Lake Waconia & White Bear Lake, now listed as infested with Zebra Mussels

Well, here we go again. Two more Lake Gem’s in the Metro infested with Zebra Mussels.

http://www.swnewsmedia.com/chanhassen_villager/news/local/article_63784cbf-d951-599c-8fbb-e360a140c086.html

Very sad, but in my book, not unexpected with the high use each of these lake get.
How many more lakes will be discovered yet this year as Docks and Lifted, along with moored watercraft are pulled for the season?

Why can people just not follow the best practices encouraged by the MnDNR, “Clean, Drain & Dry”?

Do we need a WALL of SHAME like has been done for other Criminals? A Webpage where people can post photo’s of boats dragging weeds, the plug left in or water still spilling from the livewell overflow as they travel down the roads?

Just sad, but what is worse is the Ignorance of the general public when it comes to A.I.S., as reading comments on many Local TV News Webpages and Facebook Pages shows the majority blame us, Fishermen. In reality however, when it comes to the MnDNR, they have stated most defined causes of Zebra Mussels Infestations have been the Lakeshore Owners themselves moving Docks and Lifts from infested lakes into non-infested lakes. Just a couple weeks ago, the AIS Inspectors at Lake Waconia’s Public Access had 8-watercraft, ALL from Lakeshore Owners on Minnetonka attempting to launch into Waconia with Visible Zebra Mussels on their Watercraft! I just wish these FACTS were more Publicized for the general public to read and hear on the News.

Yes, we sportsmen & women need to do our part, Clean, Drain & Dry!
Have a great weekend!

JD Winston wrote:

It is a shame. I fish Waconia quite often. I am curious what other guys do to clean their boats after fishing. Just a hose down in the driveway, high pressure wash at the car wash? I’m assuming we all check for weeds when we pull out.

Well, it appears to me based on the information from Inspectors and the DNR that Lakeshore Owners, with their own watercraft, docks and lifts are more to blame than the average joe boater.

With multiple access points and not having 24/7 inspections, it was seen as coming. But more than that, if we could stop the moored boats from infested lakes from leaving the lake without decontamination, we could slow them down.

IMO, I foresee hearing of many more lakes being found to being contaminated this fall as Lifts and Docks along with all the Moored Boats are pulled for the season.

I know many guys that wash their boats when returning home, either at a car wash or in their driveway. I use soapy (Organic Compound, No Phosphates) water to wash mine and it drain thru my lawn, not into the street where it would run into a storm drain and into public waters.

It’s no surprise to me. It was just a matter of time until my home water was filled with zeebs. In my younger days working at the In Towne Marina, it was amazing the disregard of a lot of AIS laws at the time.

We all thought milfoil was going to destroy the lake 10 years or so ago, completely choked off a lot of the bays and now it’s on a major down cycle. Heck it was almost hard to find at some points.

I bought a 2 gallon sprayer on sale at Fleet Farm a couple years ago to use with a bleach solution. I keep this stuff mixed and in the garage at ready to travel. When the boat comes out of the water and is draining I start at the front and work to the back spraying the hull and bunks with a 5 parts water to 1 part solution of cheap bleach. I toss a couple old bath towels in the van with the sprayer to wipe the loose water in the drain area inside the boat up and give it a shot of the bleach too.

The guys from the DNR I see at the launches like this. I do not spray this at the water’s edge. I generally need to pull up the ramp a ways to get all the water to drain and the few feet away keeps the spray off the water and I don’t spray enough to be running in puddles off the rig.

Like the plug law and practicing a self-imposed limited harvest, this spraying becomes a thing of habit and goes a long way to preventing this spread. What worried me even more is the front that is attacking the unfettered public use of public waters that seem to be an agenda that many of the TC shoreline associations. I am a firm believer in teaching by practice. What I do is my business and just how I do things yet I have people asking about the sprayer almost every time I hit the water with the boat. If more people did this and were seen at those Metro landings taking time to go the extra step I think it would take a ton of air out of the sails of those who are attacking a basic freedom.

Tom, I can seriously appreciate your taking the extra step, but you think it would be a good idea if all anglers in MN take bleach to their rigs? Those chemicals go somewhere, and it works just fine for yourself, but throw it on a macro scale and I don’t see it being a good thing.

If someone were to do this on their lawn at the house, fine, a lot of organic material to soak it up, but on a driveway, ramp, parking area it will find its way into our waters.

