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Posts: 355
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | We used to have some very reliable large cabbage patches that seem to have been decimated by rusties just these past few years. Was hoping it was just a high water thing last year, but same pattern again - there is cabbage in some places with fewer rocks, and we confirmed presence of the rusties...
Pondweed seems to be now the more dominant weed in these areas (although pretty thin and from a fish holding perspective, doesn't seem to be great cover. Doesn't initially seem worth fishing and wouldn't normally waste time on it compared to any cabbage patch.
Rock patterns mixed with pondweed weeds have proven to be fruitful, as is straight rocks. This is not surprising, but does make one wonder whether the pondweed could hold fish on it's own.
Question is this, have you found down there that there is any value in fishing these pond-weedy (but pretty much cabbage free) areas that were once cabbage beds? With cabbage beds obviously fish could be anywhere in the cabbage, and a great anytime place to fish, especially with high pressure on primary spots. Not sure worth the effort now in comparison to other patterns given the redistribution of muskies on other habitat that may have formerly used cabbage at times.
Takes from down your way with the rusty invasion?
Edited by Angling Oracle 7/13/2023 11:24 AM
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Posts: 20221
Location: oswego, il | There are lakes in Indiana that are full of pondweed, thick too and they have to spray it. The pond seed does die early it rarely lasts the entire summer. Fish do use it. I am assuming you are talking about curly leaf pondweed? |
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Posts: 1417
Location: Brighton CO. | I've told stories as a teenager getting in my row boat pushing off the pier making a couple strokes of the oar standing up and firing a cast out to the weeds on the inside of the weedbed on the edge of my swimming area and catching a Muskie.(this was in front of my grandparents home) Then 30 years later motoring up to the same weedbed (from a resort) and ? ? ? no weeds all gone and other weedbeds on the same lake gone too. So then we would catch Muskies on little bands of weeds close to shore and in the old times we never bothered with such spots. |
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Posts: 183
| I've got some old books on the lakes I fish from the 80s/90s and they mention big cabbage beds that have never existed since I started fishing in 2010s. It's a nice surprise when I'm able to actually find some good cabbage or weeds that isn't milfoil or some other junk. |
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Posts: 355
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | ToddM - 7/13/2023 11:52 AM
There are lakes in Indiana that are full of pondweed, thick too and they have to spray it. The pond seed does die early it rarely lasts the entire summer. Fish do use it. I am assuming you are talking about curly leaf pondweed?
Not curly leaf as I think that a lot thicker stuff and an invasive
Not entirely sure - I thought was Richardson's Pondweed and looks very similar (it may it) but that only seems to grow to 3 feet in literature, whereas this stuff is in the same places as cabbage (up to 7 feet and more), has the same sort of bud that shows on the surface (and gives you initial hope for cabbage). Long stem with intermittent leaves that are about 4 inches long, maybe inch and half wide - in other word no comparison to cabbage but do hold fish like pike and we pulled muskies out of it (but with boulders interspersed). Seems to be the replacement for cabbage and I would suspect rusties have some trouble with it for whatever reason. Was always around but was never worth the time to fish before - and I suspect probably isn't now, hence sort of looking for other takes where there's been this issue. Do need to add that I'm fishing exclusively shield water where rocks are the bulk of the habitat - cabbage was always worth it and was always relatively scarce, now really scarce and this year so far no big flats of it.
Edited by Angling Oracle 7/13/2023 12:55 PM
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Posts: 1247
Location: Walker, MN | In my experience here on Leech Lake, the fish became more nomadic when the good cabbage went away. Fish still use rocks and sand, but fishing pressure doubled in these areas due to fewer good weed spots. As some of the weeds came back, so did some of the fish, but the pressure on these small patches outweighed the return of the cabbage (still not enough good weeds). The best Milfoil, pondweed etc has a fish from time to time, but doesn't hold them there like cabbage. Finding fish in open water, and spending time side imaging sand flats and sparse weeds has been the norm here since most of the cabbage has gone away. |
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Posts: 355
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Masqui-ninja - 7/14/2023 5:36 PM
In my experience here on Leech Lake, the fish became more nomadic when the good cabbage went away. Fish still use rocks and sand, but fishing pressure doubled in these areas due to fewer good weed spots. As some of the weeds came back, so did some of the fish, but the pressure on these small patches outweighed the return of the cabbage (still not enough good weeds). The best Milfoil, pondweed etc has a fish from time to time, but doesn't hold them there like cabbage. Finding fish in open water, and spending time side imaging sand flats and sparse weeds has been the norm here since most of the cabbage has gone away.
