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Heidecke Too Cold?

1450 Views 5 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  Fonzie
For some reason I'm having a hard time buying that the reason Heidecke has not been producing is that the water is too cold. 46-48°F is still in the range where fish will be active. It sounds like many people are using tactics that work well in the late-spring /early summer. Since we had a real winter this year could we maybe be overlooking some early spring tactics? Any thoughts?
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When I was out last weekend, the water temps were actually 44-45 degrees....don't think it makes that much of a difference though. I personally believe that if you used some early Spring tactics you would be able to pull some fish from the lake.

Shore fisherman seemed to do alright with live bait. Just letting it sit there till something finned came by and picked it up. Think the main problem with the cold water on Heid is locating where the fish are at to plop some bait in front of them.
I fished with everything, including live bait last sunday from a boat and had one bite!! I wish I had more time to fish more of the lake, I was at Lasalle first. I fished early spring tactics that worked for me the last two years and they seemed to not be interested , but marked plenty of fish? I always figure if it's 46 on the surface go down 5' it's probably in the upper 30's?? Just a thought.
IMHO, 45 water temp. Try free swimming live bait or slow plastics of points. LMB seem to hold off points pre 55 degree water.

Try tube jig, pitch and let sit very shallow water north side of lake as water temp may rise quickly during day.

Try trolling, Musky or Stripers may be feeding open water.

Just my thoughts
Even when the plant was running, the first couple of weeks TYPICALLY have always been slow at Heidecke. When I had my boat I usually would focus on Lasalle and Braidwood the first two to three weeks of the openings until I started hearing good things about Heidecke. That's typically about the time Lasalle heats up too much and the "fiddlers" are everywhere...
FishArt said:
Even when the plant was running, the first couple of weeks TYPICALLY have always been slow at Heidecke. When I had my boat I usually would focus on Lasalle and Braidwood the first two to three weeks of the openings until I started hearing good things about Heidecke. That's typically about the time Lasalle heats up too much and the "fiddlers" are everywhere...
How true... How true...

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It's just that when Heidecke was actually a cooling lake, I would do pretty good from shore in April, in fact sometimes I would slay em'.
That being said, this year, after the water temps go up a bit, I will use my old early April techniques and transfer those same tricks to late April and early May. I will keep it "simple" like the old days and see what happens.
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