Aquatic vegetation is commonly referred to as those ‘damn weeds!’ Because fish love weeds, we should know somethings about aquatic vegetation.
There can be detailed conversations about each fish species and weeds, but generally weeds provide protection for bugs,minnows,andpanfishthatattract predator fish like walleye, northerns, and bass. Sun angle and cloud cover factor into using weeds. Overhead intense sun and everyone swims for cover in the weeds where there is shade, lower water temp, and more oxygen. Fish will tend to migrate out of the weeds during low morning and evening sun angle or heavier cloud cover.
Different species of vegetation, type of bottom and contour, target fish, time of year, weather, and there is a whole cornucopia of techniques, rod and reel choices, and baits. This is why professionals have so much gear and need a 22-foot boat for all those choices.
Aquaticvegetationvariesdepending on the littoral zone size and location depicted in Figure 1. The littoral zone is characterized by abundant dissolved oxygen, sunlight, and nutrients with wave energies and water motion. The geological nature of shorelines and lake bottom characteristics affect the type and concentration of vegetation. Consequently, the littoral fauna taken as a whole involves a big number of species and the number of individuals may vary widely with locality.
According to the DNR: 1. Algae have no true roots, stems, or leaves and range in size from tiny, onecelled organisms to large, multi-celled plant-like organisms, such as chara or muskgrass.Planktonalgae,whichconsist of free-floating microscopic plants, grow throughout both the littoral zone and the well-lit surface waters of an entire lake. Stringy filamentous types, are common only in the littoral area.
2. Submerged plants have stems and leaves that grow entirely underwater, although some may also have floating leaves.Flowersandseedsonshortstems thatextendabovethewatermayalsobe present. Submerged plants grow from near shore to the deepest part of the littoral zone and display a wide range of plantshapes.Dependingonthespecies, they may form alow-growing “meadow” near the lake bottom with lots of open space between plant stems, or form dense stands or surface mats.
3. Floating-leaf plants are rooted in the lake bottom, but their leaves and flowers float on the water surface. Water lilies are a well-known example. Floating leaf plants typically grow in protected areas where there is little wave action.
4. Emergent plants are rooted in the lake bottom, but their leaves and stems extend out of the water. Cattails, bulrushes, and other emergent plants like wild rice typically grow along the shore, where the water is normally less than four or five feet deep.
Emergent plant category of aquatic vegetation gets some action for musky and northern pike in the spring and late fall and sometimes bass.
The magic of lily pads isn’t what you see above the water, it’s the roots below. The root system is the structure both baitfish and predator fish use for cover. Fish the gaps and edges to avoid snagging. Bass fishermen will punch the thickest batches or use a surface frog lure to entice bites because bass typically set up right in the middle of the heaviest cover.
Fish the edge of a massive pad field the same as you’d fish casting at the shoreline or any other grass line. The points,indentions,turnsoranyotherirregularities willbekeyspotstoambush prey.Depthisoftenthemostoverlooked irregularity in these massive pad fields. Little bottom de pressions within a pad field can be ext r eme l y produc tive where even a sixinch depth change can make a di f ference in the number of bites you get. Aquatic vegetation t hat we typical ly fish will b e sub merged plants. Jim Linder from Angling Edge says when investigating a new lake, they go straight to the weed patches first.
Themostcommonweedsarecoontail and leafy weeds and stringy one.
My personal preference is coontail because it is not so rooted to the bottom and requires less effort to pull off the bottom and allows using a lighter pound test line.
Leafy weeds hold fish but are more rooted to the bottom and require upsizing line pound test to 6# or 8#. I like 6# test for all around fishing for panfish in weeds.
I avoid fishing stingy common waterweeds shown as these get so thick, it is nearly impossible to find enough space to drop in your bait, but fishing the edges can be very productive for panfish and predator fish.
When fishing bass in heavy weed cover, you may need to go to 65# braid for punching through weeds with Tokyo rigs or weedless jigs for bass. One thing that braid does that other lines do not, is actually cut the weeds. This type fishing requires heavy or medium heavy seven-foot rods with a bait caster reel to lift fish out or drag them in with the weeds.
Different plant species develop at different times with growth shallow right away and it progresses deeper during the first months of the season until you’re fishing around different species ofaquaticvegetationatdifferentdepths. In a warm spring, plants grow quickly and chances are good walleyes are in and around some variety of “cabbage.” What anglers commonly refer to as cabbage ismostlyclaspingleaf pondweed.
One particular weedbed in a lake may continue producing big fish all your life at a certain point of the season. The attraction sometimes is a steep drop along one edge into deeper water, or it’s boulders along it, or it’s consistency of growth year-to-year. It could be fish spent a lot of their young lives there, because it’s close to spawning habitat. It is those little idiosyncrasies that make it attractive in ways we can’t see.
Walleyes come in-and-out of weeds a lot, reacting to a change in the surface chop or a change in the light around weeds and will use vegetation differently, based on conditions and weather.
Pro tip: When it gets cold at night early in the season, deeper water is warmer than shallow water and walleyes are in deeper weeds.
As the season progresses, walleyes might be less concerned about a few degreesoftemperaturechange,buttemperature remains critical all summer. They follow the vegetation to an edge, gradually shifting deeper as vegetation extends downward. Four-foot plants are unproductive by late June, when 8’ to 10-foot weed edges become prime. It’s a combination of two things, water temperature and maturity of plant growth.
Walleyes use plants at four to six feet at early weed development, then within a few weeks they move down to those at eight to 10 feet, and sandgrass down to about 20 feet later in the summer. I love to find sandgrass around deeper structure and mid humps because the big girls like to lay in this grass.
Get out and take a kid fishing!
VERMILLION ROOFING
