Along the coast, along the edge of aquatic vegetation, many small fish, in turn, are interested in larger predators (for example, pike). In heavily overgrown reservoirs, fish is often found on the border of open water and thickets, and if aquatic plants are found only in small islands, then look for fish near them. These are general rules, of which, of course, there are exceptions.

Let's start with a well-known aquatic plant - reed. For fish, this is truly a terrible plant, but only in windy weather. During the wind, the reed, whose stems are very stiff and resemble large straw, produces a strong crackle, rustling and rustling that scare away fish. So there are almost no chances to find fish in a pool among reeds in windy weather. Exceptions are fish with poor hearing - for example, catfish, which, in any weather, with any wind, can sit in dense thickets of this plant. In our reservoirs reed is found almost everywhere in places with a depth of 1.5 m.

An interesting fact is that the author of the song "The reed rustled, the trees bent ..." was absolutely botanically illiterate and confused the reed with the reed! This is the reed rustled, scaring the fish and the "beloved couple", and the reed hardly makes a noise when the wind. The reed is a good filter of water, the spongy structure of its stems contributes to the delivery of oxygen to the basal areas, at the same time enriching the bottom soil, which favorably affects the growth of other plants and the state of bottom fish species. For this reason, reeds are loved to be used in artificial ponds, where fish and aquatic plants are grown together. For the same reason, reed beds are often chosen by pike and other fish for laying eggs. In calm weather, roach, common carp, rudd, crucian, ide, perch, carp, tench and bream can be found among the reed beds. These fish easily give out their presence among the stems when they make their way through them. Small and medium-sized perch like rarely growing reeds, their slowly swimming bevy move back and forth along the edge of the coastal reed thickets. Large perch are more likely to be found at the tip of the capes of thick reeds (or reeds), jutting out into the reservoir, especially if there is sufficient depth at the border of the vegetation.

In contrast to the "loud" reed, in the thickets of reeds prefer to be fish of many species. Dense reed thickets provide excellent shelter for prey fish and hunter fish. There are many different invertebrates that feed on carp, carp, crucian carp, bream, juvenile pike, perch and pikeperch, as well as white bream, ruff, ide, dace and roach. Externally, the reed is easily recognizable - a long, smooth, dark green stem, on which there are no leaves at all, rises above the surface of the water. Above the reed stem is thinner than the bottom, and the length of the "reed" can exceed 5 m! Botanists attribute reed to the sedge family, although outwardly they are not similar. Having broken the reed stem, we will see a porous mass (resembling a yellowish foam), penetrated by a network of air-channels, which emit a lot of oxygen into the water, thereby attracting fish and aquatic invertebrates.

Usually reeds form dense thickets near the coast. Carp and carp like juice of freshly cut reeds; Carefully putting some reed stalks into the water, you can attract these fish to the chosen place.
Fish can be found in the reeds by occasional shivering or characteristic bursts of fish. It is useful to observe the behavior of birds. There is a saying: sandpipers - in the reed, bream - on the bottom.

Anglers are often confused with reed reed or chakan. This is a completely different plant, with rogoza has a hard stem, on which are wide and long leaves. A dark brown velvety ear with ripened seeds completes this beauty. Dried stalks of cornucopia with the cob are often put at home in vases and then remember about the catches. It grows in places with a depth of up to 1.0-1.5 m. Most often it occurs in small marshy reservoirs. Young tender tops of rogoz leaves eat carp, tench, carp and roach. The leaves of a mature plant grow coarse, only cupid feeds on them. But the cattail likes to use pike as a substrate for laying eggs, which can be found among the young and among the old cattail.

Almost all of our fish avoid thickets of Canadian elodea, or, as it is also called, the "water plague". This name of the elodea acquired because of its ability to completely fill the reservoir, displacing and surviving all living things. Only the grass carp willingly eats the leaves of the elodea, and sometimes it is still possible to meet a pike before spawning.

Water horsetails - plants that form a lot of shoots and are prone to growth. Among them, botanists emit dozens of species, but usually we are confronted with marsh, silt or riverine. Externally, the horsetail is a very characteristic plant: it has a cylindrical, rather thin, segmented stalk, each segment of which is separated from the adjacent one by a ring of small leaves-cloves.

Horsetails, like reeds, have hollow stems that accumulate oxygen and enrich them with water. This is especially true for fish in the winter, in January - February. But be careful! Usually ice over a section of a reservoir where horsetails grow in winter is thin, and the angler risks swimming in such water.

