June Transition talk .....

[fishfish]

June Transition talk .....

I think people use June as an excuse for poor fishing.

The lake is always in a transition and the old days of the thermocline holding all the fish are wrong in my opinion.

Fish are deeper with clear water its colder down there. Not the magic 50's everyone looks for on the fish hawk.

Fishing tactics are evolving. Seems like downrigger bites are less and less.

 More fish are caught on  lures away from the boat with side presentations from what I can gather.

 

 

[chucknmel]

I think that the fish are temp oriented. However I think the preferred temp zones are a little larger. That being said most of our bigger fish come out of colder 42-45degree water.

[fisherdude]

find the bait fish you found the predatory fish . as temp sets up the bait seem be at the braking point 

[rdebadts]

Imho, it's real. June is generally the time we go from a shore oriented and surface bite to a deeper bite. That is certainly the case in the entire eastern basin, less so near the bar. The thing about June is that it is wildly INconsistent. Any small blow will ruin any pattern that you may have. And the fish are just so damn spread out. Once late June hits, things are set up better and more importantly the salmon start to migrate east.

I have had great days in June, no doubt. But on a very regular basis, my worst 2-3 days of the entire year are in June.... it is not cause I magically forget how to fish for those weeks!




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[GAMBLER]

The June transition time can be great for brown and laker fishing.  I can't tell you how many trips I was alone fishing browns or lakers while guys were scratching out a king or two in June. 

[Paul Czarnecki]

June Transition talk ..... I think people use June as an excuse for poor fishing.
The lake is always in a transition and the old days of the thermocline holding all the fish are wrong in my opinion.
Fish are deeper with clear water its colder down there. Not the magic 50's everyone looks for on the fish hawk.
Fishing tactics are evolving. Seems like downrigger bites are less and less.
 More fish are caught on  lures away from the boat with side presentations from what I can gather.
 
 

Alrighty then......


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[Sk8man]

For starters the "transition" referred to  is a complex web of factors rather than a simple development of a water temperature thermocline layer. Fish have never been just located in the thermocline layer either whether "old days" or not. This term transition has been used to refer to a whole bunch of environmental changes which affect the fishing at different points in the year....not just June.  The reason the thermocline layer becomes important as it is setting up is that the water becomes more dense within and below this most rapid change in temperature and zooplankton and phytoplankton cluster within it along with all sorts of other microorganisms. Baitfish feed on these necessary resources and thus tend to be found associated with this layer but certainly not all located within it. Much of the bait is also returning to deeper water from the shallows or has already returned from spawning and it has dispersed and redistributed within the lake both horizontally and vertically. Many of the gigantic pods of bait seen earlier in the Spring are now broken up into clusters of smaller pods and redistributed over large areas of the water.As summer goes on some bait is found suspended while other bait is clustered very near or on bottom. Fish that have been feeding on them in the shallows during the Spring are moving into deeper water as it warms considerably and they follow the baitsfish distributions when they can locate them and once the thermocline sets up fully they are often but not always found within it but this usually tends to vary by species - often rainbows steelies, an ocassional  brown or Atlantic may be above it and usually lakers are below it and deeper into summer the chinooks may be where you'd expect to see lakers in the 42 plus degree water or even mixed with them in the same water sometimes. The "magic 50's" in water temperature referred to is anything but magical and the same thing with the charts on "preferred water temperatures for different species"  These are "correlations" assumed to be associated with fish behavior and may or may not hold true for a given fish or species or at a certain times of the year.. These are not hard fast rules of behavior as fish will often be found outside these arbitrary preferred temperatures especially when in search of prey and they may be way outside their expected temperature ranges when doing so. Often they are found near the bait clusters you see on depth finders. . The fact that fish may be found at these temperature ranges rather than specific temperatures per se may relate more  to energy expenditure factors as it takes more energy to travel and chase prey and roam the lake in water either colder or warmer than a medium range of water temperature and the food resources may be temperature sensitive to this range as well and locate there. Wind velocity and wind direction exert major control over water temperatures, the thermocline layer, and in turn the distribution of food sources and fish behavior and it changes the underwater current patterns. Storms seem to put fish off the normal feeding cycle and it is thought that things like barometric changes can influence fish behavior as well. The weather patterns in June can be pretty varied and this may adversely affect the fishing even in certain areas of the lake rather than others. In short, there probably is no easy or uncomplicated answer to the original question (s) but season after season the lakes do go through some significant changes in the month of June.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Sk8man

[Silver Fox]

My opinion in simple terms........Fishing sux, spread em out and cover water.

Lake Ontario salmon fishing charters

[Chas0218]

17 hours ago, fishfish said:

June Transition talk .....

I think people use June as an excuse for poor fishing.

The lake is always in a transition and the old days of the thermocline holding all the fish are wrong in my opinion.

Fish are deeper with clear water its colder down there. Not the magic 50's everyone looks for on the fish hawk.

Fishing tactics are evolving. Seems like downrigger bites are less and less.

 More fish are caught on  lures away from the boat with side presentations from what I can gather.

 

 

I fished the Sodus Pro/Am last year and found the same thing granted that is Mid July but the same tactics when we weren't getting fish. I pre-fished Tue, Wed, Thru, and Fri. I found fish all over the place. On Saturday 1st day of the tournament Lady O was pissed with 5-6 footers and rainy day in the A.M. I found a few fish early but they shut down in the afternoon. I worked the thermocline and did well. Sunday was a completely different story, dead calm flat as glass. The fish we caught were well below the thermocline way out of temp. we were pulling fish from 43* probe temp down 175' crazy deep but were catching some nice mid teen kings.

Edited June 14, 2017 by Chas0218

[Sk8man]

Silver Fox took the words right out of my mouth....that sums it up