good news or bad news?

[bamabassman]

well i have been waiting till it is resolved, but can no longer wait. TVA which controls lake gunterville, has decided NOT to spray the lake (private boathouses, piers and so forth) anymore. says it cost over $800,00.00 per year and they can no longer afford it. now this is also after they gave out almost that much in bonuses. mixed feelings here as to what it will do to the lake. i feel that there will be folks putting just about everything in to control the grass, some good for the enviroment, and some real bad. what do ya'll think? i think TVA should keep control of the spraying by the way. at least that way we know what is going in right?

[bassinbob]

I guess the bad news is what the people might throw in to kill the grass. It will probably be sometime before they see the error of their way (TVA). Up here in Pa. they are drawing down a number of lakes to try to control the weeds. Not too much talk about it except from the ice fishermen.

[BigBassin144]

i'd say it's more bad news than good. If they don't control the weeds, they might take over, and like you said, you don't know what people are going to dump into the water either. I say they should still control the weeds.

BB

[zooker]

what are they spraying for bama weeds or algea??

zooker

[bamabassman]

they were spraying for mostly milfoil zooker. now if they DON'T continue doing it, the homeowners wil do it themselves. and i am willing to bet my cajun that the idiots will use roundup or something similar. and that stuff will kill more than just the grass. i am keeping a close eye on this. the cities of scottsboro and guntersville have gotten the senators involved now. we'll see what happens. and i'll let ya'll know.

[Bender]

Up here they have a Department of Environmental Quality that writes permits for private parties to spray. They "should" do a water evaluation and impact study before granting the permits but they end up giving them to anybody that pays.
Many of the lakes around here get sprayed so heavily that there is nothing left but we still catch fish there. It makes it much more difficult to fish and I think that it really stunts their growth.
For your sake I hope that they regulate it somehow, if anybody can dump whatever chemical they want in the lake it will hurt it I'm sure.

[Raul]

There´s a lake about 2 hours drive from my home town called El Salto ( by the way the EL Salto y´all know about is not really the official name of the lake FYI ) near the town of Capilla de Guadalupe, good sized lake, great bass fishing ........ that was until the authorities launched in the water hyacynth harvesting machines per request from the local commercial fisherman and the CONAGUA comission.

See, the lake had a lot of water hyacynth floating around all year long which if all put together could cover about 1/5th of the lake surface, of course that the thing drifts around with the air ( been "trapped" several times by it ) and moves along with it the gill nets the commercial fisherman use to catch carp and tilapia, plus, during the warm months it multiplies quite fast contaminating ( and choking ) other impoundments below that lake and the irrigation channels, something the CONAGUA and SAGARPA don´t want.

So they launched in a couple of machines and in less than a week 99.9% of the lake was stripped clean of the water hyacynth ( with the exception of a few isolated plants that managed to escape the machines ) and s*t happened, from being a place where you could catch 30-50 fish in a day like the one in the pic I´m going to post now you can only catch in a good day 5-10 ( see the water hyacynth behind me ), that´s when you you don´t get empty handed ( something that didn´t happen before the machines ).

I´d say that not killing the weeds is good news in a certain degree.

[JB]

I'd have to say the same thing, only because I've know several lakes here that we fished all the time in the 80's and it was great fishing, then after the spraying the numbers went way down, plus you have to put up with that 7-10 days of no bites at all right after the spraying.
Raul, nice bass!

[jasonfish320]

The University of Maine's environmental programs work closely with the State and over the past few year's have taken over monitoring and removing a lot of "millfoil" type weeds that have been infecting our lakes. If you have any big Universities in the area I might think about writing to the department heads, they have a lot of expendable funds and with Dems running things in the white house I would expect to see a lot more grants handed down to Universities who participate in any environmental programs.

[doc]

weeds also help keep the lake lizzards and pleasure boaters off the water

[Raul]

Originally Posted by JB

I'd have to say the same thing, only because I've know several lakes here that we fished all the time in the 80's and it was great fishing, then after the spraying the numbers went way down, plus you have to put up with that 7-10 days of no bites at all right after the spraying.
Raul, nice bass!

That´s what I mean, 30-50 fish like that in a day with weeds vs 5-10 ( if the conditions are right ) without weeds, who wouldn´t be pissed that the machines removed the hyacynth ?

The only good thing I have to say about not having weeds is that I don´t get "trapped" while ketching fish like those, don´t know about you but I don´t mind having to row to free the boat from the hyacynth if I can catch average fish like that .

[mont_lunker_hunter]

what about carp? There will still be some grass but it will be kept at a manageable level (as long as carp levels are kept at manageable levels).

[zooker]

ya would have to ask pnj but i think that ny about drained two lakes to kill the milfoil.. i would definatly look for a big draw down on g-ville. there is a certain amount of milfoil here but it i small..

please note the army corps of engineers regulates all water ways in the US far as exceptable water level..the tva can only draw it down as far as 3 feet above the bottom of any city drinking water supply intake.



zooker

[bamabassman]

i agree that the grass and such is EXCELLENT for the fishing. my problem is the homeowners and businesses. WHAT are they gonna put in the water to kill the stuff? are they gona do it the right way, or the wrong way. do they know what is bad for the water, do they really care? that is what i am really worried about. guntersville lake has been one of the top producing lakes in the country. if they don't keep a really strict eye on the homeowners and businesses, it spells doom for the lake. i am still looking daily to see what happens.

[Fish2win]

We used to have two lakes that would on occasion produce 10 lb largemouth. They were Tellico and Watts Bar. There was a third lakr Melton Hill that did not produce 10 pound fish but was a fish factory. TVA poisoned the Mill Foil to the point it will not come back. Result, I have not heard of 10 LB LM in years from either lake and it is hard to catch a limit of 14 inch keepers from Melton Hill. The land owners around the lake did not poison the grass. TVA did it real well. The water ski crowd wanted it and got it. The bass paid the price and so did the fishermen.
The upper TVA lakes do not contain Mill Foil because of the winter draw down.
Fish2win