Cold snap

I am beginning to wonder if the recent cold snap is going to hurt the walleye spawn this spring. Down here in Iowa the Mississippi hit the upper 40’s and low to mid 50’s before the recent cold snap sent the water and air temps plummeting. Since the water temps did climb into and above the area where walleye begin to spawn I would have to believe that at least some of the fish did spawn. The Iowa DNR has said some of the worst walleye spawns are in the years when the water warms up and then we get a sharp cold snap that chills the water back down. If the walleye had begun their spawning down in this stretch of the river before the cold snap then this could end up being a very bad year for the spawn. The DNR says the best spawn years are when we have higher water (which we do now) and when the water temps stay stable once they reach the spawning temps.

Eyehunter

I’ve been wondering the same thing. I guess we can only hope that a good many of the fish had not yet spawned. I’m not sure how quickly the fish will spawn once the “magic” temp is reached, but I would think with the speed that the water warmed here that many of the fish did not get themselves into spawning mode before the temps plummeted again.
I guess we may not have a lot of answers for a couple years.

Well, water temps should be on a gradual rise again for the next 2 weeks, and possibly stable to slow rise there after. The weather pattern is much more typical in the next 2 weeks, with only a few periods of cold days, with many other days seeing highs in the 60s and lows in the upper 30s to mid 40s. Rain should add to the flow by Fri-Sun. Cheers from the fishin-weatherman.

When we were out on P4 last thursday we had a couple of 25″ fish that were spawned out. The smaller females we caught still hadn’t spawned. I got the feeling that we are done or near done up here, even if the temps weren’t optimal.

dd

I caught a 21″ spawned out female on Sunday here at Dubuque. I talked with a couple other people who also caught spawned out fish as well as females still full of eggs. In any case the fish that have not yet spawned should be doing so in the next week or so as the water temps are rising and will soon be well above the mark needed for spawning.

Eyehunter