Fungus

[Bass Magnet]

In the trees at table rock lake there are air bubbles of some sort of fungus i think. if any on knows what causes it then please reply

[Phil Lilley]

There are lots of vegatation in all lakes- some look like vines with leaves and some is more string-like. I don't know what the names are but they are common. The bubbles... well that cold be coming from decaying matter on the bottom like leaves and grass washed in by the rains or wind.

[Sam]

In the trees at table rock lake there are air bubbles of some sort of fungus i think. if any on knows what causes it then please reply

I think I know what you mean. In some spots on Tablerock the flooded trees have weird-looking round things growing on them just below the waterline.

It's got to be some kind of fungus feeding on the dead wood. Those trees have been dead for 40 years, ever since the lake filled.

I sometimes fish Watts Bar Lake in eastern Tennessee, it was built 25 years before Tablerock. There's not a flooded tree trunk standing in the whole lake - they just won't last that long in water. So I assume Tablerock will lose all it's flooded timber too, in the next 25 years. The fungus you're seeing is probably one of the things that will cause it.

[SKMO]

I think I know what you mean. In some spots on Tablerock the flooded trees have weird-looking round things growing on them just below the waterline.

It's got to be some kind of fungus feeding on the dead wood. Those trees have been dead for 40 years, ever since the lake filled.

I sometimes fish Watts Bar Lake in eastern Tennessee, it was built 25 years before Tablerock. There's not a flooded tree trunk standing in the whole lake - they just won't last that long in water. So I assume Tablerock will lose all it's flooded timber too, in the next 25 years. The fungus you're seeing is probably one of the things that will cause it.

Sam - I think maybe the wierd looking round things you might have seen are "Bryozoan" colonies. Here are a couple pictures:

http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/bryozoa.html

I see them in Table Rock from time to time usually in warmer weather. Some years they are real common and other years I don't see any. I usually see them in the upper rivers where the water is dingy and not too often in clearer water. Sometimes they are attached to something in the water and sometimes they break off and float around. Pretty wierd looking, like a big blob of jelly some are almost as large as basketballs but usually smaller.

[Sam]

Yep, that's them. The first species shown, "Pectinatella magnifica".

Thanks for the info. They're strange looking, and I'd wondered what they were.

[SKMO]

Yep, that's them. The first species shown, "Pectinatella magnifica".

Thanks for the info. They're strange looking, and I'd wondered what they were.

Yep, they are very strange looking.

Not sure about the bubbles Bass Magnet is seeing, perhaps decaying organic matter. More than likely fish f*rts. At least that is what I told my kids and they believed it. (Cast just ahead of the bubbles son .....)

[Sam]

Cast just ahead of the bubbles son

I've actually done that on a couple of occasions when the conditions were just right.

At Cricket Creek last summer I was in about 20 feet of water off a rock bluff, fishing for crappie. There was no wind, and I kept noticing bunches of little bubbles coming up. The place they were coming up was just moving slowly, wandering around.

I figured it was something rooting around in the bottom mud, knocking bubbles loose from decomposing stuff - and that it had to be either a mud turtle or a catfish.

So I rigged up with a hook and sinker and a big gob of nightcrawlers, and dropped it on the bottom right in the path of the bubbles. I had the fish on about 10 seconds later - a 4 pound channel cat!