Fishing with Algae

I visited our town pond this afternoon to find it unfishable casting jigs .
The algae wasn’t as bad two days ago when I fished the late morning. 10- noonish .
I need advice from those who deal with algae . I’m not in a position to swap fishing locations at the moment.
I’ve read the algae blooms are worst in the late day and evening because the sun causes it bloom . Looks like bright green slime .
Definitely going to try mornings.
Should I go to fishing a dropshot ?
Float and jig ?
Anybody have any lure selection suggestions?
I may have to switch to chasing bass for awhile if I can’t figure something out for the gills .
I also read the blue/green algae can be toxic.

Algae floating on the surface?

I do know certain algae is toxic to dogs. I do not know about humans

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Originally Posted by DockShootinJack

Algae floating on the surface?

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Plate size patches floating on surface .
I tried to cast in between the patches but could feel when my jig would go through a patch under the surface . It was all over the pond .

Googling some more , it seems this is called string algae.
Says it can be beneficial to some animals.

A float and jig may be a good option

Back when I would still fish with live bait in situations like this I would drop shot a night crawler. I hate that stuff now that I’m jig fisherman. It’ll shut you down in a micro second.

Regards


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Originally Posted by Alphahawk

Back when I would still fish with live bait in situations like this I would drop shot a night crawler. I hate that stuff now that I’m jig fisherman. It’ll shut you down in a micro second.

Regards



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Haven’t used live bait in forty years . LOL !
What do you think of a trout magnet under a float?
I read the algae sinks at night and floats to the top as the sun gets on the water .
I need to get an earlier start and give it try .

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Originally Posted by gillchaser999

Haven’t used live bait in forty years . LOL !
What do you think of a trout magnet under a float?
I read the algae sinks at night and floats to the top as the sun gets on the water .
I need to get an earlier start and give it try .

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Maybe. I had to deal with a small bit of algae today…which is really showing up kind of early for around here.

Regards


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I usually just change lakes when I run across it .
I’m going try to deal with it for now .

float and a jig all the way sir .....:highfive

Cloudy or early morning switch to a little popping bug, Gills and bass love to feed up on terrestrial insects.

Good news !
I got to the pond around nine this morning and except for the matted algae around the bank the floaters were gone. With my polarized glasses I could still see clumps on the bottom.
You can see the algae near the bank in a couple of my pictures.
I never would have believed the time of day made that much of a difference.
I tried the float n jig with a 1/80 jig head and a Bobby Garland itty bitty swimmer without much luck so I took the float off and switched to a bison trout magnet.
With my little 5’ Rosewood UL , paired with a Shimano Sahara 500fe and two pound P-line I could cast about 50-60 feet . Love this little combo .
It wasn’t long and I hooked up my first shellcracker.
I only had forty minutes to fish , but was able to catch three shellcrackers and a nice gill .
I guess I’m going to have to get to the pond before the sun starts cooking the algae .
It was in the low fifties at daylight but warmed to the low sixties by the time I got to the pond .
I learned something this week .
Hopefully, I can continue to fish the pond , in the mornings, for the next couple of weeks at least .

Glad to see that worked out good for you. Those are some nice ones.

Awesomeness!

Snot grass! I hate it, too.

The old Bison TM…..many a fish been fooled by that little 1.75in piece of plastic….just ask Randy (Trout Magnet Man aka Alphahawk) how many he has caught on it


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Made a trip to the pond this morning.
Got there right at 10 and left at noon .
The , now normal, snot algae was there of course , but today the maintenance guys decided to cut the grass around the park . The banks were cut with a weed eater and all of the cutting were in the lake making it a challenge to find a hole to drop my trout magnet into .
My first fish was a tiny LM bass about four inches long.
Then I hooked what I think was a shellcracker , judging from the way it pulled drag and made several runs . Then it wrapped around something about ten foot out under the surface . I tried feeding loose line hoping it would free itself but it broke off .
Ended up catching nine, that I brought to hand . I had five or six get off right as I was trying to slid them onto the bank .
These are my two best of the morning.
Today I used my five foot Rosewood Ultralight paired with a Shimano Nasci 500 FC , spooled with my favorite line , 2# P-line .

Can't beat that for 2 hours from the bank. That 1st one is really nice!

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Originally Posted by moonrunner

Can't beat that for 2 hours from the bank. That 1st one is really nice!

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Thanks ,
I think the one that wrapped me and broke off was at least , if no bigger than that one .
Fought like it anyways.
And yes , I’d be happy with that every trip .

Got to visit the town pond again this morning. Got there a little after 9:30 and left at noon .
Water looked a lot better this morning, but two of the nine fish I caught today had sores on them .
I took my 5’ Rosewood Ultralight rod paired with a Shimano Nasci 500fc and of course 2# P-line .
Weather was almost perfect , upper 60’s to low 70’s by the time I left. With just an occasional breeze that would make me time my casts using 1/64 jigheads and mostly Trout magnets . Sow Bug was the most popular color this morning. I started out using 1/32 jighead but was having trouble keeping the bottom slime off my TM .
Most were small , one 8 incher in the group.
Here’s three of them , including my last catch that came on a Bobby Garland Itty Bitty slab Hunter .

