Fishless Water

[Woody B]

How often to any of you run across dead, lifeless fishless water?   I usually see some kind of fish activity on sonar even if I can't catch any Bass.  Today I was fishing a long cove, probably 2 1/2 to 3 miles long.   It was a big cove fed by a small creek.....not really big enough to be called a creek.   I saw plenty of baitfish and other activity on sonar for the first 1/3 or so.  I caught 4 Bass including 2 over 5 pounds in pockets off of the first 1/3 of the cove.  After the first 1/3 I quit catching anything.  I was going from pocket to pocket on my trolling motor, looking mostly at Active Target (FFS).    The back 2/3 or so of the cove was lifeless.  I fired up my outboard, but kept my trolling motor (and Active Target transducer) deployed.  I idled along looking at FFS, 2D sonar, Down Imaging, and Side imaging.  NOTHING!!!!.   No baitfish, no pan fish, no Carp...nothing.   I saw an occasionally turtle, but nothing beyond that.  At the point the cove went fishless it was still ~75 yards wide and 25+ feet deep in the center.   There was also nothing in the pockets off the cove.   It wasn't a sonar problem.  As soon as I got back in the first 1/3 I saw all kinds of life again.   

 

What's going on?  I haven't been in this cove this year.  Last year I caught Bass all the way to the back.   Water clarity, temperature ect seemed to be the same as the rest of the lake.   

 

The only time (except when I had a voltage problem with my sonar due to a bad fuse block) I've ever seen lifeless water was up the South Fork River last year shortly after bad flooding upstream.  In that case I suspect the flooding washed all kinds of bad stuff into the water.  This cove is fed by a very small stream.  I don't think that's the case here.  

[Bird]

Lakes that we fish many times a year have dead zones and active zones consistently.

I really have no explanation but we've learned to skip those unproductive areas and only focus on the areas that produce fish even though they look enticing.

[gimruis]

Some of the bigger lakes I fish have mostly dead water. Only a small percentage of the water holds fish when comparing it to the overall size of the lake. The sheer volume of vast, open water is staggering. I would imagine it’s like this in saltwater and the Great Lakes too.

 

Keep looking.

[tunaman]

Years ago I first heard the saying that “10% of the water holds 90% of the fish”. Seems to hold true no matter where I fish.

[MediumMouthBass]

In my part of PA our lakes/ponds range between 9-160 acres and are usually 10' deep but some have deep spots of 25' and in my experience catching fish and seeing others catching fish at these places it would seem that on average just a small part of the body of water (at least where im fishing) holds fish, the rest is as you said lifeless fishless water (and not just bass, panfish and other species too)....

Theres 1 lake that comes to mind where you can spend all day with a pontoon boat full of a team of fishermen and if you are fishing in the middle, which makes up 70% of the lake you will only catch trout (its a bowl shaped lake and the bass only seem to be right off the bank and in the back with the submerged trees.

Another one has a cove in the back that connects to a very narrow creek and it looks like it should be full of fish, the lakes 160 acres and the cove takes up probably 30 to 40 acres (its an odd shaped lake). Most of the people who fish here regularly know to avoid this large area because its almost as if theres no sign of life anytime of year for almost any species. But if you fish the edges of the lake and the middle theres tons of pike, bass, crappie, trout and bluegills.

I fish the Susquehanna river from time to time and talk to people who also do, and it seems theres some spots where there are tons of smallies in a stretch but theres other parts where its a mile or 2 where there might just be one here or there.

[Team9nine]

You gotta’ love a good mystery. It doesn’t happen a lot, but every so often after a strong cold front, I’ve gone out and graphed nothing but clean water. It’s almost an eerie feeling that kind of hits you when you first see it. I imagine the fish/baitfish still have to be there, but are so tight to the bottom, nothing marks at all. Still feels weird, and I can usually expect a tough bite when it happens.

[Susky River Rat]

6 hours ago, MediumMouthBass said:

fish the Susquehanna river from time to time and talk to people who also do, and it seems theres some spots where there are tons of smallies in a stretch but theres other parts where its a mile or 2 where there might just be one here or there.

