Modern Times Changing The Rivers?

[SpringThunder]

Hey yall. I was just curious as to how these relatively new weather patterns have effected your local rivers. Pond hoppers and Blessed Lakers chime in as well.

The last two years have been extremely warm for my neck of the woods, Northern Illinois, and our rivers have been getting absolutely choked out with weeds. Good for the fish but frustrating for the dangler. I went out this evening with two fellers from my mail route. Took them to my honey hole for post spawn smallmouth. We have been getting pounded by storms so the river is a good two foot higher than normal at this time of year. 3 years back and on this time of year the water would be knee high to waste high with almost no weeds. Right now its titty to neck high and slap chop full of weeds. 2 foot to now 5.5 and up. The last two years have been warm, regardless of the water level, and the weeds have been wild like a Florida swamp. If you ever tried to bust through a Florida swamp you know its darn near impossible without swimming with the gators. Fishing is fishing and not catching I know but this was the catching hole and not fishing. I am used to catching but as a hunter I have also hunted down new honey holes. Are your trusty rustys not trusty anymore?

I normally would be able to cast net 100-200 carp sucker minnows and use every last one of them in two hours running solo. Today I was barely able to scrape up a dozen fatheads and Juvenile carp sucker minnows and we didn't hook up with a single fish. Can't blame these periodical cicadas as the body of water we were fishing has been overly developed locally and not a single periodical cicada was heard. We are just now having our yearly cicadas coming up now. Nothing on topwater lures or plastics and jigs.

Could simply be due to water being twice to three times the regular height but it has been high previous years and we still crushed them. Who else is thinks the gold might be gone or just tougher to come by? We have had a large influx of folks coming into the country to where I am at but I'm not fishing for drum and they aren't bass fishing so that's off the clipboard. This spot has been dynamite for the last 20 years. Catfishing here has been killer this year due to the high water. Lots of big flatheads have since started using this section on the side of the island I fish. That's new and welcomed but there sure is something about those bottle rocket smallmouths that just do it right..

 

[rangerod]

Are you fishing the Mississippi? Really high. In Iowa we've had chronic high water practically all year at least since mid spring. Haven't had my boat out of the garage.

 

[MrTom]

Here in Minnesota, we have plenty of extra water right now. Locally our Mississippi River is due to crest today or tomorrow t a major flood stage of over 16 feet. One lock and dam that I am aware of has closed down for now. The backwaters I would normally be fishing right now have more than 14 feet of additional water on them. Higher than normal water levels on other lakes are distressing some anglers that don't know how to adapt to the extra water while others seem to have figured things out pretty handily. One has to remember that when the water goes up, the fish are given lots of new playground so finding them may not be much fun.

 

[SpringThunder]

This was about the fox river. Fish the Sip alot in the spring while hunting though.

It's just wild seeing the massive amounts of weeds that haven't been in these spots for as long as I can recall. Don't know if the abnormally warm winter/spring is helping out with these big blooms. Possibly municipalities switched up their herbicide and its not nuking them like in the past? Could be the river is just finally getting healthy enough to support vegetation.

The water being high is absolutely giving them new nooks and crannies to get into that's forsure.