Cottonwood seeds

[bulldog1935]

Alamo means cottonwood.  

Big carp circle under cottonwood trees during a seed fall.  

I've sure sight-fished some big carp, tying up fake cottonwood seed flies with a size 16 scud hook, waste white marabou, and brown thread.  

[PressuredFishing]

12 hours ago, HaydenS said:

If you're fishing braid, take a couple seconds and pull it off.  This works for me ?‍♂️

Ah I'm fishing mono, though I bet braid does help saw it off more

[soflabasser]

Interesting subject. There are no cottonwood seeds that I know of in South Florida but we do have water hyacinth that can make it harder to fish certain locations. Hollow belly frogs and other weedless presentations work well around water hyacinth, maybe it is worth trying out these lures in areas with lots of cottonwood seeds. You can always fish another location with more open water such as a river or drive far enough until you find a place with no cottonwood seeds.

[desmobob]

18 minutes ago, soflabasser said:

Interesting subject. There are no cottonwood seeds that I know of in South Florida but we do have water hyacinth that can make it harder to fish certain locations. Hollow belly frogs and other weedless presentations work well around water hyacinth, maybe it is worth trying out these lures in areas with lots of cottonwood seeds. You can always fish another location with more open water such as a river or drive far enough until you find a place with no cottonwood seeds.

 

The cottonwood seeds look pretty innocuous... like a bit of dandelion fluff.  But it's every bit as tough as cotton; maybe tougher.  It's more of a problem fouling your line and guides than it is on your lures.

 

It looks like you could just grab the little wad of it on your line and just pull it off or pop the line through it to get it off, but it just slides up and down the line -- especially on monofilament.

 

Consider yourself lucky that you don't have to deal with it.   There are worse things, I'm sure, but it is particularly frustrating. 

[Swest18x]

It's that time of year again. As a braid guy, I can confirm that switching to a full length (90' in my case) fluorocarbon leader, or just running straight fluorocarbon, is a big improvement. Doesn't eliminate the problem, but the cotton definitely sticks worse to the braid.

[FryDog62]

On 6/3/2021 at 9:59 AM, Randy Price said:

Here in N. IL. the cottonwood tree seeds are really starting to be a pain in the tail.  Are they an issue all over?  I fish braid so perhaps that is worse that mono but trying to clean it off your line stinks.

I picked this out of a reel after a charity tournament in Minnesota last June. I had to stop fishing with an hour to go. 3 reels with the lures that were working that day were all clogged like this one and I couldn’t cast any more..

[MN Fisher]

10 minutes ago, FryDog62 said:

I picked this out of a reel after a charity tournament in Minnesota last June.

Ya - it's been pretty bad this year too. I've had to stop a couple times each shore trip to pick that stuff off the mainline-leader connection knot on any rig I use.

 

At least the filamentous algae the lures pick up comes off pretty easy...this stuff is a severe pain in the rumpus.

[Bigbox99]

I have two cottonwood trees on my property.  One day the top 1/3 of one of the trees broke off in some wind.  I went to drag it up to the house to cut up with the truck but it wouldn't start so I took the old subaru.  Drug it up and cut it into logs and hauled it off to the burn pit.  There was a bunch of these green balls that where on the tree that had come off and were rolling around in the back of the car on this mat that fits into the cargo area.  These were the pods that burst open into cotton and disconnected from the tree they weren't going to get a signal to open so I was cool to leave them and vacuum them out later.   

One day, some time later, I was driving the car again and it had gotten warm enough to roll the windows down and get some fresh air.  I glanced at the rear view mirror and saw a white swarm rise up from behind the back seat and for a moment I heard rise of the valkyries play in my head then all hell broke loose as the cotton wood swarm was drawn out the windows beating me in the face and getting under my sunglasses forcing me to rip them off.  As quickly as it had begone it was over.  True story.  I hate cotton wood trees.