Has Your Home Lake Ever Changed This Much This Fast?

[OCdockskipper]

At the end of August, the HOA did a weed abatement program on my home lake via some kind of chemical dump.  The fishing slowed for a week & then went back to normal until the beginning of October.  However, since the start of October, fishing has really slowed & my catch rates have been off well over 50% (compared to previous years).  It has me scratching my head as to what is occurring, so I thought I would lay out the details and see if anything like this has ever happened on your home body of water.

As a background, my lake is a small 100 acre development reservoir completely surrounded by homes.  It is bowl shaped with a retaining wall completely around the lake, with depths ranging from 2 feet to 12 feet out in the middle.  The coves are shallower (7 to 9 feet max) and with the vegetation now gone, the predominant cover is the hundreds of boat docks.  Prior to the weed killing, there were weedlines in 3 to 7 feet of water both in the main lake & in the coves.  These weedlines are now gone, as are also the few lily pads near a couple of peoples docks and a few Christmas trees I had sunk over the years (I don't know if the chemical disintegrated them or if they have just rotted away on their own).  There are multiple "bubblers" throughout the lake, helping keep the water oxygenated and moving.  Boat traffic is limited to electric boats, paddleboats & kayaks.  Water temps get as high as 85 degrees in the summer and as low as 54 in the winter.  The lake is inhabited by bass, bluegill, green sunfish, channel catfish, carp & some various minnows.

What is puzzling to me is comparing what has changed as to what has stayed the same.  As before the treatment, there are still thousands of bream fry & small minnows living tight up against seawall (in the undercuts & broken portions).  The bass I have been catching are still healthy, not only in appearance but in fight. There has been no change in fishing pressure (I am it for all intents & purposes) and the other wildlife around the lake seem to be acting the same.  The coots are still eating moss from the bottom of the lake & the Canada geese are still using the lake as a stop over during their migration south.

In addition to the eradication of the vegetation, the only other difference from the past few years has been a pair of cormorants that have taken up residence here (despite my efforts to chase them off).  They have been here for about 9 months and look big enough to eat a 10" bass.  I don't know if the lack of weedbeds helps the cormorants catch fish and I am not sure how many fish these two are eating.  The presence of the cormorants may have changed the basses behavior and where they choose to live, but I can't be sure since the weed kill was done not long after the birds arrival.

In past years before the weedlines grew, the basic behavior of the bass was to cruise the shorelines during low light times and take cover under docks or in deeper water (often near the bubblers) during brighter times.  This altered a little when the weedlines grew, as many of the fish would cruise the weedlines instead of the shore & would hole up in the weeds during the middle of non-cloudy days.  Now I don't have much of a clue what they are doing.  There are almost no fish under any docks at any time.  The deeper areas have no fish that I catch or see on my depthfinder.  This is all opposite of my experiences during the same time of year over the past decade.  Further, this goes for the larger catfish & bluegill that used to occasionally intercept my offerings as well, I have found next to none of them.

My only theory is that this major change in habitat in such a short time may be causing the forage & predators to suspend out over the deeper areas of the lake like a more pelagic kind of fish.  The bass are obviously eating, because those caught are healthy & there has been no evidence of a fish kill.  I haven't seen any suspending activity, but since the lake is so shallow, I don't think I could meter over them if they were suspending without spooking them.  I am kind of hoping that when the prespawn starts in about 6 weeks, it resets the lake and the fish get back into being able to be patterned.

So back to my question - Has anyone else ever experienced a body of water changing this fast and if so, what did you figure out was going on?

[N Florida Mike]

I can relate to what you're going through,but Probably can't help much . I have mysteries  on my lake as well, that I can't figure out either.

Everthing was great at my lake until we had a fish kill in 2011.ALL the mature bass and bream died.The weeds were killed too quickly,and the result was the above,due to drastic oxygen loss.There were more dead fish at the other end of the lake,so I didn't realize how bad it was for awhile.

So the bass population has recovered well, although there are a higher number of skinny fish now.The bream population has not recovered as well.I think it's because bream are the main bass forage and they are keeping the population down.We now have a new co. spraying since Sept.The weeds have been greatly reduced again .( the right way with no fish kills )The fishing is different though.I m also catching less bass overall this year and NO big fish since spring which is puzzling.Im also catching only 1 kind of catfish and there are 3 kinds in the lake.

As for your lake,Im sure the cormorants aren't  the problem.I think it's probably that the fish have changed due to the weeds going away.If the lake is being sprayed regularly,the fish will sometimes not feed well for a few days after the spraying,depending on what was applied.The only other reason I can think of is a fish kill .

We did have an otter come in Dec. for a few years and he kept the catfish cleaned out but I saw no change in the bass fishing.

Im looking into getting the game and fish people in to do an Electro shock so we could determine fish populations and then develop a plan for possible restocking.

Maybe they could do that in your lake if they do that in your state.

 

 

 

 

["hamma"]

I have experienced a few lakes that "changed",..a couple were chemically treated and another drained (about 75%), then dredged to remove silt, then re-filled. And this happened years ago. The result? in each case the fish responded just as they needed to survive. The chemically treated ponds the fishing died off for a couple years with skinny, or unhealthy looking fish being caught during the "recovery" process. Then two years after, each rebounded back to better than during the treatent process fishing, but nothing like the quality fishing before the treatments. One of the ponds was a pig catching possiblity pond, but no more. 

