Was out at Eagle Mountain last night, and I have seen this happen in certain areas of a lake, but never the entire lake. We covered basically the entire South end of the lake from Pelican Island to the dam, and the little spillway by Augies, including most all the coves. There were thousands of Shad flipping the surface, on every square inch of water we covered, no matter the depth of water. Everything from 6 foot to 40 foot. This was in a time period from when it first got dark, till we got off the water about 1 a.m. We spent quite a bit of time looking for a jug that had drifted way out off course, no fish on it, but also had no bait.

I don't recall ever seeing any balls of bait below the surface, but they were everywhere on top. Fishing was awful, at least for me. Never marked any substantial number of fish, and all the ones we did find were dinks, Caught three tiny blue cats, and two tiny sand bass. Deeper water also seemed to have lots of debris suspended throughout the column. I'm assuming the lake may be in the early stages of turnover.

Would that also be why the shad were flipping everywhere all over the lake?

I have no clue on what causes that. The only time I something close to what you are talking about was literally minutes before a northern hit us while we were on the lake. It was strange to see how many small Shad were flipping. Maybe that is what causes it since we had a big front coming

It’s actually very common. Phytoplankton rise to the surface right around dark. Threadfin will feed on those plankton right on the surface. The reason it is so widespread right now is because the water temp is around 75 and the bait is spread out all over the lake. Coupled with the fact that there are a gazillion small Shad from the hatch. The stuff your seeing on your graph are 2 fold. Both Phytoplankton and micro Shad both look like debris or particulates in the water. We haven’t had the right conditions for a turnover so I believe what your seeing is probably Threadfin feeding and phytoplankton rising to the surface.

That’s educational. I don’t know if I’m smart enough to make any use of it, but it’s still good info. Maybe I can appear knowledgeable to my fishing buddy !

I've seen it that way, way up on Lewisville. Calm morning, glass smooth water. You could clap your hands and watch the baby shad jump.

Correct!

This is why we used to run our juglines with a hook at 2' and 5' at night. Had a lot of fun loading the boat with catfish on Lake Palestine back in the day!

Awesome, thank you for that. I guess I've just never been on the lake at the right time/temp to see it. I guess the follow up question would be......where were all the non bait fish? Lol

Laying upside down on the bottom,rubbing their bellies I'll bet cha.....After something like that...… It'd be like my family lazing around & watching football after thanksgiving dinner at mom's house...…. down there.