Another aquatic plant produces a large amount of oxygen. These are various destinations that grow at depths of 2 to 4 m. They cannot stand leaves on the surface of the water, a careful angler can see poorly noticeable flowers that look like small fir-cones. All rdesta - perennial plants. They are well tolerated winter in our waters, helping the fish survive oxygen starvation. Some rdesst in winter in the ground develops a long rhizome, which in the spring gives new shoots. Dead sprouts Rdestov participate in the formation of silt bottom. Water mollusks, insects and fish of some species feed on the hades. Many fish use these plants as a substrate for spawning.

One of the most common destinations - comb - looks different from the rest: its stems are branched, and the leaves are thin and narrow. This rdest is found in shallow water, its flexible stems twist and sway. Its thickets often populate flocks of young fish that attract hungry adult fish. The next common species is a pierced leaf. It is most common in our waters, has long branched stems and rounded leaves, as if strung on the stem (hence the name). By the way, the owners of water motorcycles do not like this particular way - the plants are easily screwed on the outboard motors and are wound on oars.

The tops of the young leaves of the ridges of almost all species are favorite food for carp, roach, bream, ide, bleak, carp. In addition to herbivorous fish, many zoophagous fish graze around the riverbeds, since various invertebrates, insect larvae, mollusks and other aquatic organisms inhabit the thickets, which are attracted here by the increased oxygen content.

Another plant, popular with our fish, is urut. Hydrobotanics distinguish its five types, among them the most widespread in our reservoirs is gritty and Uruti whorled. Uruti spike grows at depths of 0.3 to 2 m, and urutus whorled grows at depths of 3-4 m. Uruti thickets usually grow on silt soils and like water rich in calcium. When the calcium content in the water is high, the leaves of the uruti are covered with a lime crust. The spike is very sensitive to the water temperature and less so to light.

Underwater meadows of the Uruti play a very important role in the life of the reservoir. In its thicket there are large clusters of small invertebrates, which are food for many inhabitants of the reservoir. Stacks of perches and lines love to pluck the leaves of the plant from invertebrates, and the urut itself is an excellent addition to the diet for bream, large roach, ide and other fish. In addition, the urut serves as a substrate for fish roe and a refuge for the entire animal population of the reservoir, especially for fry. In many reservoirs the pike uses thickets of uruti for an ambush.

Water lilies are unusual plants in many ways. They live in very warm, and in freezing through water bodies and are distributed almost everywhere: from the forest-tundra to the southern tip of the American continent. These amphibian plants are able to live (give leaves, bloom and bear fruit) both in water and on land (if the water level in the reservoir has greatly decreased). Fishes highly appreciate the aromatic qualities of the water-lily (many fish are attracted by the smell of its flowers) and edible. By the way, water lily seeds spread over long distances precisely by fish and birds.

The water lily grows at depths of 2.5-3 m, but now this remarkable plant can be found less and less in our reservoirs, and it is listed in the Red Book. Water lily bushes in closed reservoirs like to visit a carp, carp, crucian carp, roach, white bream, tench, perch (small), in the rivers - rudd, bleak, ide, pike, roach. The diet of carp includes only the youngest tender leaves, as well as rhizomes of water lilies, which contain a lot of starch, sugar and vegetable protein. Often, thickets of water lilies are scattered around the coastal strip behind the cattail of the angustifolia and lake reeds.

An interesting fact is that the water lilies, strictly at six o'clock in the morning, float to the surface of the water, open their inflorescences, and close strictly at six in the evening and again go under water. But this only applies to perfect weather, and as soon as the weather sets in, the water lily flowers, regardless of the time, go under water, or are not shown at all on such days. For anglers, the absence of water lily flowers on the surface is a visible sign of changing weather.

Many people confuse a white waterlily and a yellow capsule. Yellow capsule grows at depths of 2.5-3 m and is a characteristic plant of floodplain reservoirs. Thumps of gravel like to visit carp, roach, crucian carp, carp, bream, pike perch, ruff, tench, bleak, ide, bream, small perch, pike, roach, grass carp and even eel . The diet of many carp includes only the most tender young leaves (as in the water lily). Old leaves become hard, coarse, and unsuitable for fish, but tiny snails and small leeches, which are excellent food, like to settle on their underside.

