Several news reports on the return of toxic algae to Geist Res.:
Once at the sites, you can click on additional stories within the article to view video and pictures from the reservoir and related to the reports.
Seems like fishermen are always looking for a good guide to weed identification. I want to pass along a nice and simple website that you can bookmark for future reference. Lake, Lawn and Pond is a website hosted by the SePRO Corp., distributors of Sonar (fluoridone) and several other commonly used aquatic herbicides. The link above will take you to their weed ID page. Simply click on the class of weed you want to ID (emergent, submergent, algae, etc.) and you'll be taken to a page with all the common varieties of aquatic vegetation in easy to decipher pictures. Feel free to also browse other sections of the website while there for some great information.
One thing I do want to specifically mention though. One of the biggest "mistakes" I see anglers make all the time is believing their lake is turning over every spring when they find all kinds of floating chunks of stuff on the waters surface. This typically occurs with water temps in the upper 50's to low 60's, but can vary from lake to lake. What you are seeing is not the result of a spring turnover, but a unique characteristic of a type of algae. Check out the pictures and description of Pithophora algae. This is what you are seeing, and it has nothing to do with your lake turning over.
We're pretty fortunate here in central Indiana to have several bodies of water that are blessed with an abundance of Justicia americana, also known as water willow. If you only talk fishing lingo, you may have frequently heard it referred to as 'Geist weed' or 'rock weed'. We've spoken of it before a couple years back in THIS POST, but a soon to be published paper from some of those same authors came across my desk today and I thought it would be a good topic to revisit.
The research is titled "Effects of American Water Willow Establishment on Density, Growth, Diet, and Condition of Age-0 Largemouth Bass in Kansas Reservoirs", again by Strakosh, et. al. If you read his doctoral dissertation the first time around, you'll have way more details than the linked abstract will provide. If not, read the abstract and see if it sounds interesting, then revisit the links in the original post to get lots of good details, including a lot of practical applications to bass fishing if you 'read between the lines' like I do. After doing so, there should be no surprise as to why 'the factory' (Geist Res.) is such a good fishery.
At present on the lakes you'll only find a bunch of dead and brown weed stems left over from the winter. But within another month or so you'll start noticing some new root nodules forming, along with a greening of shoot tips. Then it's off to the races as the plant grows pretty fast and furious as things heat up. By that time though you should have already popped some nice sacks of bass out of this veggie.
The Aquatic Plant Management Society (APMS) produces their own scientific journal entitled "Journal of Aquatic Plant Management". It has the most up-to-date research available on all aspects of aquatic plants, most of which is documented on their website. While you can keep in tune with studies being released and published in their journal via contents listing on their site, unless you are a member you can't access the full articles except on time delay. There is an approx. 3 year delay between publishing date and full public access. They just released their 2006 archive and there are two papers which should be of interest to anglers.
A Review of Grass Carp Use for Aquatic Weed Control and its Impact on Water Bodies is a thorough review of most all studies to date involving the effects of grass carp on various water bodies, as well as the biology of the fish itself.
Management of Hydrilla in the Santee Cooper Reservoirs, South Carolina: Experiences from 1982 to 2004 looks at the history of hydrilla treatments of lakes Marion and Moultrie, and the positive and negative effects on the various user groups and entities associated with the reservoirs. No surprise that the bass anglers in general were very dissatisfied with the elimination of the hydrilla, though there were some benefits documented from both a shore anglers perspective as well as an interesting habitat modification (anoxic dead zones). Also interesting is that waterfowlers were unhappy with the resulting elimination of hydrilla.
From the report:
Hydrilla beds may have improved habitat for certain species such as largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides). The benefit of hydrilla to largemouth bass and the role of aquatic vegetation in largemouth bass production is somewhat conflicting (see articles in this journal by Maceina (1996) and Hoyer and Canfield (1996). However, fisheries managers generally agree—aside from impoundments managed for balance (Swingle 1950)—that an intermediate level of aquatic vegetation is optimal for largemouth bass (Durocher et al.1984, Maceina and Reeves 1996).