The dredged lake? again took a few years to get back to "decent" fishing, but again nothing as it once was.

 I  "believe" that when mother nature produces a place that has good or excellent fish. Mankinds influence and interactions,will generally mess it up as we dont have the experience or "know how" that she does. Things just need to be just right for exceptional fish to be present, for its not likely that you go fish "any" place and the fishing is the same, they all have their own personality, and once altered by man, will all need time to recover,.... however they do.

[J Francho]

We have "weed eater" machines up here.  What kills me is when they run the thing in places where there no safe boating lanes or docks.

[Gundog]

OC if I were you I would use this time to try finesse techniques. Especially drop shot and ned rigs to see if you can locate bass. I believe you are right about fish scattering when you get over top of them in deeper water. That is probably where the fish are residing. Maybe making long casts with suspending jerkbaits. I have faced a similar problem with a lake that was drained and left low for dam repair. Also I would look for individual fish in sparse grass spots.

[OCdockskipper]

3 hours ago, Gundog said:

OC if I were you I would use this time to try finesse techniques. Especially drop shot and ned rigs...

I already use various Ned rigs (TRD, Shroomz finesse jig, hula stickz, TRD tubez) every trip, they typically produce the most, & often the biggest, fish.  Finesse is my go to method because while this lake doesn't have much fishing pressure, it does have alot of human presence.  In addition, the forage is mostly small and the water clarity is pretty clear (5 feet).  Typical Southern California lake except for the lack of depth, so finesse tactics tend to win out.

It is interesting you mentioned jerkbaits.  In previous years with very little weed growth, jerkbaits produced consistently in the late fall & winter.  Last Fall, with the weedbeds becoming the predominant form of cover and the water temperatures dropping, jerkbaits became THE ticket.  Working them over the tops of the weedbeds produced multiple 50 fish days, they outproduced everything else including Ned.  This year, it is amazing how few fish I have caught on them.  The spots where the weedlines were now are completely barren, not even sparse grass, so the fish aren't hanging out or even passing by.

Like most bass fisherman, I am so conditioned to looking for fish based on structure & cover.  It may be worth spending a day having the mindset that I am chasing stripers out in open water with no relation to either.  What just really baffles me is what has stopped more fish from using the docks as cover, like they did in prior years before the emergence of the weedbeds.  Then again, for many of the fish that are 2 or 3 years old, their entire life consisted of hanging around weedbeds, they never were "dock fish" to begin with.  Maybe it will take a generation or two of bass living in an environment where they have never seen weedbeds and spent their entire youth around the docks for those areas to once again become the predominant places they congregate.

[J Francho]

1 minute ago, OCdockskipper said:

Finesse is my go to method because while this lake doesn't have much fishing pressure, it does have alot of human presence.

That's a great observation.  I feel like there's a correlation as well.

[soflabasser]

My favorite lake hasn't changed the way you described, but it has changed compared to a decade ago.  Lots of people keep bass in this lake,so the average size I use to catch has dropped.Still catch decent ones every once in a while and there's tons of sub 5 pounders. 

[blckshirt98]

Is your home lake, Lake Mission Viejo?  I've been there once (for trout) and shore access was pretty limited.  My guess would be if all the cover near shore was killed off, then the bass did move offshore to the deeper water and are only coming shallow to actively feed.  With the shoreline cover killed off they won't just leisurely hang out in the open in the shallows.

I saw a similar affect when they drained Coyote Reservoir up here in NorCal for drinking water when they had to shut down the feed from San Luis Reservoir.  One week Coyote was at it's regular water levels and I was crushing it every week by casting along the grasslines and tules.  When they started to drain the reservoir the water levels dropped by about 15 feet and all off the cover and structure I fished was 50 feet above the waterline.  The shallows were nothing but bare dirt and smooth clay, not a fish or bite to be seen anywhere.

[Ktho]

Fortunately I don't think the cormorants have any effect really. Haven't fished at your lakes but Laguna Niguel and MV both have them all the time, 15 probably roost at Laguna Niguel and it doesn't hurt the fishing. They are there long before the trout go in too.

 

I think it's just taking some time adjusting to the lack of weeds. While present it gives something to relate to but without it sounds like it turns your lakes into mostly featureless bottom with the docks. I'd think it'd make the bass sort of spread out more. It happened at LN, they chemicalled the water, the fishing got slower then back to normal. But then the chemicals took effect and it totally got rid of all the moss/algae/grass slop that was growing in the tapered shallows. Without that vegetation it went back to being just featureless boringness and the fish spread back out and related to what little contours there are or just hungout in the nothingness.

It was warmer then but worked for me was covering water with a lipless crank. The crank just helped me find fish and I started catching fish in a couple specific areas. Once I found what area they liked to bite in I could then focus more of my time on the specific areas. 

[trick worms]

My lake is lowered every winter 

[Looking for the big one]

The spill well of the pond I fish the most is broken, and this has caused the water level to be down by about 2-3 feet for the past 6 months. This wouldn't be so bad on a lake, but in a pond where all of the cover is found against the bank (laydowns) it creates a much different atmosphere for the fish.