question for Todd

[Drew]

I spent the better part of last week on Edward. Did ok on the waldows, plenty of hammer handles and a few nice sunnies. My question is this, when ever I'm on Edward, I'm always graphing something from the bottom up to about 10 feet (no it's not weeds), It gets worse at night. I have a Lms-350. I only experience this on Edward. It closely resembles what you see on the graph right before a fly hatch on Mille lacs. Since you are familiar with the area I thought I'd ask "what is this"

[Drew]

Sorry Toad, this question is meant for you, I didn't catch the spelling error of your username until the message was already sent.

[Toad]

Hi Drew-

Lake Edward is a real fertile system and that means a food chain that pumps at a pretty high rate. Much of the biomass in lakes like these in summer warm-water revolves around low-light periods. Plankton is light sensitive and rises higher in the water column during low-light periods (or at night). Since these microscopic critters essentially fuel aquatic food chains in these types of systems, you can also expect minnows and young of the year prey-fish like perch and little sunfish to also key on these zooplankton movements. That's just nature's way in aquatic environments (like Lake Edward). There's really nothing magic or "different" about this lake over any other, though it certainly is fascinating to observe the process.

In deeper lakes you'll tend to see more activity toward the surface and above the thermocline. While in shallower water environments lacking a metalimnion (thermocline), most of the activity indeed rises off bottom in and around these shallower littoral weed areas.

So in a nutshell, what you're seeing-- "something from the bottom up to about 10 feet" is almost certainly heleotrophic (light senstive) plankton organisms. I too run an LMS-350A-- its remains one of the best units out there. My advice, for what it's worth, is to run plugs just a few feet below the surface during these lower light periods. Edward has always been a real good night lake, but the hurdle is that it's so fertile that walleyes always have lots of food to eat, making them occasionally tougher to catch. In case you might wanna know . . . it's a great fall and early winter lake for big fish. Enjoy your fishing out there. And let us know how you fare.

-a friend called Toad

[Guest]

Drew --check out D-man on this forum;; like TOADS idea too!!!

[BIG]

.....tell me more about the LMS - 350/350A

age and who makes it....... thanx.

[Drew]

Thanks for the great info Toad, as always, very informative!!

Russ and Judy, where do I check out d-mans post?

Big - LMS-350a is a Lowrance, the most powerful unit made by the company until this year when Lowrance replaced the 350 with the x-15MT and the x-15CT, both great looking units (and pricy) The 350 (as I was told) was discontuined last fall because it was being replaced. While nobody else had any units left this spring when I bought my boat, the boys at Cabales in Owatonna found a unit for me, with GPS, in Dundee, MI this spring, and I love it. Check out the equipment expert information forum and look way back to March, I asked about the 350 way back then and received a ton of great info.