Stick Marsh

GRIZZL

I've been fishing Stick Marsh for 3 years now waiting for the hydrilla to come back in some quantities. As of last week the vegetation is pretty much limited to eel grass that EVERYONE is keying on! Boats on Boats on Boats ..its crazy. Is FWC or anyone actively preventing the hydrilla regrowth? I thought by now since the dredging the Marsh would resemble the Marsh again? I guess if you get there early enough to fish the Monkey Box you can catch 10-20bass..but most boats are in the 5-10 numbers. I call BS on the 40-50 fish a day...

I've side and down scanned scanned the ditches and pump drainage and its frikkin barron of grasses..what gives???

Anybody know if they are treating the lake?

RiverRat22

They aren't treating the lake for hydrilla, it just doesn't handle hurricanes well.  It took about ten years for the hydrilla to come back from the storms in 2004. It's been tougher fishing since Irma.  I was there Saturday, and it looks like crap compared to last year.  Dirty water, and all the vegetation is brown and looks on the verge of death.  I'm hoping that it will clean up when the rains come and they start pumping water again.

SC53

I’ve been told they aren’t treating it too but talked to a couple of guys that fished there often and they said they saw it being treated. I don’t know if that’s true but I don’t know why they would make something up either. 
We were there in November of last year and the hydrilla was healthy,  green and topped out in numerous places. Obviously this was after Irma. 
How it can go from that to what it is now is perplexing. 
Having fished it since it’s inception I’ve seen it go thru a lot of changes including loosing all the grass after the hurricanes of 2004.
There is something going on down there that isn’t easy to explain. 

RiverRat22

SC53 said:

I’ve been told they aren’t treating it too but talked to a couple of guys that fished there often and they said they saw it being treated. I don’t know if that’s true but I don’t know why they would make something up either. 
We were there in November of last year and the hydrilla was healthy,  green and topped out in numerous places. Obviously this was after Irma. 
How it can go from that to what it is now is perplexing. 
Having fished it since it’s inception I’ve seen it go thru a lot of changes including loosing all the grass after the hurricanes of 2004.
There is something going on down there that isn’t easy to explain. 

I assumed it was from the storm.  when did everything die off?

SC53

RR22, it seems to have died off within 2-3 months. The timeframe just doesn’t fit. If it was healthy in November, I wouldn’t think it would be the condition it is now. 
I know hydrilla need sunlight to grow and the nasty water would block sunlight but this just seems odd. 

GRIZZL

Something is up..anybody have a dissolved Oxygen Meter reading on the lake? I am catching 5-8 bass on 7 hours of fishing hard..talking to people at the ramp that is + norm. Like is said the water is stained pretty bad and vegetation is limited to 5 ft or less. There is a clear edge at 5.5 ft based on my side scan of the shallows..after that nada. The nursery and stump field have ALL the boats hammering is ALL DAY LONG...It's still a good fishery as compared to the St Johns but for a 100% catch and release I'd expect allot more "cowboys" jumping on the baits. biggest for me is a 7.5# but I've not seen any monsters hauled up from the boats close to me. Water temp is 64-65 so the fish should be active??? ****??

MRichardson

Take all the vegetation out the O2 will plummet.
It was sprayed.

Mister-Jr

I fished Stick Marsh 20 years ago, every bass caught look like a skeleton.  Big head, skinny little, body.   Overfished.

SC53

Mr it’s been overfished since it’s inception.
 In the last 10 years, the fish have been healthy and plentiful in spite of the pressure.
 This is something different. It’s like the fish have been removed.
It’s gotten so bad that last weekend I saw only 2 boats fishing it. 

GRIZZL

I gave up and went small..Gheenoe on small water..was catching 3-4lbers on almost every cast..top water..texas rig...only thing that didn't work was a big crank..was fun reeling em in for once. Big Boat/Big Engine is going to sit for awhile

MRichardson

Mister-Jr said:

I fished Stick Marsh 20 years ago, every bass caught look like a skeleton.  Big head, skinny little, body.   Overfished.

Sounds more like underfished.  Overpopulated, not enough food.
Or they all got the bass AIDS.

BBR

MRichardson said:

Mister-Jr said:

I fished Stick Marsh 20 years ago, every bass caught look like a skeleton.  Big head, skinny little, body.   Overfished.

Sounds more like underfished.  Overpopulated, not enough food.
Or they all got the bass AIDS.

Mister-Jr said:

I fished Stick Marsh 20 years ago, every bass caught look like a skeleton.  Big head, skinny little, body.   Overfished.

Plus one on under harvested if you have starving fish.