[gambusia]

Do you know the maximum depth in the lakes you fish, fish can go before they run out of oxygen and die?

Seems like a lot of lakes become uninhabitable for fish for many meters down.


For example Lake Lure in Rutherford County is uninhabitable below 6 meters for fish.

 

[wademaster]

Probably varies as to what species is involved....interesting.


Sent from my kayak...

 

[gambusia]

Most major game fish prefer 5 mg/L of dissolved oxygen or greater but once the DO gets below 3 mg/l (milligrams per liter) fish start to die.

This is why trout and striped bass can have massive summer kills in lakes.

 

[wademaster]

This is why trout and striped bass can have massive summer kills in lakes.

That's what I was getting at.....species vary.



Sent from my kayak...

 

[gambusia]

But not really.

Once the DO drops to below 3 milligrams a liter pretty much all fish die.

The difference with say rainbow trout or striped bass is they need cool water with high oxygen concentrations. Fish like largemouth bass can survive in the warm surface waters. Stripers? Not so much.


This why deep lakes like Lake Norman can no longer support stripers but can continue to support warmer water tolerant species like spotted and largemouth bass.

You've got 100 feet of water with no fish in it except at the surface waters

 

[gambusia]

Here is some data buried in this document for Lake James in Burke County:

http://www.ljea.org/year-seven-report.html

 

[panfish jack]

Once lake turnover switches to a summer pattern( cooler water on the bottom), the lake will have a thermocline. If you can figure out that depth, you can eliminate half of the unfishable water in the lake by fishing right at or slightly above that thermocline.

I primarily crappie fish, but many of the species will suspend close to it.