Lake Erie Algae Bloom

[chris188vx]

What impact does the algae bloom have on smallmouth fishing up there? I would assume you would want to avoid the heaviest areas of the algae, but from satellite imagery it doesn't look like you can avoid all of it unless you are in the river.

How deep does this algae affect the fishing? The cleaner the water the better?

[Manxfishing]

It becomes a dead zone
And I found this on the web to explain it

"Green stuff", as you point out, liberates oxygen when it is producing carbohydrate. IOW it only liberates oxygen when it is physically growing larger.

But the other half of the equation is why "green stuff' forms those carbohydrates. And quite simply they primarily do it for the same reasons that animals eat carbohydrate: because it provides something that they can burn to produce usable energy. IOW "green stuff" respires exactly like you do. They absorb oxygen, combine it with carbohydrates, and expel carbon dioxide.

Two sides of the same coin. The problem is that while respiration and the consumption of oxygen goes on continually, 24/7, the liberation of oxygen only occurs while the plant is physically getting larger.

As soon as the light levels drop, such as at night or when the water becomes silty, the plants stop liberating oxygen. But they continue to absorb oxygen at the same rate.

As soon as the nutrient levels in the water decline, the plants stop liberating oxygen. But they continue to absorb oxygen at the same rate.

As soon as the water temperature becomes too high or too low, the plants stop liberating oxygen. But they continue to absorb oxygen at the same rate.

As you can imagine, when you have umpteen thousand cells per milliliter of water, and they are all actively respiring and consuming oxygen and nothing at all is producing oxygen the water becomes anoxic incredibly fast.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=645268

[chris188vx]

I would assume then that these blooms are densest at the surface, the deeper you go the less sunlight there would be. Is the oxygen levels still high enough in deeper water for small mouth to function in? Or are they migrating to more hospitable water?

These blooms seem to have happened over the last few years. I was just curious how it impacts the fishing.

I fished the first BFL this year out of Elizabeth Park and I went down around Stony Point. I'm sure we were fishing in the bloom as it was first starting. When we were heading back to weigh in, roughly just east of the power plant, we ran out of green water into blue water. It was like somebody drew a line in the lake. We fished in the green water all day and both me and my co had limits (not big ones). That green water had about 2 feet of visibility and you could see the algae floating in it.

[djkimmel]

There's a toxic side to some of the algae but it doesn't always produce the toxin so you may be able to still catch bass and other fish in the algae though it may slow down the fishing. But if the toxic trigger is pulled it could cause fishing in the area to go downhill fast.

There's so many factors involved in Lake Erie it is hard to predict what will or won't happen without sometimes just trying it. I've been listening to reps from the Lake Erie charter boats assocation lately to learn more but there's still a lot not known about what will happen in the near and long-term future.

I guess the good news is groups are discussing it, and trying to come up with solutions if possible to the blooms.