Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Bunch of dead fish and a nasty smell

Went out to a small lake/large pond today to see if we could catch some bass. When we got there the first thing I noticed was a nasty smell to the air. The water was murkier than usual and when I got to the shoreline I noticed a bunch of dead fish washed up on the bank. All the fish weren't dead as I did see 1 catfish swimming kind of sickly like on the surface.
Anybody ever see anything like this?

Yes. Both when we'd been in a drought and the oxygen content of the water was way low and once when a COOP spray truck got too close to a pond while the wind was blowing. I'm not sure what he was spraying on the pasture but it killed the heck out of the bass and perch. Some of the fish it didn't kill were blinded, I picked up a big bluegill that was sitting on a bed in the shallows and his eyes were a milky even though he seemed healthy otherwise.

I've heard of guys who farm fish backing a brushhog into the pond and letting it run to aerate the water during long hot dry spells. Don't know if it works but I don't think it would hurt anything to try.

It's a State Wildlife Area or I would probably haul my tractor out there and do that. Most of the dead fish I saw were green sunfish (100+), plus 1 bass and a catfish on about 75 meters of shoreline. I called DOW to let them know.

I was fishing our 50'ish acre lease back in July when dozens of crappie floated up dead on the shore the same evening. Had been hot out recently, but no real idea what happened. Bass and bluegill didn't seem affected.

Plenty of fish left, so no real harm. But there was a lot of worry at the time that it was going to expand to all species.

We were wondering if maybe it was methane from rotted vegetation or something.
A few weeks earlier we'd seen a bunch of bubbles coming up in the water and when we paddled close enough it smelled nasty. Sucks because it was the only place reasonably close to catch bass.

Digging around the internet and it turns out it could have been something called lake turnover. The lake has been hit with it before. The link below isn't the lake I mentioned in the OP but it goes into what can happen.

http://www.nogalesinternational.com...f5dfdbe-1cfd-11e1-a3bc-0019bb2963f4.html

http://fishing.about.com/cs/fishfactsinfo/a/aa100703a.htm

It is a common occurrence here where a lot of fish are raised, both catfish and minnows for bait. They keep a close watch and have tractors with paddle wheels to stir the water. Most of these are home made using old car rear ends and then welding paddles on them. They also add slaked lime at times. It is worse on hot cloudy days, but can happen at any time. miles

usually lack of oxygen in hot weather.