YEP! I knew what they are. Just wasn't 100% certain. Look close and you can see the eyes. In a mass they look like like shrimp. A lot of the Perch we caught this weekend were spitting them up. Walleye also stuff themselves on them.

 

Interesting thread George......thanks.

Ballast water is the source of many invasive species for the Great Lakes. Guessing same is true around the world.

Does the US have any regs for ships entering US waters from abroad re ballast waters?

 

I know they are not good and have fought them myself. But now I have another excuse to tell my wife when she asks how many fish did you catch.

Keith R.

 

I knew what they where. And they can be a pain. The best way to get them off of your line is to hold the rod up by the reel, and hit the end of the rod seat several times. Just like when your popping the rubber band off of a planer line. That will usually knock them off of the line. :T

 

I wondered what that stuff was, I thought it was a plant of some kind. Fished off Geneva on Monday and that stuff was very annoying. Every time I reeled a line in I had to clear all of that crap off of it, a lot of wasted time.
Thanks for posting the link George, lots of good info there.

Brian

 

Thanks George,

I'll be on the look out for them. Just when you think everything has happeded. Fightt the sheepheads off, Deal with the mayflies, the gobies, and the weeds floating on the surface making it more diffucult to troll now theres something to stop you from reeling in

 

If those are the same as what I think they are...they've been on lake Ontario for a long time. I wasn't aware they were on Erie though. There's special line that can be used but it's usually heavier test for the salmon species. They can be a real pain...!

 

I have been calling them sand fleas. They have been around for a few years. I may be wrong, but they seem to gob up on the dipsy lines more than the inline board lines. PITA for sure but still not as bad as that damn cotton!

 

Yes they are a pain.

My first exposure to them was in Lake Ontario salmon fishing many years ago.

At that time were were running braid on the dipsy and downrigger rods, what a mess. You couldn't even reel a lure in much less a fish there were so many fleas on the line

We have learned over the years a few steps that virtually eliminate any problems. We now run wire line on our dipsy rods and run a 100' leader of 30lb test mono on the downrigger rods. We run a 100' leader only because sometimes we have to fish that deep with the riggers. We do run a short fluorocarbon leader from the 30lb mono to the lure.

The fleas do not accumulate on the wire or the larger diameter mono. This has eliminated 95% of the flea problems

 

http://www.fishusa.com/Cortland-Flea-Flicker-Trolling-Line_p.html

Flea flicker line, works good on lake O but may have to look into it for Erie, this year has been bad.

 

I thought those were the spiny water fleas, thanks George. I usually just pinch hard on the line between thumb and idex finger, then slide them down and off at the swivel. Clears most of them. They've been in lake Erie for at least ten years now, no? What's the cottonlike stuff? It doesn't come off near as easy.

 

We tried the fleaflicker line some years ago and was never really a big fan of it. I know some guys really like it.

 

I am a lake biologist and I noticed that yellow ‘fuzz’ on my fishing line during a walleye trip few weeks ago. I was also curious to what it was, so I took a sample of it and put in a baggie so I could look at it under a microscope once I got back to the lab. But, needless to say, I left the baggie at my parents. Although, when I glanced at it on the lake, I do not believe it was the spiny water flea or fishhook water flea because of the color- they are mostly clear and appear white on a fishing line. My guess was that the yellow fuzz was midge fly exoskeletons. There was quite a few of them floating on the surface of the water and they have a yellowish-orange color. But I cannot be sure with out looking at them under a scope. If it was either the spiny or fishhook water flea, this would not be alarming because both of these species have been in Lake Erie and other lakes for several years now.

 

I don't know if fishook fleas a spiny water fleas are the same thing, but I was told years ago that they were spiny water fleas.

http://www.great-lakes.net/envt/flora-fauna/invasive/spinyflea.html


Are you guys seeing them for the first time this year? I've seen them on Erie for years. Some years they are worse than other years. I noticed them clinging to my line last Saturday fishing Geneva.

They get so bad on Lake Ontario that you can't reel in your line after about ten seconds. I use 20 lb mono on my down rigger rods, and they don't cling to it at all.

 

I guess they aren't the same thing, but I still think the ones we are experiencing are spiny water fleas.

 

I do most of my research in the western basin, where they are rare. In the rest of the lake, they usually show up mid-summer. Their abundance varies a lot from year to year and from week to week. Here is a pic of the Fishhook (Top) and Spiny Water Fleas that I took a few years back.

 

indeed they are the spiny water flea. odds are the orange and yellow things on the surface are actually mayfly larvae exoskeletons.