No rant today, but getting prepared to travel north to New Hampshire and Lake Winnepasaukee for our annual landlocked salmon fishing trip.
Currently it is forty degrees but feels like 33 with a 12 mph wind. There is still a great amount of ice on the lake, but I suspect that it will be gone this coming week. Lake temperature is only thirty four.
The landlocked salmon that dwell in this lake, along with the bright rainbow trout and the tenacious small mouth bass, are all mostly at deep levels of the lake where they winter over in the relatively warmer water at great depths. The ice gets thick enough to drive vehicles and snow mobiles over all winter long. But, when it starts to warm a phenomena known locally as "Ice out" occurs. Contests are help to guess the date and time the ice finally disappears and it's all a fun thing cause it means spring is coming.
Ice on any body of water becomes porous as it melts, thus forming many tiny holes within itself. No unlike Swiss cheese. When it melts sufficiently, the holes fill with water, and the whole sheet of ice becomes heavier than the surrounding water. At that point, the ice simply sinks to the bottom of the lake. This sinking forces the warmer water at lower depths to be pushed to the surface, thus inverting the whole water column. Small fish and their predators follow the water temperature from the depths to the now warmer top few feet.
The smelt which is the primary bait in Lake Winnepasaukee are on the surface right after ice out, and that is what we will be looking for when we arrive at the lake at the end of the month. In the photo of Wolfeboro you can see the early birds fishing from shore and in small boats just off shore and the remaining ice in the background. We hope for days like in the canoe photo in order to catch the salmon with a tandem fishing fly fished right on the surface.
Currently it is forty degrees but feels like 33 with a 12 mph wind. There is still a great amount of ice on the lake, but I suspect that it will be gone this coming week. Lake temperature is only thirty four.The landlocked salmon that dwell in this lake, along with the bright rainbow trout and the tenacious small mouth bass, are all mostly at deep levels of the lake where they winter over in the relatively warmer water at great depths. The ice gets thick enough to drive vehicles and snow mobiles over all winter long. But, when it starts to warm a phenomena known locally as "Ice out" occurs. Contests are help to guess the date and time the ice finally disappears and it's all a fun thing cause it means spring is coming.
Ice on any body of water becomes porous as it melts, thus forming many tiny holes within itself. No unlike Swiss cheese. When it melts sufficiently, the holes fill with water, and the whole sheet of ice becomes heavier than the surrounding water. At that point, the ice simply sinks to the bottom of the lake. This sinking forces the warmer water at lower depths to be pushed to the surface, thus inverting the whole water column. Small fish and their predators follow the water temperature from the depths to the now warmer top few feet.
The smelt which is the primary bait in Lake Winnepasaukee are on the surface right after ice out, and that is what we will be looking for when we arrive at the lake at the end of the month. In the photo of Wolfeboro you can see the early birds fishing from shore and in small boats just off shore and the remaining ice in the background. We hope for days like in the canoe photo in order to catch the salmon with a tandem fishing fly fished right on the surface.
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