how is fishing in buffalo

[Alaskan Joe]

Well, to answer the question that I asked the other day, I found a site listing temperatures at the water treatment plant at the mouth of the river (30 ft deep). Today, the temp is 47F. For the past few years, we hit or passed this temp on the following days:
May 23, 2011: 48F
May 14, 2010: 48F
May 11, 2009: 48F
We has a miserable spring last year, and the night bite seemed to start (for me at least) in the last weekend of May. So, my guess is that we may be about 1-2 weeks ahead of "typical", and about 1 week away from good action long-lining sticks...
Joe

[copo427ss]

I went out tonight to do a little Pre opener scouting. Mainly looking for half sunk trees in the trolling path. Surface water was at 63f. Put two lines out and got nothing. I did not go in front of hoaks. Where I was has always produced limits. I did not search deeper. Maybe these fish are in Post spawn.

[Alaskan Joe]

Well, I may be wrong, but I believe that the fish that we catch in front of Hoaks in May are always in the post-spawn & pre-summer phases. I think that they slowly move away from the spawning areas, and then hang out off of the flats to munch on spawning baitfish. With the water temps only in the mid- to upper-40s, I think that is still too early for the good night bite.

Spring came early this year, and the lake didn't freeze, but we can't be so far ahead of schedule that we have completely passed by the shallow water, rapala night bite.

I think (hope!) that we are still ~1 week in front of the good night bite vs. beyond it.