spawning, lake vs. river

[jargo432]

Do fish in rivers spawn at a different water temperatures than in lakes?

Not sure what species of fish you are refering to but trout (rainbow or browns) don't reproduce in stillwater. Although the females will be full of eggs and go through the motions, nothing will hatch. They need the flowing water.

If there are large ponds with large rivers flowing from them, can there be reproducing populations of salmonids?

[sunskyhooksnwater]

thats how trout spawn when in lakes, they go too the inlet streams and lay there eggs there. ive seen it with bulls, rainbows, browns, cutthroat and brookies. they dont need a huge river, a creek or something will do goo aslong as theres enough room for the fish too migrate up and spawn. but brookies dont really need much an underwater spring inlet or outlet stream, basically any little bit of flowing water and there good.

[MarkKillam]

Not sure what species you are referring to but I will answer with what I know. Cutts, rainbows, and goldens need running water with gravel to succesfully spawn. My understanding is that the eggs need running water to supply them with the oxygen they need. Goldens spawn succesfully exclusively in outlets (my understanding is that right after iceout they spawn in warmer outflows instead of colder inflows). Cutts and bows spawn in either the inlet or the outlet.

AS for brookies, they are fall spawners and can spawn in water that bows, cutts and goldens dont spawn as well in. Brookies perefer moving water but I fish a few lakes where there is a very poor inlet and the brookies seem to reproduce somewhat succesfully. As for lake trout, they dont need running water to spawn in and will succesfully spawn in the lake itself. If I remember right they look for rocky shoals.

Browns also spawn in running water but I know less about there spawning habits than the other trout.

As a side note, I have seen goldens and bows try to spawn in the main body of the lake but I dont know how succesful they are. I fish for bows trying to spawn in the shallows of Hebgen Lake and do pretty well. MT stocks 100K bows a year in Hebgen so my guess is that the ones that do spawn in the lake dont do very well. Also saw some goldens trying to spawn in the shallows of a small lake in the Beartooths. These fish might have had a bit better luck at spawning than the bows since there are a lot of goldens in the lake but I suspect that most of the succesful spawners are in the outlet.

To make a long story short, the temps that trout spawn in are different than the ones in the lake they inhabit. Goldens prefer the warmer outflows while cutts and bows do well in both the warmer outlets and colder inlets. I also have heard that brookies tend to look for warmer upwellings in the lake or in warmer outflows also. That is not to say that they arent able to spawn in the cooler inlets either. LOL after all my rambling, you probably are no closer to an answer to your question.

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Take care everyone and cya around. Mark



[This message has been edited by MarkKillam (edited 05 March 2006).]

[jargo432]

Makes me wish I lived somewhere that I could fish for trout. (Actually I've never caught a trout even though I've been fly fishing for 3 years)

I'm wondering about bass and sunfish. The fish in rivers don't have the deep water to run to and wondered if that would cause them to spawn at a different temp.

[Migs]

In Bolivia, all the lake trout has to be placed there each year. They do not reproduce in lakes. Brookies are the exception, but we only have one lake that I know of that has them. Pretty sad huh?

Want to learn more?

read:

Fly Fishing Stillwaters For Trophy Trout
By Denny Rickards
[url=http://www.flyfishingstillwaters.com/books.asp:8091c]http://www.flyfishingstillwaters.com/books.asp[/url:8091c]

Highly recommended !!!!!

-Migs