Plants can not only injure fish with their sharp edges, but also cause harm to fish at night or in winter (with a short light day) by the fact that they absorb oxygen in the dark and release carbon dioxide harmful to fish. For plants, the process of photosynthesis, consisting of two phases, is characteristic. During the day (in the light), plants actively absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen in incomparably greater quantities than they consume during breathing, that is, they enrich them with water. In the dark, the absorption of carbon dioxide by plants ceases, and they only consume oxygen, which is becoming less and less in water.

With the rapid growth of aquatic vegetation and the high temperature of water in small lakes, a night fish freeze is possible, but even if it does not occur, the activity of searching for food in fish sharply decreases. With the beginning of the light phase, aquatic plants vigorously absorb carbon dioxide and process it into green mass. An intensive release of oxygen begins, and the food activity of the fish is restored. By noon, the process of photosynthesis slows down, there is less oxygen in the water, and fish behave less actively. For this reason, the food activity of fish during the daytime decreases in comparison with the dawns: the fish are already saturated. In addition, in the winter at any time of the day, under the ice, dead plants rot, absorbing oxygen, especially in stagnant water bodies. Exactly in these places there is a massive death of fish.

Lemna does not need a special presentation. Anyone who has been in the summer near lakes, ponds or old ditches with water, saw this plant, a dense emerald carpet tightening the surface of the water. Several species of duckweed, belonging to the Leesaceae family, are widely distributed throughout the earth, including the territory of Russia.

These are small plants floating on the surface or in the water column, consisting of fronds - leaf-shaped stems, fastened in several pieces among themselves, from which a single short filiform spine departs. At the base of the frond there is a side pocket in which a tiny inflorescence can develop, consisting of two stamens and one pistillate flowers. In natural reservoirs duckweed rarely bloom. The flowers have a simple structure: the stamens consist of only one stamen, and the pistillate ones have one pistil; there are no petals or sepals in such flowers. During the warm period of time, the plant multiplies vegetatively, with the help of young fronds, separated from the parent plant. Lemna wines in the form of buds, descending to the bottom along with a dead plant.
  Usually there are two types of duckweed Lemna small (L. minor) - see the figure on the left and Lemna tripartite (L. trisulca) - see the picture on the right. The small duckle inhabits many reservoirs and reproduces extremely quickly. The most common pond plant with flat elliptical leaflets 3-4.5 mm long, floating on the surface of the water.

Lemna trilobe relatively grows poorly, lives in the water column and rises to the surface during flowering. Differs in green translucent spoon-shaped leaflets 5-10 mm long. Leaflets for a long time are interconnected, forming balls that float in the water column and float to the surface during flowering.

The duckle is strongly branched and forms on the water surface a blanket of small bright green fronds with one spine below. Very rarely flowers appear in May-June.

Lemna multirooted, or multi-rooted ordinary - Lemna örrhyza = Spirodela îrhyhy Multiroot, not very often found in the same water bodies, where two kinds of duckweeds abundantly grow. From the bottom of each stalk, which has a rounded-ovoid shape, a bunch of reddish or white roots leaves. It blooms rarely in May and June. In the multirootus, the upper side of the leaf blade is dark green in color, with clearly visible arcuate veins, and the lower side, submerged in water, is purple-purple. Plate up to 6 mm in diameter.

All these types of duckweeds are cold-resistant and light-requiring. Live in reservoirs with stagnant or slowly flowing water.

When caring for the reservoir, it is necessary to constantly catch a part of the population or to purify water to create conditions that do not promote rapid growth. Reproduction is mainly vegetative and very fast. Each stalk, similar to a small leaf, buds off rather quickly new and new parts of stalks, which, having a connection with the main stalks, give rise to new young plants.

Species with individuals swimming on the surface of the water can, in a short time, completely “tighten” a small body of water. The duckweed, hunchbacked and multirooted, are particularly aggressive. These plants are rarely introduced into the reservoir intentionally. More often, they get there with the help of birds, frogs, tritons, and when transplanting other plants.

It is difficult to completely get rid of duckweed, but its number can be limited by driving plants to one place with a net or a stream of water from a garden hose, and then catching the same net with the same net. The extracted mass can be used for composting and as feed for birds.

These plants purify water bodies from carbon dioxide and supply them with oxygen, serve as food for fish and protect them from sunlight. But despite this, you should never intentionally introduce a duckweed into a reservoir, since if it appeared in your pond, it would be almost impossible to eradicate it. Be careful also when you bring other plants into the pond - make sure that there is no duckweed on the plant itself and in the water.