large monitor and time on your hands
Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 12:42 pm
Open up a separate window and go to www.wolfrivercam.com
Select the Fremont cam from the map and shrink your window size so it sits with just the view-able camera image somewhere on your desktop.
Supposedly the "peak" white bass spawning run is right around Mother's day weekend and the white bass spawn at 57 degrees. I think temperature has less to do with timing. Looking at the wolf river cam, there are no white bass. None, zero, zip, ziltch. Last reported water temp from Fremont was 55 degrees. Being only 3 days since the "peak" you'd think you'd see a few stragglers, or even the fish coming back down river into Winnebago. This is not so. Peak happened a week earlier, and in colder temperatures that 57 degrees.
Right now there are a lot of small male perch following around big fat female perch. Perch are moving up river to spawn now. I would venture to guess that if Ken spent some time on creeks above the N. Aurora dam he would find perch in the creeks. I don't know why, but I've always found good numbers of perch north of Aurora.
Also on the camera view is a fair amount of big fat female smallmouth bass. Moving very lethargically. These fat females will be dropping eggs soon.... All the while in colder water than what is flowing on the Fox AND the DuPage, and at the same time that we have big fat females moving onto beds in the DuPage and presumably the Fox.
The fish don't go by the Christian calendar and they don't have thermometers handy to tell them when they should make babies. Time of the year is critical. By this I am referring to the meteorologically recognized markers of seasonal change: length of daylight period and moon phase.
When I was a kid i grew up fishing the DuPage river. For 6 or 7 years my weekends, holidays, and breaks were spent wading the stretch from Washington & Ring rd. to Knock Knolls park. Some days I fished till my feet hurt from walking on river rock in old tennis shoes so I would perch along shore and watch the fish react to schools of baitfish, other predatory fish, flying insects, emerging larvae, etc. You can learn a lot about your environment if you have the patience to sit and watch them in their natural environment. Something you can't do at a fish hatchery.
Select the Fremont cam from the map and shrink your window size so it sits with just the view-able camera image somewhere on your desktop.
Supposedly the "peak" white bass spawning run is right around Mother's day weekend and the white bass spawn at 57 degrees. I think temperature has less to do with timing. Looking at the wolf river cam, there are no white bass. None, zero, zip, ziltch. Last reported water temp from Fremont was 55 degrees. Being only 3 days since the "peak" you'd think you'd see a few stragglers, or even the fish coming back down river into Winnebago. This is not so. Peak happened a week earlier, and in colder temperatures that 57 degrees.
Right now there are a lot of small male perch following around big fat female perch. Perch are moving up river to spawn now. I would venture to guess that if Ken spent some time on creeks above the N. Aurora dam he would find perch in the creeks. I don't know why, but I've always found good numbers of perch north of Aurora.
Also on the camera view is a fair amount of big fat female smallmouth bass. Moving very lethargically. These fat females will be dropping eggs soon.... All the while in colder water than what is flowing on the Fox AND the DuPage, and at the same time that we have big fat females moving onto beds in the DuPage and presumably the Fox.
The fish don't go by the Christian calendar and they don't have thermometers handy to tell them when they should make babies. Time of the year is critical. By this I am referring to the meteorologically recognized markers of seasonal change: length of daylight period and moon phase.
When I was a kid i grew up fishing the DuPage river. For 6 or 7 years my weekends, holidays, and breaks were spent wading the stretch from Washington & Ring rd. to Knock Knolls park. Some days I fished till my feet hurt from walking on river rock in old tennis shoes so I would perch along shore and watch the fish react to schools of baitfish, other predatory fish, flying insects, emerging larvae, etc. You can learn a lot about your environment if you have the patience to sit and watch them in their natural environment. Something you can't do at a fish hatchery.