Raystown 5.24.20

[fishballer06]

Went out on Raystown Sunday. Water temps are between 62-66 depending on where you are in the lake. The boat ran great. I had her up to 70mph with plenty of trim still to give. I launched out of Aitch. I got a few bites around Nancy's including a nice pair on a bed. I then ran back into the back of Coffee Run where there is a bunch of thick weeds still. No bass back there, but I saw a few muskie. As we worked our way out of Coffee, we then got the minnows out and caught some perch and crappies on the trees. We ended up finally seeing some bedding bass but they wanted nothing to do with anything. We then went back to the James Creek/Aitch area and fished. Lots of single fish on the banks but not a single bite. I'd guess the fish will be laying eggs this week.

[zippyduck]

thanks for the report.

I have a tourney on the 14th there.

[apiazza]

I was out last night and saw some similar behaviour. Water temps were up in the 70's here though. I was pretty surprised when no one was reporting catching fish.

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[fishballer06]

I was out last night and saw some similar behaviour. Water temps were up in the 70's here though. I was pretty surprised when no one was reporting catching fish.

Usually the males will move up shallow first, prepare the bed area, then the females will later come along and they'll lay the eggs. During this stage, the males usually don't touch anything. Once the females lay those eggs, they'll leave the area, and the males will stay and go into full on protect mode. They'll stay around until they hatch, become fry, and even then the males protect the fry until they get to be an inch or two long.

[apiazza]

I guess I was mostly just surprised that we weren't further along given I was finding 76 degrees in some flats. That said, week and half ago it was 70 degrees, end of last week was 62 and now 76. All over the place.

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[zippyduck]

That fast warming will cause havoc on the spawn and the females may just dump their eggs. This is not normal but then what is in 2020.

[fishballer06]

This warm weather will cause the water to warm quickly, but the fish will still need to spawn. I know one local lake here a few years ago, I was catching fish with bloody tails from spawning on the 4th of July and the water was 78*. Now that was abnormal, but it can happen.

Raystown was 58* on the 17th. Then 62-66* on the 24th. The past three days the high has been between 83-92 every day, so I'm sure the surface temps are in the 70's. So you're looking at a 15* water temperature swing in a week and a half.