Is it proven your mix kills these guys, just curious I can’t recall anything on it.

The dnr saviors I have met while doing my thing have said that as long as the solution is applied away from the water’s edge or that it isn’t applied so wet that its running on pavement, no sweat. They also said that this certainly doesn’t hurt. I know I feel better thinking I might be making a difference.

UPDATE:

Lake Independence listed as INFESTED today !!!!!!!

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/277675171.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

How many more this Fall????

The new MN trailer stickers should help with the spread of this? I hope. I would hate to put my boat in on the WI side of the Mississippi and drive across the channel and infect that side of the river.

carroll58 wrote:

UPDATE:

Lake Independence listed as INFESTED today !!!!!!!

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/277675171.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

How many more this Fall????

I think the no wake restriction that was in effect this summer is probably the biggest cause of all of these infestations. The problem is that it was not consistent for all lakes. So people on a lake like Minnetonka that had the restriction still had somewhere else they could go at any given time. They should have made the restriction effective for ALL metro lakes. The people who likely spread this aren’t used to inspections, they just leave their boat tied up to their dock.

JD Winston wrote:

It is a shame. I fish Waconia quite often. I am curious what other guys do to clean their boats after fishing. Just a hose down in the driveway, high pressure wash at the car wash? I’m assuming we all check for weeds when we pull out.

I always lift the tongue of my trailer up to get all water to the back of the boat, and remove all of it immediately with a sponge and/or shop vac. If I have been in a zeb infested lake, the boat gets hosed down. My boat is stored indoors in my garage, and is always kept in there for at least 5 days after drying before going to a different lake.

My boat has a channel in the keel that seems to catch all water under the floor and divert it to the back, but only if the tongue of the trailer is lifted up. However, not all boats are made like this. My previous boat was impossible to fully drain this way, you had to get in there with a sponge or vac and get in between all of the floor ribs, or tip it over.

People should be free to move their boat from lake to lake no matter what type of lake restrictions there are in the area. When are people going to wake up and realize this spread can’t be controlled? Sure we might be able to slow it down a bit, but its going to happen, “no wake” or not. And for most people that fish a lot, keeping your boat out of the water for 5 days is not realistic and neither is power washing it or doing a scrub down at 2am when you get off the water.

Frankly, the faster these lakes all get infested the quicker we can maybe return to not worrying about them so much. I have yet to read about one lake that has been destroyed by Zebes. If you find one let me know.

So far the only facts we know about these things is that they clean/clear up the water, kill off some weeds (which a lot of metro lakes could really use), create a nuisance when swimming, and clog up intakes on boats and pumps. They multiply and spread and create some chaos for a couple of years, then they kill themselves off and find a happy balance. The DNR is spending a TON of money with not much to show for their efforts other than a lot of angry people who they continue to handcuff with nonsense regulations and those who think their lake is ruined when an invasive specie is discovered.

Trouten wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>carroll58 wrote:</div>
UPDATE:

Lake Independence listed as INFESTED today !!!!!!!

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/277675171.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

How many more this Fall????

I think the no wake restriction that was in effect this summer is probably the biggest cause of all of these infestations. The problem is that it was not consistent for all lakes. So people on a lake like Minnetonka that had the restriction still had somewhere else they could go at any given time. They should have made the restriction effective for ALL metro lakes. The people who likely spread this aren’t used to inspections, they just leave their boat tied up to their dock.

You don’t fish the metro much do you? Indy Waconia white bear and bald eagle all had no wake as long or longer than Tonka. No wake had no effect on the spread of zeebs.
This isn’t the end of the world people it’s not a pandemic or the collapse of an ecosystem. Look at Lake Erie it’s had zeebs for more than 20 years and is widely regarded as the best walleye fishery in the world. Tonka has had them for 5-7 years and I haven’t seen the fishing effected at all. Adapt and change folks…

How’s this, license the docks and the boeys that moore the boats then have those that have docks and moore take an ais test designed for them and have a nice brite orange reflective sticker that must be displayed in a promanant postion to be clearly viewed by the owner and law enforcement . Wait for a while and watch the complaints fly in.

nhamm wrote:

Tom, Those chemicals go somewhere, and it works just fine for yourself, but throw it on a macro scale and I don’t see it being a good

Chlorine evaperates. My guess a propper dilluted mixture and a spray down away from waters edge it would be evapperated before it would get to the water if any sollution were to hit the ground. As for the boat to chlorine be gone before it got home or to the next landing.
To each his own, what ever one’s comfortable with as far as cleani the boat at least there is an attmpt and that good.