This happens as the water gets lower usually. You’ll drift and pick them up here and there. When the water is higher they school up more in areas. There is also areas I won’t even touch on the river.

 

maybe the fish were in the dead zone on your FFS. I don’t have it but, have heard people talk that bottom 18 inches is a dead zone and it’s very hard to pick anything up. The fish could have just been hugging bottom tight?

[Woody B]

I don't think they were there but hugging the bottom.  I'm pretty sure they I would have seen them with one of the sonars I was using.  This is a 13,000+ acre Lake.  Even at 13,000+ acres it isn't a wide lake.  It's basically a river run lake that's 20+ miles long.   I've rarely went more than 1/4 mile without seeing baitfish.  They're literally everywhere.  I caught Bass last Spring in the pockets all the way to the back of this cove.  

 

I was fishing pockets off this cove, catching, and missing Bass pretty good.  (either short strikes or lack of skill  LOL)  I wasn't paying much attention to my Active Target beyond picking some underwater cover to cast to.  That's all I had on at the bow.  When I stopped getting strikes I started looking at my sonar.  No fish of any kind.  They can hide (from me) on the bottom with Active Target sometimes, that's why I went to the console for other graphs.   

 

After the flooding last year, when the South Fork river turned lifeless baitfish, and Gar were the first to return.   Gar have the ability to breath air.  I suspect they were feasting on baitfish that were sluggish due to whatever was wrong with the water.   I checked the South Fork every month or so.  The rest of the fish returned a month or so ago.  All of the Bass (15) I caught Saturday were up the South Fork.  Last year at this time, and several months after that the South Fork was lifeless.   We had record rains, and flooding this year too but for some reason the South Fork is good again.   This cove is at least 10 miles from the South Fork.   

 

Thanks for the replies.   

[TnRiver46]

I mainly fish skinnier river sections where there are ALWAYS tons of fish. If not bass, carp, buffalo, crappie, bluegill, catfish, etc. They cant exactly walk out and go anywhere so there they are. 
 

I could see how this might happen on a lake tho 

[Pat Brown]

I think that prevailing winds can change the character of the water a lot in a year and some areas almost always end up habitable regardless of outstanding weather patterns and some areas are more variable and subject to the weather you've been experiencing.

 

Great examples of this to me are points where the wind positions the fish one day and they're completely gone the next.

 

I'm guessing bigger creek arms and coves need some very stable and favorable prevailing conditions to be optimum for fish to select them in the spring for reproducing and feeding.

 

I will caution everyone: don't get into thinking 'there's never fish there!' because sometimes the places I've only caught 2 fish in my life it's an 8 lber and an 11 lber but generally seems 'dead'

 

And another x factor that plays heavily here (IMHO) is fishing pressure.  I think whole coves on my lakes get avoided because they're so close to the marinas and so heavily fished!

[ol'crickety]

I've portaged to two lakes that I figured would be great because they were deep in the bush and likely had never been fished by anyone. No fish. Too shallow for fish to survive a northwestern Ontario winter. Still, it was cool to reach them.

[Zcoker]

I've seen this many times out in the everglades, certain areas dead as a door-nail while other areas are full of life. Then, next time around, it becomes the exact opposite. Could take days or even weeks or even months for that to happen but it eventually does. For example, I was out fishing the other day. This one fishy spot has ALWAYS been dead as a doornail. Sure enough, I fished it regardless of its past history and it produced what it has always produced, which is absolutely nothing. So I continued my fishing. Later that afternoon on the way back I so happened to pass by my dead spot and made a lazy cast. Well, what do ya know, an absolute giant hit! Moral of this little story is to never, ever assume that a spot is no good. Always try. And ya don't need nothing but good intuition and a little persistent discipline to make it happen. 

[Tennessee Boy]

I think we’re confusing not catching any fish with not seeing any fish.   You might see hundreds of thousands of fish (mostly bait fish) on your electronics on a given trip.   It’s shocking when you see zero in a large area.  My best theory is the bass are staying home watching TV because there are no bait fish around.  The movements of bait fish are the great mystery.  My electronics have convinced me that I have no clue when it comes to bait fish and everything I have heard from the bass fishing community on the subject is wrong.

