I had a few hours this afternoon, so I thought I'd hit my local lake before this front moves through. I loaded up my dog and headed out. I pull up at the ramp and immediately noticed the color was off. Brown instead of green tint. So needless to say, a very tough bite. I managed one dink. I fished the dam area and saw thousands of dead shad.. literally thousands. This lake is overran with shad anyway but I have never seen that many floating at once. Also, there were thousands of crawdads right at the waters edge. These were alive, but I had no idea this lake so many crawdads. I guess the turnover forced them on the bank? Between them and the shad and the pressure it gets, its no wonder why its such a tough bite. Water temp was 67.8. Is anybody else seeing this?

Not seeing this at my reservoirs in VA. Seeing plenty of shad runs, and bass being caught. No dead shad. But turnover is definitely on the way. Stiff chill in the air here this week, our waters have gotten quite clear in the last week, but things are a-changin'... Temps vary between 67-70 depending on the sun.

Could be a fall turnover, did the lake have a sulfur like smell or something rotting? Some lakes have aeration systems located in deep water at the dam to help prevent oxygen depletion from sediment debris. 2 things kill fish, sudden 10+ degree drop in water temperatures or DO levels less than 3 mg/L. A turnover usually doesn't cause sudden very low DO levels, 67 degree surface water shouldn't indicate a sudden 10 degree or more water column drop in temps. Did the lake level drop quickly? Sudden drops in lake levels will bring out crawdads and artificially create a turn over. The crawdads also eat the dead shad.

Tom

Thanks guys, I didn't smell the sulfur smell and the water levels have been steady. I was watching our state wildlife show last night and on the fishing report section they mentioned that some of the lakes are starting to turn. I guess I just work on honey do's for a week.