In summary, hydrilla had both positive and negative impacts upon angling. Despite large areas of anoxic water during summer months and difficulty in boating access, all categories of anglers agreed that hydrilla had been beneficial to fishing effort (Henderson et al. 2003).
I have one last set of links to access more info from Hal Schramm. He wrote a series of columns this year for Mississippi Sportsman online magazine. There was a total of one each month. Some apply directly to MS waters, while others take on generalized subjects applicable everywhere such as cold fronts, fishing license fees, exotic invasives and trophy catfish management. You can find all articles at the following link:
Two new largemouth bass studies are about to be published in the N.A. Journal of Fisheries Management. One concerning stocking of fingerlings into existing fisheries (only highest level of stocking density showed significant contributions to relative abundance) and the other showing no negative effects of spraying endothall to nesting and fidelity.
The grass is starting to grow on many lakes, at least the ones that aren't flooded by crazy amounts of water right now. Understanding which type of aquatic vegetation you have can help lead you to better bass fishing. Here are the links to a simple picture guide from the Midwest Aquatic Plant Management Society that covers the most commonly found "weeds" in our waters.
Sometimes fish just don't react the way you expect them to, probably because they don't read the same articles that we do. Got out a few hours early today due to a late afternoon meeting. Once that was over, and it apeared that the rain would stay away, I grabbed the boat and headed out to the lake for 3 hours. According to the weather stats we had a slowly rising barometer, north/northeast winds at 7-10 mph, and a temperature in the mid-50's. Mostly cloudy skies with occasional light sprinles. Sounds like the middle of a cold front. The bite should be tough, right?
I ended up catching 47 bass...Possibly the best numbers outing of the year to date. Most all were caught on crankbaits and buzzbaits. Not as many bites on the buzzer but slightly better quality. Nothing really huge either. Best fish probably went close to 3 pounds with most in the 1.5 - 2.25 pound range. So I'm not going to complain about the fish not following "protocol" given the conditions, but it just goes to show you that you can't necessarily predict a bite based on the weather.
Another interesting thing was that this lake was treated for weeds back on Tuesday (3 days ago) using Aquathol. The lake has turned darker though not a lot less clear if that makes sense. Some weed pieces floating around as vegetation starts dieing. Aquathol dissipates fairly quickly, but it still has a half life of 4-7 days according to the literature. Several people were concerned about the treatment effect on fish and fishing. Apparently the fish could care less as the study I posted the other day suggested. I also spoke with several individuals catching nice redear today, so the panfish weren't hurting either.
The local lake just received an application of Aquathol K. One of the questions that arose was whether the timing of the treatment relative to the spawning season was going to be a problem. New research out suggests no negative effects on largemouth bass spawning:
Impacts of Aquathol K Applications on Largemouth Bass Spawning Behavior and Production of Young Fish
Mike Maceina, Department of Fisheries, Auburn University, Alabama
The first year of a two year project that examined the effects of direct spraying of Aquathol K on nesting largemouth bass in small ponds was completed. Aquathol K was applied at the approved rate of 3 ppm in three 0.1 hectare ponds in March 2005 as largemouth bass initiated spawning. Water was applied in a similar fashion to three other 0.1 hectare ponds. Aquathol K did not impact largemouth bass nesting activity; spawning behavior and activity was similar to ponds treated with water. Production and growth of young largemouth bass measured after spawning ended was similar between ponds treated with Aquathol K and control ponds.
This lake is scheduled to receive a Sonar treatment a little later in the year. Several studies on both of these compounds and their effects on largemouth bass were previously covered in the following post: More Veggie Research
It has been a while since we last talked vegetation. This is always a hot topic of discussion in bassin circles, especially down in the SE portion of the country. However, even in Indiana we get some heated discussions and finger pointing going on from time to time whenever there are weed treatments being done on a particular lake. So I have a trio of papers (in full) for everyone to browse.