[Bankc]

It could be an oxygen thing.  Kind of like a thermocline, but being caused by some other factor, like maybe pollution, bacteria, or just a lack of wind to churn up the water.  

 

I would think that if it were just a plankton issue, where the plankton is blown to one side and the baitfish and then bigger fish follow, you'd still have some stragglers left behind.  But if all of the fish are gone, that leads me to believe there's a reason why fish don't want to be there, versus just why fish would just want to be somewhere else.  Turtles, breathing air, wouldn't be affected by such things.  

 

Or it could just be a situation where there's no reason for fish to go there.  On my local lake, you never find fish in the deep part (about a 100 FOW).  There's no structure or cover or anything to relate or navigate to.  It's just open water.  When fish travel across it, they travel along the edges in the shallower water.  Once the water in that lake gets deeper than about 60 feet, all life pretty much avoids it, no matter where in the water column you look.   

[gimruis]

54 minutes ago, Bankc said:

It could be an oxygen thing.

 

In a river, its definitely related to oxygen.  Especially in the heat of summer when temps are at their highest.  Warm water holds less oxygen than cooler water does.  Areas of stagnant of minimal flow are completely void of fish life.  That's why I focus my efforts on areas near current in rivers when I am out there in the summer time.

[Tennessee Boy]

I’ve seen 1000 acre creeks on major reservoirs that appear to be completely abandoned.These are areas that I’ve caught plenty of fish in before.  Tracking studies suggest that most bass have a home territory that they stay in year round.  I can’t imagine that all the bass in a creek would leave.  I’m talking about creeks with plenty of deep and shallow water habitat.   It’s a mystery.

[The Budget Angler]

I mostly bank fish and I don't have electronics on my raft or kayak, but I've noticed the same thing myself.  One tree will look great, I'll cast on it and catch a fish, and then the next one I cast on is absolutely dead.

 

One lake I used to fish was similar to what you were saying.  The boat slip dock was located in a crescent-shaped cove that was choked with every type of weed, max depth of probably 30'.  The perch, pike, bass, and pumpkinseed loved it.  Now, right around the corner was a bigger cove with the same weed cover, orientation, etc.  I would catch numerous perch, many pike, several bass, countless pumps out of the first one, and nothing out of the second.  Stuff like this just happens sometimes.  That's my excuse for fishing so much, it's so I can learn where the dead zones are

[gobig]

Clearlake in the late spring and summer will get dead zones. Depleted oxygen to the point where there is little to no life. You can lose a live well full of fish if your not on recirculate. Constant reminders from tournament directors to fill your live wells out on the main lake. 

[king fisher]

I once went trout fishing at a lake I had had good luck at the year before.  I fished hard all day without a single bite.  After I got home I found out the lake had been treated with a Rotenone, a chemical that takes the oxygen out of the water in order to kill off trash fish that have been introduced by bucket biologists.  A few days later they planted thousands of trout in the lake.   I fished all day on a lake that had all the fish removed a few days before.  Not one of the fishing days I like to brag about.

[MAN]

I have a special ability to find those dead zones when not using sonar. My tell-tale line is...."guys i have a really good feeling about this area".

[Pat Brown]

How about the opposite?

 

What about when you catch big fish or a fish at all in places that seem uninhabitable and definitely are not being stocked etc?

 

That's more fun.  😎

[T-Billy]

That's typical in spring on the lakes I fish Woody. The fish stage at the mouths of bays first, and move toward the back as the water warms and the weeds get growing. 

[Mbirdsley]

if you were up here in michigan this time of year i would say it’s probably a water temp issue.  bait fish didn’t like the water temp so they left and the bass followed.  I don’t know how warm it is down south right now.  

 

Fish this time of year up here want the warmest water that they can find.  high winds can and will move water temps around to certain sides of the lake. 

 

I wonder maybe too if the oxygen levels were low in the area you were fishing in?  seems early for that but, weirder things have happened.