"Ronnie" wrote in message
...
Sinclair, with its coal fired power plant moving water in and out, and
a pumpback system at Oconee up the river from Sinclair where they
generate power during the day and pump water back at night, keeps the
water constantly moving at Sinclair and there is little change in
temps - no thermocline. Strange lake, really. Water goes up and down
two feet or so every day.

A club 26 Bassmasters fished the same day we did - I need to find out
how they did. Van Kennedy, Steve's dad, is a long time member of that
club. Van has made the Classic twice thru the Federation system and
is a great deep water fisherman. I think he was the one I saw sitting
way off the bank where I have no idea what he was fishing - don't
think there is a hump there, maybe the main river channel. He stayed
there a long time.

Ronnie

http://fishing.about.com

Ronnie,

I pretty much fish a river system and have similar problems, but even then
there is usually a depth or range where there is a definable temperature
change. Not everywhere, but often enough. Even in the main river. You
can't read it on your graph from the micro organisms concentrated on it like
you can on a big stable lake, but if you go for a swim you can sure feel it.
Pockets, eddies, and even deep cuts. Also, in deeper backwaters the flow in
and out tends to be the top several feet of water, but the bottom several
feet moves less. Minn Kota used to make a cheap temp gage that runs on AAA
battery. The probe has several feet of wire. You can tape the probe to
your push pole or a big weight on a piece of line and can get accurate temp
readings at different depths in different areas when you are prefishing to
see if there are any semi stable temp changes.

No guarantees, but IMO the more you know the better your intuition.

A different approach might also be to find features your fish may key on
when the water is rising or falling. Delta and tidal river fisherman really
reli on this. But because the river where I fish fluctuates due to farm
demand downriver it can fish similarly. I learned that from a Ca Delta pro
I took out here one day.

Bob La Londe
www.YumaBassMan.com

Director
www.YumaProAm.com

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