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Seeing fish kill???


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Ok as some of you know I do a lot of fishing at smaller lakes and ponds more than I do on larger lakes due to traffic. As this is no panic issue to worry and be alarm over about. Im just a bit confused to as so why?

In the last couple of weeks or so i've been mostly concentrating my fishing in the South Metro. I have been noticing some large amounts of fish kill in some of the smaller lakes & ponds in the Dakota & Rice County areas.

I don't know if it's due to the low water levels and oxygen depletion or is it the abrupt warm water temp changes? Or is it from introduction of new DNR fish stockings? It seems to be a mix of small and large pannies & crappies. At one pond I observed as many as 20 dead large crappies over the span of 1-3 weeks. I was very upset.

However it's not affecting the larger gamefish such as bass, pike & walleye. Just panfish & crappies.

I am gladly welcoming any rain we get as I think this may help the situation. Anyone got any insight they want to share as to why these fish are dying off? Or are my guesses correct?

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I would guess it would have something to do with spawn stress.

Once I witnessed a large fish kill due to rapid water temperature change. I was fishing on a small oxbow in early spring when the water was still abit cold (50's). That day it was unusually warm and it got into the upper 80's. In the heat of the day, the whole surface of the lake turned white with half dead fish going belly up. Most of the fish were temperature sensitive shad, so I'm guessing it had to do with temperature change.

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I'd guess that its Columnaris disease.

Do a google search on that for more details.

Its not all that uncommon. Although, I thought it was something that was more common in warmer water temps.

Just a thought.

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Quote:

I'd guess that its Columnaris disease.

Do a google search on that for more details.

Its not all that uncommon. Although, I thought it was something that was more common in warmer water temps.

Just a thought.


I know what your talking about but somehow these fish show no signs of that disease. I would see a fresh dead carcass of the fish and you can tell just by looking at it. So it had to been something else. But im not ruling out any possibility of what it can be...

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Oxygen depletion is an option but kind of early , unless there is a lot of decaying vegetation in the body of water.

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