Nice catches!

Nice fish, gill. Thanks for the share!
Bob

Got to the pond a little after 10 this morning. Rough morning, didn’t sleep well last night .
Temp was 68 degrees on the RAV4’s dashboard.
Overcast skies and light winds . Should be a formula for success.
I had to run the geese off the bank where I’d been fishing lately .
Armed with my 5’ Rosewood/Nasci 500 combo but spooled with 4# Original P-line because I ve had one wrap me underwater and break off this week, and two that broke off after I got them in . One was a small 5-6” gill . I’ve been lucky with having to drag my fish up a grassy bank .
I started with a BG Itty Bitty slab Hunter , caught a small gill after several casts .
Switched to a bison TM and and the bites picked up including a couple of chunky shellcrackers.
When the bite slacked off I switched to a sow bug TM and picked up a few more including a nice LM around a couple of pounds that was a blast on the little five foot UL .
One end of “ my side “ of the pond was plagued by floating patches of green snot . I guess it depends on which way the wind blows .
I never know what the Town pond is going to give up . That what keeps me going back.

Nice mix and some good size with those ones today.

Nice! Algae or not, gill, you have that spot dialed in.
Bob

I put todays trip report under this thread because the algae came into play .
With the wind this morning and the direction it was blowing, it blew the floating mats over to the side I prefer fishing at this time , making fishing difficult.
I was picking snot off my lure almost every cast .
I would attempt to cast in between the mats .
Today I started off with a spider fly on a drop shot , which yielded one small bluegill fairly quickly , but nothing after that .
I switched over to a Bobby Garland Itty Bitty swimmer on the drop shot and caught two small shellcrackers and a small LM bass .
I was trying out SOS 2# again today on my Shimano Stradic 1000 , so I switched to a 1/64 jighead and a Sow bug Trout Magnet and on my first cast caught a nice size bluegill , but it was extra slimy. Looked sick , but put up a good fight on the 5’ Rosewood .
The wind keep picking up speed , so I had to switch over to a 1/32 jighead just to get any distance .
Caught two more bluegills before it was time to head home .
Here’s the two best bluegills including the extra slimy one and the best shellcracker of the day.

Good report, too bad about those conditions, and those are some nice size fish.

" I was picking snot off my lure almost every cast ."

That is what my wife and I have found, very frustrating when out for your day of fishing every week or two.

I got to the pond this morning and the wind was in my favor , but within thirty minutes it shifted and the algae mats and pond slime shifted too .
I took my 5’ St Croix Premier UL moderate today , paired with a Daiwa Exceler 1000 , spooled up with SOS 2# .
I started fishing with a chartreuse/black Trout Magnet on a 1/32 chartreuse jighead.
I was thinking of changing lures when I got my first hit , that turned out to be a nice bluegill . One of the biggest I’ve caught lately .
It was several casts later before I caught a beautifully colored shellcracker.
After that it was dead and I started trying different lures . Finally went to a 1/64 jighead with a bison TM and picked up another gill , smaller but nicely colored up .
A couple of small green fish helped with the catch today.
By the time I left , the pond slime and algae was up and down the entire side I was on , 40-50 feet out . My lure was coming back with algae and my line had changed colors from the slime film on the surface .

Good job, that algae is a real PIA.

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Originally Posted by funfishers

Good job, that algae is a real PIA.

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Yes it is !

I spent a lot of time cleaning snot grass off my jig yesterday. Miss the bed shallow - hung on a tree or covered with snotgrass. Miss the bed deep - into the coontail and other weeds. Ugh. Summer is coming fast.

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Originally Posted by jawjatek

I spent a lot of time cleaning snot grass off my jig yesterday. Miss the bed shallow - hung on a tree or covered with snotgrass. Miss the bed deep - into the coontail and other weeds. Ugh. Summer is coming fast.

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Just something we have to deal with in some ponds and lakes .
I believe at this pond , it’s all of the goose poop , I’m constantly having to watch where I step . With that and all of the runoff from roadways this pond gets , it just too fertilized .
I don’t like it , but I can’t change my fishing hole at this time .
Won’t be much longer , and I’ll hopefully be getting the boat out for its first trip of the year .
I hope this wind dies down a little too . It’s been a windy spring .

The fishing has gotten tougher lately at the pond .
I hooked about ten fish today , six of them were small green fish of which four released themselves showing off their jumping ability :) . That’s ok , I got the fun part out of them .
Four gills , three small ones and one that put a nice bend in my 5’ St Croix Triumph ULM , paired up with a Daiwa Legalis 2000s and 2# SOS .
The mornings are getting warmer it seems and if the algae isn’t in my way when I get there , the wind usually shifts about 11:15 and blows it over my way .
These are fun trips .
I’ll have to find a different spot tomorrow, if I get to go , it’ll be the afternoon or evening and the pond is just about unfishable late in the day .
Just a pic of the one nice one today .

Nice one, sure you will enjoy getting your boat out soon.