I just went to the local city lake today and noticed that the water was unnaturally blue-green. I know its from the maintenance people dumping a ton a algicide in the water. My question is, do you guys think the addition of chemicals to city lakes affects the bite negatively? Thanks!

I don't know if it effects the bite right away but It makes sense that it may harm the ecosystem from the bottom up. I am not a biologist but I have seen negative effects from spraying on the delta. It may not harm the bass directly. But if it kills the plant growth, phytoplankton, then bugs and bait fish, a chain of events has started that may trickle up to the top of the food chain.

Sounds like copper sulfide (bluestone) from the water color. It's early in the year to have a algae bloom, some bass could still on the beds , bluegill should be bedding and lots of fry in the cover. The adult bass can move to water with better DO levels, the spawners and baby fish are not so lucky.

If it's windy shortly after the treatment, the affects of decaying organisms are reduced, otherwise it may take a few weeks to return to normal. The damage to the fry and any eggs could be catastrophic to them.

WRB

It's been my experience that from the day they treat the lake, and for about 2 maybe 3 days afterwards the bite pretty much goes dead. I was at Tri cities last Weds, and the water looked o.k...although no one was catching anything except a catfish..I also think bluestoneing affects bass differently, in different lakes. Alonda for example, it shuts em down pretty quick. But at Laguna, that doesn't seem to be the case. I was at Alondra yesterday, the bubbler's were off, and they just added the chemicals. They did this last week also..which I don't like. The weeds provide cover for all fish. I did see a 3' gar swiming around, looked like it was trying to chase down some baitfish, as there were huge swirls in the water..the bite was Dead.. >

Just the opposite around here. I fish a local reservoir that gets routine treatments for algae (Cutrine copper treatments) and we look forward to the period right after the treatments. We joke that they're adding in 'the steroids' again to the water because the bite gets so good for the period (days to a week) immediately following treatments. I think it is a combination of clearing water from the dieing algae allowing bass to feed better (visually) along with some lowering of O2 in the deeper depths that makes the shallow water bite better.

-T9