Park rangers just posted signs about the title subject at my nearest, small lake.  It was a tough lake to fish before.  How bad is this new information?

What type of toxic algae? My lakes get blue green algae and it doesn’t seem to have any negative impact on the fishing 

3 minutes ago, F1SH said:

What type of toxic algae? My lakes get blue green algae and it doesn’t seem to have any negative impact on the fishing 

Sorry, don't know which type. But F&G also noted that we are having a "natural" fish die off, so it is not the benign type.

45 minutes ago, QED said:

How bad is this new information?

Depends. Gotta be careful if you're sensitive to it. Some people get quite sick from it. Around here the BL/Grn was bad this year. Several lakes that are usually lush with weeds were totally void of them with the exception of Lily pads, if they grew there to begin with. Algae blocked the light, so nothing weedy grew. It did nothing to improve the bass fishing, and will definitely hurt this year's class of bass fry. Probably a a total wipeout in the desertified lakes.

On 10/28/2021 at 11:39 AM, F1SH said:

What type of toxic algae? My lakes get blue green algae and it doesn’t seem to have any negative impact on the fishing 

Did some quick-and-dirty research and it turns out that the algae doesn’t kill the fish by toxicity but rather can kill them by depleting oxygen levels when the algae dies and decomposes.

Update: An additional, fish die off factor can be algae toxicity: "More directly, fish can be killed by exposure to HAB toxins in the water, or in prey consumed by fish." https://hab.whoi.edu/impacts/impacts-wildlife/fish-kills/

 

Regardless of the dominant cause of fish die off, conditions will be tougher at Grant Lake.

Golden Algae is extremely toxic to fish and wipe out the entire at local trophy bass fishery.  

Tom

6 minutes ago, WRB said:

Golden Algae is extremely toxic to fish and wipe out the entire at local trophy bass fishery.  

Tom

Thanks, that's good to know.  Right now, it doesn't appear to be the golden variety, but it is causing bad results regardless.