Thread: Dissolved Oxygen?

Noticing the LYs doing their crazy dance yesterday got me to thinking about the oxygen content in the water and that effect on fishing at the pier. Thanks to previous posts by Pier#r I do know to check the Mobile Bay NEP site for waters feeding the coast, but I was wondering if anybody knows of any coastal data or if anybody knows anybody with a meter who might do some spot checking.

Seems to me this might be a predictor of fishing success, for pelagics at least.

Mobile Bay NEP - Environmental Monitoring

While it would be curious if someone were to measure the water O2 around the pier, I suspect they would get wildly fluctuating readings because of naturally occuring micro-differences as the water gets deeper, and depending on time of day (amount of sunlight).

LYs dying off is quite natural this time of year because they only live for about a year and a half anyway.
It's kindof like salmon dying after they spawn.
But localized oxygen depleted areas are common as well because of crowding into locations of already low O2 as the water temp is in the 80s, and warmer water cannot hold as much oxygen.
Plus there is a LOT of bacterial and planktonic activity in the 80+ degree water.
And all that decaying, dead algae consumes a LOT of O2 which can be renewed, but may not be fast enough especially in the dark.
Thus already 'stressed' LYs can suddenly go into that "death dance".

I observed LYs dying the other day when I was out there.
So once the wind picked up in early afternoon, I started king fishing.
I hooked my live LY bait ('Crazy Ivan' style) to imitate that dying action.
And my third bait got eaten by a king about 10 yards from the pier ;-)

What is Crazy Ivan style?

Originally Posted by firewhatfire

What is Crazy Ivan style?

On a Scaled sardine (LY) the belly (keel) is the 'hardest' part of the body.
If you pass the hook through the body near the pectoral fins, it causes the fish to turn over and struggle any time you put tension on the line...


If you let the line tighten up and just shake the rod tip, the LY flashes from side to side erratically.
It very closely imitates the erratic movements of the dying LYs.
I started doing this about the time the Movie "The Hunt for Red October" was released...
Hence "Crazy Ivan" ;-)

https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...m=Crazy%20Ivan