What’s been your experience ….

What’s been your experience with chemical treatments of the water for weeds? Little Bass Lake by Winnebago goes through an annual lets kill the weeds spraying and it really tips over the fishery in that little lake. They seem to dump the poisons in as soon as the curly pond weed starts to surface which is basically right in the middle of bass spawn or when the fry are up and the sunnies are trying to spawn… This year it literally drove nearly every fish from the shoreline out 30 – 50 yards. I’ve always wondered what affect that has on the fishery beyond what I’m seeing as a casual observer. I have not read any studies about the effects… whats your experience with this?

Curt

It’s gotta have horrendous effects on oxygen, I cannot believe they allow things like this to go on…

Curt,

Good post, I’d like to know more about this topic. I grew up on Lake Onalaska, and I’ve noticed over the past 15 or so years, a huge increase in the amount of vegetation. And i’m not talking about good vegetation, i’m talking about that thick good for nothing sludge. Any of you guys who fish the Lake know what i’m talking about..

If it gets any worse, I would almost support something to kill some of it…

I live on a small private lake (just under 400 acres) in northern Illinois for the past 20 years. They built the lake about 34 years ago. The weeds made the fishing great. We hade 2 of those weed cutting boats running every weekday to keep them in check. About 8 years ago someboby had the great idea that they could control the weeds w/ something. Well for the next 7 years you couldnt even find a weed. This hurt the fishing real bad I feel. No more weedlines for walleys; no pockets for bass; no cover for gills. The last 2 years weve been planting weeds in areas and weed patches are starting to show up again It will take many more years to make it even close to what it was. Not that many years ago it was not uncommon to catch 8# walleys; 6# bass; 13″ crappies and an occasional tiger muskie. Hope to live long enough to have this kind of fishing again in my own backyard. Since the weed kill we’ve raised all the lenght limits and lowered the kreel limits to the point where some fish are catch & release only. Hopefully there will soon be a time that we will need the cutting boats again. Ted, you know what i’m talking about, we both fished the lake back in the 80’s. seeya

Curt,

I fish Lake Demontreville in Washington County every weekend. For years now they’ve been spraying the lake a week after Bass Opener. This kills off the Milfoil, but also eliminates the coontail, most of the cabbage, and the junk weeds. Basically most of the shallow water cover is gone. There still are some weeds out deeper (12-15 feet). Depending on the weather, the lake looks like fall turnover just happened. The water turns brown, there’s dead weeds floating around, and it STINKS. This year the water is very clear and it looks like early April. I do most of my Bass fishing with a Flyrod so the loss of the shallow water cover really messes up my game plan.

I’d like to know how anyone can dump poison into a public lake without any public notice. They used to stick little orange signs around the edge of the lake but they don’t even do that any more. Seriously, does anyone really think that a few patches of weeds are worse for a lake than dumping herbicide into it?

While we’re on the subject, I watched the DNR use one of those weed harvesting machines on Bald Eagle. From what they tell us, any small piece of Milfoil can grow a new plant. So they put a machine into the lake and chop it up into a million pieces? How much sense does that make? They were unloading the weed cutting machine onto a flat bed and from where I was standing I could see hundreds of dead fish mixed in with the weeds. I asked the operator why I get to keep one limit of fish and he gets to kill 10,000? He just walked away.

RootSki

All in all spraying herbicides in a lake to kill the weeds is a bad deal. Ultimately it will hurt the fish population of every species. I went to a bassmasters university several years ago and Mark Menendez said the one thing that hurt fisheries the most in Kentucky and Tennessee was when the T.V.A. went in to all the lakes and started controlling the weeds with chemicals.

Glad to see I’m not alone in this. Its a frustrating thing when you love the fishery to see the poisons added and, in my opinion, some pretty odd logic by the DNR. In little Bass Lake which is 400 acres or so they kill the lake completely, restock it, the land owners over fertilize and over sprinkle the lawns which increases the run off jumps the lake fertility in leaps and bounds. They have not paid sufficient attention to controlling the run off by landscaping. The aquatic weed growth is tremendous partially because of the increased fertility. The land owners complain because they can’t move their boats the way they would like, gets a permit to poison the shoreline but receives no lecture or education about how the problem is occurring and reoccuring in the first place at the time the permit is purchased, complains because the water clarity has now gone south and the algea bloom has blasted forward. The lake stinks in the summer so they believe its dead. The fishing is no longer good so they kill the lake again and start the entire insanity over again… (drives me nuts hahaha) getting the same permits to do the same process without any education or interruption by the DNR.

On the other hand… We can’t fish catch and release before spawn is essentially finished in Southern Minnesota for fear of damaging the fishery… many of the spawning bays (which I support) are off limits till June 30th for fishing BUT we can poison it before June 30th…or earlier at about the worst time to poison the lake without regard to the fishery. They don’t seem to be able to find the money to provide the landowners with an education when they get the permit but when I pull up to any number of lakes I am greeted by a DNR spotter employed to educate me on the hazards of transporting exotic species… a spotter with a cue card because they don’t really know the difference between alot of the weeds… who gives me a sticker I must attach to my boat trailer to verify I’ve received the training…

Ok … off the soap box hehehe I probably should write the DNR rather than take it out here hahaha.

Curt