This isn’t the end of the world people it’s not a pandemic or the collapse of an ecosystem. Look at Lake Erie it’s had zeebs for more than 20 years and is widely regarded as the best walleye fishery in the world. Tonka has had them for 5-7 years and I haven’t seen the fishing effected at all. Adapt and change folks…

Boy, I was beginning to think I was the only one that thought like this!

I love the St Croix where we spent millions of dollars for the Check Point only to have it abandoned after a few years.
You and I couldn’t go past it, but the folks that lived up stream of it had a free run of the river.

And people are laughing at MN because of the no cull rules.

I feel very fortunate to fish two body’s of water that are infested with just about everything.

And the fishing is pretty darn good I might add.

timschmitz wrote:

You don’t fish the metro much do you? Indy Waconia white bear and bald eagle all had no wake as long or longer than Tonka. No wake had no effect on the spread of zeebs.
This isn’t the end of the world people it’s not a pandemic or the collapse of an ecosystem. Look at Lake Erie it’s had zeebs for more than 20 years and is widely regarded as the best walleye fishery in the world. Tonka has had them for 5-7 years and I haven’t seen the fishing effected at all. Adapt and change folks…

I don’t fish WBL, Waconia, or independence. But I do know that Xmas lake, which I fish all the time, had it’s no wake restriction lifted before tonka did. Add to that, the AIS inspectors at Xmas were not there at least 4 times that I went on weekends. I watched a huge wakeboard boat launch when I was leaving the lake, no inspector was there. This was during the time that Minnetonka was still restricted, and Xmas was not. Not saying that particular boat is the reason for the infestation, but there’s a good possibility that it was a lake minnetonka homeowner launching it there because they couldn’t use it on the lake they lived on, and that the boat was not properly decontaminated… and it puked those 5000 zeebs from its ballast tank. Certainly possible.

I agree that it’s going to be difficult to stop the spread of these things, but when my favorite lake’s access is closed and could potentially be poisoned with chemicals because of this, I have a hard time calmly saying “who cares, they will spread anyways”. I’m not going to repeat everything that has been said in the Xmas lake thread, and sure, I can go to another lake… but what happens when more and more lakes start getting closed because of homeowners associations and/or the DNR deciding that all of the fish in the lakes should be nuked to stop this, and then close public access permanently to stop it from happening again.

The sky may not be falling because the zebra mussels have gotten into a lake, but it can fall very easily if someone with more money/power than us makes an idiotic decision and gets their way.

This is why we made such a fuss over Christmas because whatever those $%*#%(&^ get away with, may apply to these lakes. Can you imagine that $h*@!!??
Setting the wrong precedent has never been more dangerous to sportsman of MN.

Lemme know when the lake dies, then I’ll tell the paper it’s time for a headline

timschmitz wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Trouten wrote:</div>

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>carroll58 wrote:</div>
UPDATE:

Lake Independence listed as INFESTED today !!!!!!!

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/277675171.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue

How many more this Fall????

I think the no wake restriction that was in effect this summer is probably the biggest cause of all of these infestations. The problem is that it was not consistent for all lakes. So people on a lake like Minnetonka that had the restriction still had somewhere else they could go at any given time. They should have made the restriction effective for ALL metro lakes. The people who likely spread this aren’t used to inspections, they just leave their boat tied up to their dock.

You don’t fish the metro much do you? Indy Waconia white bear and bald eagle all had no wake as long or longer than Tonka. No wake had no effect on the spread of zeebs.
This isn’t the end of the world people it’s not a pandemic or the collapse of an ecosystem. Look at Lake Erie it’s had zeebs for more than 20 years and is widely regarded as the best walleye fishery in the world. Tonka has had them for 5-7 years and I haven’t seen the fishing effected at all. Adapt and change folks…

Do you even fish the metro? White bear never had a wake restriction, it’s like 6 feet down why would it? Bald eagle never had one either. Get your facts straight

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

Lemme know when the lake dies, then I’ll tell the paper it’s time for a headline

Brilliant…Wow.

roosterrouster wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:</div>
Lemme know when the lake dies, then I’ll tell the paper it’s time for a headline

Brilliant…Wow.

Well, considering Christmas lake’s access has been closed for almost 3 months, the lake is “dead” to anyone who wants to fish it.