kept me from any other options so, from here on out I'm going to get familiar with artificial baits, And with the youtube explosion and documentaries, there's little we can't get some instruction about...

[Cane Pole]

I set time bells. When the fish show up, they ring da bell and says "Tom, Ima here, come git me".