My local pond has been weed choked even worse than usual this summer. That is until this weekend. The weeds are gone. It's like they went out of town for the holiday weekend. I'm not talking a rapid dissapearance but instantanious! I've been fishing for a few years now and this is the first time I have seen the weeds dissappear that quickly. Anyone got an answer? Tom

man tom, anything that i could think of that would cause that. i know you would have notice that.....

was they poisened out?
is there weeds floating on the surface or along the shore? like the pond already turned over.


the only thing that i can think of is with the colder nites coming on that the weeds are drawing themselves back into the water deeper were they feel warmer.....lol

I know on a popular city lake, they run some weed collecting boats a few times out of the year. They usually try to do it just before holiday weekends.

Good thoughts all, but this happened between 5 PM on Friday and 1PM on Sunday. I doubt that it was human interference, the park district that manages the pond spends all their money on soccer fields and it is unlikely that anyone paid OT on a holiday weekend! There are no weeds piled up along the shore, they just disssapeared! I think they sank to the bottom but I'm not about to drag it to find out! I should mention that the weeds were both floating and submergent. Tom

Our small lake here in Mi. is also doing this. I believe they are dying off for the winter early since they started growing early this year. If your state is like ours everything is about 3 weeks ahead of normal. Also the last couple of weeks we have had cool down and the lake temps have dropped drastically. Even the fish that were in the deeperwater in our lake have moved back into the weeds in shallower water. These fish don't usually move back to the shallows for another month here.

I would guess you can lay it on not enough sun altitude. As the weeds grow thicker at the surface they begin shading out lower leaves and their lateral branches, so the total biomass is not what most folks assume is down there. Instead of leaves all the way down to the root collar there is more stem throughout the late season. Then comes the moment when the sun is just a shade too low to sustain the top growth, so it too can die suddenly, sink, and decompose into slime. Maybe you've noticed how weeds falling off a trailer at a launch ramp tend to shrivel up to nothing practically overnight, a green plant becoming a slime slick. Most are not persistent plants, but rot easily in warm water, the pH changing quickly. I've seen masses of hydrilla, coontail and other aquatic plants suddenly die off on the south side of lakes in early fall, though several weeks behind lakes farther north. Our tree leaves are still green, no signs of fall yet, and we still have plenty of floating mats.

Jim

I doubt I'll ever find out exactly what happened, but it is strange that this occured in less than 48 hrs. Turnover is not an issue, the pond is about 8 feet at its deepest and temps are pretty constant as far as I can tell. I did notice that the crappie have moved back towards shore a bit earlier than normal. We did have a strong cold front come through just before this happened. Tom

i'm leaning more on what ouachitabassangler said and jwandzel, with the strong cold front coming through and i have notice maples and ash trees leaves are starting to change. of coarse these are the 1st to start their changing.