Climate change and Winter angling on your lake

[Wizard]

You have to be old to have fished a body of water for 65 years. In the past, I have written about changes at Lake of the Ozarks in lake use, being unrestricted as to boat size and speed limits. Yet, the biggest changes to angling have taken place in Winter. Circa 1955, there was little angling taking place at LOZ with the mouths of the Big and Little Niangua rivers being the best areas. There were a few enclosed fishing huts over the water with a center opening and fishing seats around the opening. Most had a small wood burning stove to kill the bitter cold of winter. Brush was placed from lake bottom almost to the surface. Crappie were easy to catch in the brush and the fishing huts were owned by small resorts. Most were furnished from post-WWII military surplus. Winter often saw the lake arms freeze for weeks at a time and sometimes even small areas of the main lake. Winter remained much the same until 1977-78. That was the coldest winter in my memory. De-Icers were placed into boat slips to keep the slips free of ice. Four months of below freezing cold during the day and often below zero temperatures at night. Then winter stated to change.
The number of boat docks grew larger as housing, condos and large resorts began lining the shoreline.  Bass, which had fled the shallows to stay with the shad schools during the cold decades started staying longer in the coves until when, in recent years, they never leave the coves. De-Icers sit unused in storage and the fishing huts have vanished. Since 1950, the average winter air temp in Central Missouri has gone up 6 degrees with most change taking place from 1980 until now.
Central Missouri is known for having huge temperature swing in a day and violent weather. Higher temps. especially in winter and increasingly violent weather are the future.

Wizard

[Donald Garner]

Wizard, tks for sharing this.  I've never been to LOZ at all.  I do know a little about the Missouri Winters as I grew up & lived there 1956 > 1975.  I can remember some brutal cold winters there in West Central Missouri a few times.  I remember the Mississippi River freezing over in St. Louis a couple times also.  I spent my younger days fishing with my grandpa on the Mississippi River (Missouri side) at Alton IL. 

Once I got my drivers license and my boat I started fishing the Oxbows off the Mississippi River up in Foley, Missouri up by Lock & Dam 25.  There was lots of flooding and big chucks of ice, bldgs and trees flowing through the lock and dams.  Pretty scary site for sure.

The bottom line for me back then there wasn't any Winter fishing.  Everything was iced over at the locations I fished 

[D.W. Verts]

All true. I'm a trapper, and it's a rare winter any more that our animals fur out. Every year I catch coyotes that by the end of December into the first of January are "rubbed" with the fur thinning on their shoulders. If it's cold that doesn't happen. Eventually, if this continues, the animals will adapt more towards their southern brethren and hold their fur longer. I'd bet on it.

Of course for me as a fisherman the warmer winters are welcome, except that the bass do different things than they did in the 80's and 90's. It's a challenge.

Dale

[coldfront]

I am not arguing that climate changes.  that shifts occur.
what I am suggesting here is this:  if you go back and pull records, study this thing, you'll see a couple of things
1.  early 70's all the rage was the 'coming ice age'.  why was that?2.  all the global warming stuff really likes to focus on the 'hocky stick' graph.  (personally?  I prefer the term 'hokey schtick'; yep it's a lot political) and the extrapolations of all these 'models' has the earth 'burning up' at some point in the future.same song, different verse.  some group or another from the dawn of history has been calling for 'the end is near'. 

as a friend of mine used to say ... 'oxen are slow; but the earth is patient...'

i get it:  we're bombarded EVERY DAY with reports from breathless reporters talking about 'record temperatures'.  they use (incorrectly) terms like 'normal' when the right word is AVERAGE...think about this:  what is the difference between a temperature that is 'above normal' (abnormal) versus 'above average'?
perhaps all of our efforts to clean our atmosphere (hole in the ozone is closing, thank you, smog levels greatly reduced) have a hand in increased temperatures?  consider this:  when a volcano 'blows' and puts all that ash in the air, what happens to the temperatures for the next year?  (hint:  they are cooler).
consider also the 'desertification' of our environment.  what's that?  think about the effect of all those paved, concrete surfaces.  how much we have ROCKED the surface of the world.  how that water no longer gets 'retained' but re-directed.

lastly:  watch how many storms seem to steer around larger cities.  Those cities have heat domes... artificial localized high pressure domes... and when a storm DOES roll through, over that, it has to be a 'big one'.  so perhaps in that case, the only weather that gets to roll over a city WILL be a much stronger system?
there's a hell of a lot more going on here than just CO2 from our pickups, bassboats, diesel trucks...