Water temp - the magic number!

[sawgrass]

When it comes to water temp, what do you guys feel is the magic number to get those eyes turned on and, when they do start snappin', what are your favorite presentations?

[rosspj59]

I like water temps below 50 degrees when the plastics bite gets going. Nothing like a walleye/sauger crushing a ringworm or paddletail.

[Northlander]

Ya under 50. seems like 48 is great.

[Team Otter]

Under 50 is desirable and under 45 for plastics.

[croixeyes]

Mid forties seems to be the time the eyes bunch up on classic structure.Blade baits,jig and minnow,plastics,trolling and rigging.Whats a guy to do.....Tryem all...yyeeeaa

[PerchJerker]

There's the stair-step theory that 65 is good, 55 is better, and 45 is best. Kind of depends on if you're looking for numbers and action, or big fish. Action starts as the water temps start dropping, the numbers of big fish start going up under 50 degrees.

I mostly troll in the fall, the fish are hungry and feeding and I like to cover water.

[Grant]

is there somewhere I can get stats on local water temps? river and lake preferably...

thanks -G

[Mike Walerak]

The bite sems to pick up for me once the water temps hit the mid 50's. I usually figure the 50 degree mark to be the pivot point where I start using plastics in rivers and dramatically slow down my trolling speed on lakes. I also bring the jig box back out of hibernation and start pitching points and dropoffs.

Same with spring time. On rivers it means pull out the handliners and the trolling rods, because it is going to be a numbers game!

mw

[CHM]

Can you guys fill me in on the "plastic bite"? I deep jig and cast cranks from boat and shore at night but have had limited success with plastics...until this year when I had some action on a 5" Berkley Swim Shad.

Thanks

Chuck

[Northlander]

I really like the Berkley plastics. The Power Shiners, pogeys and Gulp worms are great on a jig. I will also use paddle tails a lot and some ring worms. Ring worms are great down south but they just dont do too much up here. I have only had a few times where a ring worm works better than a minnow imitation. I know they are great on the mighty miss and others though.

If Im anchored and can use 2 rods I love dead sticking a super do or a big crawdad plastic. Just the movement in the boat gets these things moving enough to get fish to hit them. I have had some HUGE strikes on deadsticked super do's.

Those 5" berkley paddle tails you toss will be great this time of year and again in the spring. I like to toss them out, let them hit bottom, hop them off bottom and then swim them back with a few pauses to let them free fall close to bottom again. Usually no doubt when you get a bite on them.