Big Lake - Fall up north?
 

Heading to Big Lake this week and have not fished the area in the fall like this ever.
Have been doing some homework and thinking about going further north than the lake.
Any general info on when the fish move due to the cooler weather, what the thought process is behind shallower water, marsh in the cooler weather, tides' effects on the water and subsequently the fish further north, etc?

Anything helps, I'll post report after the trip.

Thanks guys,

-Andrew

A lot of the peeps on here can provide better info, but as a general rule, the specks won't be thick N of big lake when salinity is low. Just had a bunch of rain, so keep an eye on the salinity at Hackberry here:

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?site_no=08017095

N of Big Lake, salinities are even lower.

Some of the most skillful anglers can tease out trout in the deeper water on Prien by working plastics in the saltier water in the deeper holes.

I'm not the best angler, so I tend to gravitate toward using bait in saltier water.

Prien has been having birds working in recently some smaller fish but a few nice ones. Fish have begun moving onto reefs. Also the points around there along the channel where it gets shallower have been producing trout reds and flounder. Fish plastics or live shad. You should do well have fun and hope you enjoy your visit. If big lake work the reefs bait is moving.

What should salinity be ideally?

It depends on what you are chasing. Specks like 20-25 ppt ideally. Fresher water increases their metabolic costs to keep their systems balanced. But they will often tolerate fresher water chasing bait. Their life is a balance between food availability and osmoregulatory costs.

Slot reds are comfortable in 10-15 ppt. They will move to even fresher water if they need to for bait. Likewise, they will go into saltier water also if that's where the bait is running.

Ive caught specks in 2ppt water in the fall/winter before salinity doesnt affect them as much from Oct- March

Thanks for the help, very much appreciated.

Anything over 5 you're good. I prefer 15 plus or minus but especially this time of year the specks will go where the shrimp are and there's a lot of shrimp coming from the upper end. JMO

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8ppt makes me feel better but I smoked them the other day in the bay and it was a 3

End of the day I've caught in low salinity and high look for bait moving right now. Fish are chasing shrimp so go to areas shrimp are moving out of marshes into lake area