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![]() In 2017, a heavy snowpack and subsequent runoff led Mono Lake to transition from annually mixed (monomictic) to indefinitely stratified (meromictic). This unique ecosystem offers a natural laboratory for probing microbial community responses to environmental change. More than likely, they'll be biting again and, to your benefit, pretty hungry after going a few days without eating.Mono Lake is a closed‐basin, hypersaline, alkaline lake located in Eastern Sierra Nevada, California, that is dominated by microbial life. Horton also has some advice concerning the turnover. "If you think a turnover is occurring and you're not getting bit, just come back in a week. While some fish may have turned off, try deeper as more of the lake is accessible to the deep dwellers, and keep shallow, as these fish will most likely always be there. The bottom line of the fall turnover according to Gilliland is that you don't need to make that many changes from your fall fishing to a post-turnover pattern. "But usually there will be some fish that are still active." ![]() Gilliland says while they are not affected physically, the bass' feeding may slow down during the turnover until they can get used to the new lake conditions."The difference in conditions may take them by surprise, so they'll just hang out for a few days until things stabilize and they are comfortable again," he says. ![]() The fishermen just haven't found them," he says. The reason the 'deep' fish don't bite anymore is probably because what was deep in the summer isn't deep in the fall. It's not that the turnover makes the fish go shallow, it has just given them more room to explore. This gives them the ability to go anywhere in the lake now, including deeper. "The fish that are deep have held right around the thermocline during the summer, which is no longer there. The lake won't be stratified enough to have a significant turnover, meaning there won't be much if any difference in the bass' location. The wind and current keep the water mixed all summer long and into the fall, so there is not much difference when the upper and lower layers of water mix. If they do, it won't be as dramatic as on a still impoundment," Gilliland says. This is simply not true."Large reservoirs or natural lakes that have constant wind or a frequent current will not typically turn over. "Creeks and canals off of large lakes can also fall prey to this rapid turnover as the fish aren't smart enough to escape until it's too late." Where does the turnover happen?Īnother pervasive myth about the fall turnover is that it happens everywhere. If this happens fast enough, there won't be enough dissolved oxygen in the water to support fish, which could lead to a fish kill," he says. It begins to decompose rapidly which draws oxygen out of the water. If it rains in September or October while there is a cold front, the cool rain mixing with the warm pond water stirs up all the particulate matter on the bottom that was previously not exposed to oxygen. "Farm ponds are more susceptible to adverse effects of a rapid turnover because the fish have nowhere to go if something drastic happens. However, Gilliland says that there is some merit to the myth that a dramatic turnover kills fish. Typically, on large reservoirs, the actual turning over of the lake only takes about two or three days at the longest and on small waters, with a good hard rain, it could be overnight," he says. It is not a drawn out process that makes for terrible fishing for weeks on end. What's the turnaround on the turnover? A rampant myth is the duration of the turnover. "Once the turnover begins, be it from a cold, hard rain or rapid climate change, the fish in the deepest strata of the lake will see the most change since the fish that are shallow have slowly acclimated to the cool weather. This last group is going to be hit hardest by the drastic change. The ones that stay shallow their whole lives, the ones that roam from deep to shallow, and the deep-dwellers who only go shallow to spawn. "I believe that there are three classes of fish in any given lake. While he says that the turnover doesn't affect fish as much as many believe, he explains that there are some fish that are more affected by it than others. The rapid change will throw off their routine for a few days," he says. When we take them out of that water, they are put in a completely different environment with different pH, temperature, and oxygen levels, and this makes them pretty inactive. "When we take fish from a lake, they are used to the conditions in the lake.
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