I think this is exactly what is or will happen here. I found a nice bit of cabbage on my first outing and shocked with regards to the pressure on it, guides and other folks moving kind in a bit tighter than expected given overall numbers of musky anglers at the time very low - but it did hold a surprising number of fish. Clearly a early bird gets the worm situation.
Likewise a few small patches that sometimes held one or two fish (a wee bit of cabbage mixed with other elements, saddle or point, mixed with pondweed and other junkweed) - heavily pressured community spots normally and even more so given fish that are easy to pinpoint given a big patch now tiny.
Not sure related to the cabbage factor, but we also caught some really small fish (normally very rare) on some primary spots that also held big fish - so concerned about that. I'm talking small enough to be consumed by the bigger fish on these spots. Hopefully just means a few good recent year classes and not displaced from weeds (cabbage) issue.
Hopefully the wallies and SMBs will knock these rusties down so these patches can come back some, as definitely a serious habitat decline with these skinnier weed types (or no weed at all) in lot of areas. Not good from the perspective of rearing habitat for a number of species.
Edited by Angling Oracle 7/15/2023 9:50 AM
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Posts: 60
Location: NW Indiana | This year we saw significant reduction in cabbage in our area of Lake of the Woods. Areas that usually held at least some cabbage out to 13+ feet were void of any visible weeds. We did mark some very tight to bottom but never confirmed any cabbage but I suspect it was not. Other various types of weeds still grew in tighter on these spots and held fish VERY consistently. The overall pattern was that the fish held tighter/shallower to the weeds that when they would roam the edges of the deeper cabbage. This certainly could be a function of the cooler week of weather we had but those non-cabbage weeds definitely held fish. Our second biggest fish 49.5x23 came from a small pile of junk weeds on a morning we otherwise didn’t see a fish. Overall my conclusion was that fish still use these spots where there was once cabbage because the spot as a whole is just a good one and that the fish seemed to have repositioned themselves. |
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Posts: 355
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | gruney - 7/16/2023 8:26 AM
This year we saw significant reduction in cabbage in our area of Lake of the Woods. Areas that usually held at least some cabbage out to 13+ feet were void of any visible weeds. We did mark some very tight to bottom but never confirmed any cabbage but I suspect it was not. Other various types of weeds still grew in tighter on these spots and held fish VERY consistently. The overall pattern was that the fish held tighter/shallower to the weeds that when they would roam the edges of the deeper cabbage. This certainly could be a function of the cooler week of weather we had but those non-cabbage weeds definitely held fish. Our second biggest fish 49.5x23 came from a small pile of junk weeds on a morning we otherwise didn’t see a fish. Overall my conclusion was that fish still use these spots where there was once cabbage because the spot as a whole is just a good one and that the fish seemed to have repositioned themselves.
I think you describe the pattern we found precisely. Although we had encounters (follows, lost fish) on strictly rock/reef structures, all the fish we caught in our last outing were in or out of weeds spots on rocky structure in or brought out of very shallow water. I had an earlier outing where fish were all in a cabbage-only bed (one of the only good ones we found). Sort of the issue is those deep large cabbage beds used to hold muskies, sometimes in numbers with the right conditions, and now those former spots don't appear to with this other stuff - really there is no appeal to them from a cover perspective, but they may hold some bait. I think your conclusion would be correct in that any spot that has some other good elements to it (or simply holding bait) would attract some muskies. I guess the situation boils down to sort of lamenting the loss of some pretty reliable, multiple fish holding spots. The good news is the fish can be found somewhere. |
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Posts: 716
| In my experience: in the absence of quality weeds any weeds will likely hold some fish. The are just some that want to relate to weeds and they will seek out even the ratty skimpy crap when quality is not to be found. |
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