Fishing the thermocline

Never really did much deeper water fishing but I've been doing a little more of it and I got to reading about the thermocline setting up in lakes around 20-30 foot deep that don't have much if any current flow. I've seen it at lake tuscaloosa and holt lake. I've trolled crankbaits at 15-17 ft deep and caught crappie this past weekend.

I've been doing some drift fishing for catfish and I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried to drift fish shad where the thermocline sets up or 5 foot or so above it.

I should add that I can see it on my depth finder and didn't have a clue what it was until my buddy mentioned seeing it on his depth finder too and I started researching it.

Are you seeing it on Sonar, or DI/SI? If you're seeing it on DI/SI please post a pic of it. I have not seen that.

About three weeks ago the thermocline was very obvious on guntersville. It’s amazing how the fish stack up right above it. It’s pretty easy to see on down scan. It will be a line about 5 to 10 feet off the bottom and all fish will be right above it. I believe it was at 17 foot a few weeks back. When the lake flips is a very good time to see it.

I'll try to get a pic this weekend. There are a few videos of it. If I can find the one i watched I'll post a link

Oh and on di it was very easy to see almost looked like the bubble trail a prop leaves but bigger. Just turn your sensitivity up until you see it

Fish on a 110 acre lake and we have a fishery biologist that lives there. The lake is about 20' deep in a lot of it. He says when our lake flips the thermocline is around 12' and you will rarely catch a fish deeper than that because of lack of oxygen. Last summer I concentrated on 6-12' and had a lot of success

Rite...we have a spot like that here. It gets 40 feet but the guy who owns it says they wont go past 12 feet or so due to no oxygen when it flips

It’s really cool to see the thermocline with your eyes. I did some scuba diving at a rock quarry and the thermocline was at about 30 feet. When you went through it there was a layer of water about a foot thick that looked swirly, like you were looking right over the top of a really hot grill. Was pretty cold below it also.

Could you feel the temp changing?

Yes. It would be about 90 on the surface and high 70s or low 80s right above the thermocline and right below it, it was in the 60s and pretty murky. If you didn’t have a hood and gloves on, you wouldn’t stay below the thermocline for more than 30 seconds. There were no fish below it that we saw. There is a severe lack of dissolved oxygen below the thermocline.

Thats really neat to hear about the vast temp changes. Thanks for postin

youre welcome