There is little to update you with as of September 3, 2021, other than to say that we continue to find that we are seeing new behavior on the lake with respect to algae and weeds. This is causing the management team to review their plans and begin to formulate alternatives that might impact what we are now seeing. But please read anyway as I do have feedback and information that is relevant to what I suspect many are thinking about.
Positive Feedback: First, let me pass along the positive feedback that I received from Charlie Messing. The presence of more shore plants is making our efforts to manage the lake much much better. There is visible evidence that the water column is much less burdened by nutrients and it is felt that the addition of shore plants (of which many are simply volunteer growth by not clear cutting the shoreline) is making a difference — THANK YOU!
Some more you could try: Charlie noticed that the water around my dock and one other in my area seems more clear of “plant” mass in the water. He was wondering why that might be. In one case (my neighbor), he tends to be a bit more active at removing algae in the water. I do a little (very little), and he does much more. But something that we both do a lot is feed the fish. I’ve noticed that when I actively feed the fish daily, the water around my dock seems to “clear up” of weeds. Charlie’s hypothesis is that the action of the fish feeding in the area is helping to agitate the water and reduce the presence of the various water-born algae and weeds. He wonders if more “fish feeding” might be of help. This is a TOTAL GUESS on our part. But if you enjoy such activity, you might try it out. I buy a 25 pound (or 50 — can’t remember) bag of catfish pellets at the Weems Road feed store (off of Mahan). It’s very inexpensive. I toss out about 3-4 cups of it a day and a bag lasts for months. I have been buying the “floating pellet” variety, but I soak it before putting it out so that it will sink as I think the fish like it better :-). I have a sealed plastic bin to keep this in so that other “wildlife” are not attracted.
Charlie actually suspects that the sinking pellet variety would be more effective as it promotes the fish agitating the water at the lower lake bottom levels — I think he’s correct. So buy the sinking variety if it’s available and you won’t have pre-soak yours! NOTE: If the fish do not seem to be interested the first few days you try this — KEEP GOING — they will find you and get interested!
Future plans:
At present, we are still in the formulation phase of plans for next year. New plans are likely to be implemented in the spring and summer next year to address what we are seeing now.
However, that does not mean we will discontinue efforts this year. In fact, there are plans to conduct at least one, if not two more lake treatments this year. The primary target of these treatments will remain the Filamentous Algae (FA) that tends to decay and show up on the surface as brown blobs of floating islands.
The challenge at this time is that the treatments which have worked so well for the past 3 years are not resulting in the sinking of the decaying algae this year. The algae is still being killed, it just is not sinking. We see that instead, the Southern Naiad (SN) weed that has become more prevalent on the lake is floating near the surface when it is “cut” from below by the feeding carp. This floating SN is “holding” the FA from sinking as readily. So what we see across the surface (while smaller in square footage size) is still what appears to be large floating masses of FA. In fact, if you were to get close in a boat, you would see that it’s actually a mix of FA and SN (whereas before it was 100% FA).
So we continue to be optimistic that the tougher to remove FA is being reduced in mass across the lake and the easier to manage SN is taking its place. We just have to time very carefully when to begin attacking the SN so as not to allow the FA to once again take hold. This is a learning process and it will take time to apply several strategies to see which is most effective. There are active plans to address this through the next growing season.
In the meantime, we are also working on strategies that might help reduce the remaining floating islands within the lake. We are confident that in cooler weather it will dissipate anyway, but we still have a month or so before that cooler weather will arrive.
We also are seeing more and more of a very small floating weed that if left unmanaged could become quite a nuisance — so we are planning for that as well.
I’ll share more once we have a greater degree of certainty what elements are likely to be employed. In the meantime, if you really need more information, please reach out to me via email at lbh@dmispro.com (I’m happy to leave this email channel of communications open as long as the emails remain constructive and positive).
Fred