Holy Mother of Vegetation

[Glaucus]

Stopped by my favorite pond after work to discover that, in 2 days, it has become vegetation nation. Never been like this before. Weeds are popping right out of the water throughout. What to do? Weightless Senkos and Topwaters are now dead. Frogs and Texas Rigs?

[The Bassman]

I fish a lot of neighborhood lakes and the combination of increased sunlight and lawn fertilizer runoff makes for a real mess. I find that the problem ebbs and flows throughout the season.  Also, HOAs contract to have them treated.  I'm convinced that the practice is detrimental to the fish population especially if over applied. One of my favorite ponds took a bad hit last year.  The bass looked starved to death and are just now recovering.

[N Florida Mike]

Ours is treated often because it's so shallow and weeds/algae would completely take over if we didn't.

Frogs are good in thick vegetation, but not so much in algae.Theres not much else to do except fish any open pockets, or try punching.

[MassYak85]

Don't count out out the senkos just yet. Rig them on a 3/0 superline hook and some heavier braid. If the vegetation is so thick it's matted just slowly crawl it across, and then when it gets to a pocket let it drop in. 

[NittyGrittyBoy]

Weightless flukes would be my go to

[Dens228]

1 hour ago, MassYak85 said:

Don't count out out the senkos just yet. Rig them on a 3/0 superline hook and some heavier braid. If the vegetation is so thick it's matted just slowly crawl it across, and then when it gets to a pocket let it drop in. 

This..................

[Koz]

If it's a stormwater retention pond (has an inlet pipe and maybe an outlet) and the pond is located in a municipality with a population greater than 10,000 people you may have some recourse. Phase 2 of the Clean Water Act requires stormwater systems to be maintained. Excessive aquatic vegetation and excessive aquatic algae are definitely items that need to be addressed.

 

You can contact your local Watershed Management office and if the above guidelines are met you can ask them to check it out. Enforcement is different around the country, but where I live once a property owner receives a notice of violation they have 60 days to remedy the situation. Your local enforcement may vary.

[wisconsin heat]

 

 

 

 

When in doubt, punch it.

[TnRiver46]

4 hours ago, Glaucus said:

Stopped by my favorite pond after work to discover that, in 2 days, it has become vegetation nation. Never been like this before. Weeds are popping right out of the water throughout. What to do? Weightless Senkos and Topwaters are now dead. Frogs and Texas Rigs?

Weightless Senko is never dead. Just Texas Rig it, minus the bullet weight of course

[ClackerBuzz]

1 frog

 

2 put a bead on the line and a senko will slide thru those weeds like a hot knife thru butter.

 

3 if you begin reeling before splashdown you can get a buzzbait on plane before it has a chance to collect weeds.  they are deadly above weeds and even more so when nobody else is doing it.

[Deleted account]

T-rigged speed worm or something similar, toads, and of course frogs. As long as there are some openings I'll stick with the first two, once its a matted mess, it's amphib time!

[RHuff]

13 hours ago, Glaucus said:

Stopped by my favorite pond after work to discover that, in 2 days, it has become vegetation nation. Never been like this before. Weeds are popping right out of the water throughout. What to do? Weightless Senkos and Topwaters are now dead. Frogs and Texas Rigs?

 

 Vegetation is a good thing in most cases. When the sun is high in the sky the fish will hold inside of it. Flipping nation. 

[Glaucus]

56 minutes ago, RHuff said:

 

 Vegetation is a good thing in most cases. When the sun is high in the sky the fish will hold inside of it. Flipping nation. 

It's bad. It's pretty much a solid mat all throughout. Few holes as far as I could tell. Took away my style of fishing for the most part. 

[RHuff]

Go heavy to punch through it. Size 4 Flipping hook with a green pumpkin (clear water)  or black and blue (if the water is dark) craw. Go to like a 3/4 oz tungsten weight with the weight pegged. Flip into the mats and let the bait fall vertical. You will probably need heavier line (at least 30lb braid). You won't get as many bites but what you catch will be solid fish if not some of the biggest fish in the pond. 

 

If that doesn't work then look at throwing parallel on the walls of the vegetation. Spinnerbaits or swim jigs would be good here. Let the bass tell you what they want. 

[Brad in Texas]

I think I'd be inclined to try a non-finesse version of a Drop Shot, some calling it a Bubba Shot as I recall.

 

Use a large shot, whatever it takes to penetrate the mat, perhaps even an ounce or more. It'll punch the hole and the hook and plastic will be sucked right down behind it . . . sort of like a black hole in space.

 

If the fish are sitting on bottom, make the line down to the shot short; else, make it 12" or thereabouts. It'll take some experimentation.

 

The weight of the shot won't make any difference since the hook and bait are above it. 

 

Brad

 

[papajoe222]

Don't know what type of vegetation you are encountering, but if it's breaking the surface you have two options IMO.

Stay on top with a frog or weightless worm, or get down to the bottom with a punch rig or something that will get down without being bogged down getting there.  Anything in between is just going to frustrate you an likely not reward you with takers.

[kickerfish1]

Fire up the weedwacker and lawnmower. Chop Chop!

[lmbfisherman]

On 5/1/2018 at 8:02 PM, MassYak85 said:

Don't count out out the senkos just yet. Rig them on a 3/0 superline hook and some heavier braid. If the vegetation is so thick it's matted just slowly crawl it across, and then when it gets to a pocket let it drop in. 

This and I would do this the same with a Super Fluke. 

[Bankbeater]

I had the same problem last year on a pond I fish.  Fished flukes, senkos, toads, and frogs with no results.  I gave up fishing the pond until the fall when the vegetation started dying off.