Thread: grass dying off

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  1. #1
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    grass dying off

    Due to a very dry year, one of the lakes I fish wound up having clearer water than normal and the weeds that normally only grew around the shoreline wound up taking over much larger portions of the lake. Now that we've been getting much cooler nighttime temps, I'm sure that grass is dying off (this is an assumption since I haven't been there for a few weeks now). My question is, when the grass dies off in the fall, do you avoid it completely? I've heard that dying grass takes oxygen out of the water, so the bass leave the grass. Not sure if that's true, partially true, or wrong...just something I remember hearing at some point. I'm thinking of heading over to this lake later in the week and don't want to waste my time fishing dead water.

  2. Member
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    #2
    I remember reading years ago about Bobby Murry winning a tournament (Bassmasters Classic I think ?) fishing isolated patches of green weeds scattered between large patches of dead and dying weeds . It makes sense bass would simply move to any remaining good grass clumps before totally bailing out of an area .

  3. Banned
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    #3
    move to the last green weeds. Or hardcover like laydowns/docks....
    dying Grass might be a player on a warm sunny day as well.....later in the afternoon.

  4. Member
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    #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Almag6 View Post
    move to the last green weeds. Or hardcover like laydowns/docks....
    dying Grass might be a player on a warm sunny day as well.....later in the afternoon.
    Agreed, I've caught them in the brownish weeds just as you said. Afternoon on a sunny day.

  5. Member DrewFlu33's Avatar
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    #5
    Cold weather isn't really the thing that kills a lot of it, particularly the deeper coontail and even some deeper milfoil. It's light penetration for those. There are years here in MN with little snow cover where some of the grass never dies off over the winter--you can catch fish out of green weeds under the ice all winter then come right back after the ice melts and keep after them. Other years, it all dies off, but even then there is usually green down there for a lot longer than you'd guess unless we have an early heavy snow fall. Other types of vegetation (reeds, pads, cabbage, pondweed, muskgrass, etc.) do seem to die off based on temperatures.

    So echoing others, I'd be searching for green weeds, the fish will use them as long as they're there. If there are left over pad stems, they'll get right in them as well. Otherwise, I usually search for any rocks I can find. If you've got hard bottom that traverses a steep break, even better.
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  6. Member
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    #6
    Thanks for the replies. Last time I was at this lake (a few weeks ago) I couldn't fish 1/3 of the lake because the weeds had completely taken over. I've never seen that happen on this lake. I'll look for the greener weeds and try my luck around them. The lake does offer a little rock and some laydowns as well, so I'll definitely focus more time on the hard cover as well.