So if threadfin shad die when the water temperature drops below 42, how do they make a comeback and spawn every year?
Texas lakes are about to see some zero degree air temps. Will that kill all the threadfin? If so how do they spring back?
Are there eggs from last year dormant and waiting to hatch?
Hey Al,
When the water temperature hits 42, as it will shortly, threadfins will die. No eggs, no threadfins, no chance. For Vilbig, that's probably a once-in-ten-years occurrence. They'll need to budget to buy more this spring.
What about big lakes like Lake Whitney? How do they rebound?
Is there any chance that the shad could find the freshwater springs in Lake Vilbig and survive the cold?
The groundwater temperature around Dallas, Texas should be approximately 68F.
I have no knowledge of the spring flows into Lake Vilbig. However, if there are any significant flows, it will be difficult to get the entire lake below 42F, even with a few days of bitterly cold air.
Hopefully, some of your threadfins will survive!
In large lakes thermal refuges exist so the TFS can survive for short duration cold snaps.
A few yrs back, I could not find TFS because of the cold winter we had and my fish supplier did not have any. He did come up with some but it was the next year. I am betting it will be even harder to find them and am betting the price goes up when they are available.
Tilapia may be scarce, too. CNBG and Fla LMB could be tough to source. Brutal cold that lasted for days hard on these species.
Just heard from a supplier that the fish farm next to theirs tried to seine a pond for some Golden Shiners. All dead........
We have some threadfin shad kills in our local deep COE reservoir, Beaver Reservoir, but it seems enough always survive to repopulate. The stripers, HSB, and blue catfish get really fat when the TFS begin to die. It's been frozen over before, and the TFS always come back. There must be some thermal refuge somewhere in the 100 ft to 200 ft depths.
We have a 45 acre spring fed lake near Tyler, Tx. We stocked threadfin heavily the last two years. I generally see the lake surface temps stay around 48 or so most years. We hit -8 during this storm and 2/3 of the surface was ice. Lake surface temp hit 38-40. We experienced a significant threadfin die off, but certainly not 100%. Whether they will recover significantly or need restocking remains to be seen.