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Fleas fleas fleas

Lewis863
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Lewis863

Lewis863

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This weekend the fleas have hit disaster proportions on Cayuga....on rigger lines mono lines wire dipsy lines in proportions I have not seen before....struggle to even fish...

 

 

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Sk8man

Sk8man

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Posted

As the water temperature goes up they seem to rapidly multiply and we have had some very high ambient temps lately.

Sk8man

Sk8man

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Posted

When the fleas are really bad and are suspended throughout the water column even 150 lb rigger wire is not immune to them. A,lot of time they seem to be "patchy" in the water column and i think that is why some folks have better luck avoiding  than others in spots in the lakes. When they are reaally bad even the riggers get clogged especially with the fishhook type fleas which seem harder to remove from anything no matter what the diameter.

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stinger

stinger

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Posted

For me I've found that the Cortland FleaFlicker works the best. Tried 30lb mono, forget it. Blood Run flea line, about the same as 30lb mono. Guys piss and  moan about the Cortland line but it works the best (IMO). Vary little attachments yesterday on the line while my rigger cables did pick some up. Cortland stopped making it but if you can get your hands on some try it. Come flea season I just overlay about 130' of FleaFlicker on my  normal mono line and add 10'-12' of leader.  Come Sept/Oct when the fleas disappear I just strip the fleaflicker off. No need to respool.

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Sk8man

Sk8man

Posted
Posted (edited)

More than one type of water flea. They are softbodied pests (invasive species) that multiply like crazy and attach to fishing lines and clog up the rod tips and when very thick can prevent you from reeling in fish.P.S. They can make a mess of your boat (e.g. grey/brown stains) and smell like hell.

Edited by Sk8man
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bulletbob

bulletbob

Posted
Posted

 Just one of the many curses brought upon the US by  "progress" and  world trade....  Yeah dumping ballast water from Eurasion ships was great thing for American waterways.. Fleas en mass  of various species, Zebras Quaggas, Gobies,  Asian Carp Asian Slime eels, Lampreys, hell even alewives, don't belong here,  but now we live with them...... bob

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Neo1945

Neo1945

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Sk8man said:

When the fleas are really bad and are suspended throughout the water column even 150 lb rigger wire is not immune to them. A,lot of time they seem to be "patchy" in the water column and i think that is why some folks have better luck avoiding  than others in spots in the lakes. When they are reaally bad even the riggers get clogged especially with the fishhook type fleas which seem harder to remove from anything no matter what the diameter.

Where is that American ingenuity ... we can land on the moon .... surely someone (smarter than me) can come up with a device that attaches to a rod and also a downrigger to remove those pesky devils.

Sk8man

Sk8man

Posted
Posted (edited)

When they are really bad I use a paint stir stick with a strip of commercial (sticky side) velcro at the end. It works best on taught wire with scraping motions. It isn't a total answer but can help. Not very elegant looking but functional and you can tell it has been used :lol:

 

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fleascraper.jpg

Edited by Sk8man
rolmops

rolmops

Posted
Posted (edited)
14 hours ago, Sk8man said:

As the water temperature goes up they seem to rapidly multiply and we have had some very high ambient temps lately.

You should put one one or two of those little pests under a microscope. You will see that they clone themselves in warm weather. You can see the clones under the skin on their back. that is why they reproduce so fast. Once the water gets colder they will reproduce by mating. Then they die soon afterwards

AIS Spotlight - Spiny and Fishhook Waterflea » Fox-Wolf Watershed ...

 

If you look at the back of the little bugger, you can see a back spot. That is a cloned flea. It can clone itself at a very high rate with the offspring doing the same thing

Edited by rolmops
Sk8man

Sk8man

Posted
Posted

Too bad they couldn't be interrupted somehow before the mating occurs but given the size of water bodies most things would be impractical or cost prohibitive  i would imagine.

Fishstix

Fishstix

Posted
Posted

I ran 40lb test ande line  clear.  Ended up cutting the line slippin em off then retieing.Still not as bad as Owasco was a couple weeks ago. I run mason 7 strand dipsey wire . The rod with silver wire did not collect as many fleas as the brown colored wire.

GAMBLER

GAMBLER

Posted
Posted
On 7/12/2020 at 12:47 PM, bulletbob said:

 Just one of the many curses brought upon the US by  "progress" and  world trade....  Yeah dumping ballast water from Eurasion ships was great thing for American waterways.. Fleas en mass  of various species, Zebras Quaggas, Gobies,  Asian Carp Asian Slime eels, Lampreys, hell even alewives, don't belong here,  but now we live with them...... bob

Asian carp, Asian eels and Lampreys did not come here in ballast water.  But I do agree with you on the others.  

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bulletbob

bulletbob

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, GAMBLER said:

Asian carp, Asian eels and Lampreys did not come here in ballast water.  But I do agree with you on the others.  

 I realize that,, The carp and eels were stocked on purpose, alewives came here after the canal system was built, and lampreys might have come  through the canal system, or might even be native, there is no  real definitive  answer, and there are different opinions... However, my admittedly   overly generalized rant is still valid, this  nasty invasive   crap is ruining these lakes..

Lewis863

Lewis863

Posted
  • Author
Posted
I ran 40lb test ande line  clear.  Ended up cutting the line slippin em off then retieing.Still not as bad as Owasco was a couple weeks ago. I run mason 7 strand dipsey wire . The rod with silver wire did not collect as many fleas as the brown colored wire.

I did the same cutting and retie was faster, till i realized if you take the lure off and slap the crap out of the rod and line on the water they come right off but it has to be violent...



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Sk8man

Sk8man

Posted
Posted

The spineys will come off that way but not the fishhooks

Lewis863

Lewis863

Posted
  • Author
Posted
The spineys will come off that way but not the fishhooks

Less to chew up my fingers and pollute the boat lol


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