Part of the Muskegon Lake shoreline where debris is being removed and stabilized with native vegetation to restore coastal habitat.
In Muskegon, Michigan we are restoring wetlands and stabilizing shorelines at 10 separate locations. The effort is helping Muskegon Lake, the Muskegon River and Lake Michigan recover from impairments to wetlands and the loss of fish and wildlife. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.
Money spent on restoration is also helping to stimulate the local economy: the project produced a 6-to-1 return on the investment.
The ecological benefits of this project are clear. Our partners will remove more than 200,000 tons of sawmill waste and demolition material from shallow water and wetlands. They will replace 10,000 feet of hardened shoreline with native vegetation and restore nearly 24 acres of wetland. These changes will help fish and other wildlife return to their native habitat.
The economic benefits are clear as well. We invested $10 million in the project with our partner, the Great Lakes Commission.
A study undertaken by the Commission suggests that the project will generate:
a $12 million increase in property values,
$600,000 in new tax revenues annually
more than $1 million a year in new recreational spending in Muskegon
65,000 additional visitors annually
an additional 55 cents in the local economy for every federal dollar spent
All told, for a $10 million investment, the project will create $66 million in economic benefits. The project will also create jobs in an area with an unemployment rate higher than 12 percent, while creating healthier habitat and more fish.
Small lakes, streams, lagoons contain prime fish habitat
Bob McNally/The Times-Union
Mark Shaw of Ponte Vedra Beach shows a chunky bass he caught from a lagoon adjacent to a Northeast Florida golf course. Small boats are allowed on the lagoon.
Most of the world’s best golfers this week gather at the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course in Ponte Vedra Beach. They’re there to tackle undulating and tricky greens, tough bunkers, tight fairways, and water hazards full of gators, snakes and sometimes round white balls.
But also on the agenda of some of those elite golfers is fishing in the ponds, lakes, lagoons and famous water hazards in and around the Stadium Course. Those waters are loaded with fish, including largemouth bass the size of newborn babies. The Sawgrass complex of lagoons and other watery spots is chock full of heavyweight bass, many weighing well more than 10 pounds, and fish to 15 pounds have been caught.
Those are truly world-class fish that many anglers in many places would pay a bundle to hook.
Often before or after a practice round, or a tough day in the rough, players such as Davis Love III, Tiger Woods, Boo Weekley, Greg Norman, Mark O’Meara and many others have been known to hang up a graphite driver in favor of a graphite casting rod at The Players.
The bass fishing is so good in waters at the Stadium Course that years ago it was voted the best for big bass by elite PGA Tour fishermen. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.
A poll was taken among the golf pros who fish different courses on Tour to learn which of the many places they visit offers the best fishing. The Stadium Course won by a wide margin.
Only players with PGA credentials, very special guests and perhaps course residents are allowed to fish Stadium Course waters, especially during the tournament. But area anglers should take a tip from the golfers that some of the best and most consistent fishing that anglers could ever hope for can be found in the water hazards and nearby ponds and lakes of golf courses.
Not only do golf course waters have bass, but many are loaded with bluegills, crappies and catfish. In coastal regions, often saltwater species seep into the freshwaters or tidal waters of golf courses. Plenty of golf courses in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas are full of fish such as red drum, flounder, baby tarpon, snook, ladyfish, black drum and other species.
While great fishing can be discovered in golf course waters, it’s probably wise not to eat fish caught from them because of the pesticides and fertilizers used on nearby turf. Nevertheless, for fun catch-and-release fishing, few places offer better action than golf course waters.
Getting permission to fish golf ponds can be challenging, particularly on private country clubs — which frequently offer the best action. But it’s worth the effort gaining access. Sometimes meeting and talking with the club pro is worthwhile. Explain you’ll not interfere with golfers on the course, and all fish will be released unharmed. Some golf courses are closed on Mondays, which is a prime time to fish their waters, and permission to fish is more easily obtained then. Dawn, dusk and night fishing is worthwhile because golfers are not on courses, and anglers don’t interfere with play.
In many golf course communities, residents and their guests are allowed to fish, so it pays to make friends with golfers. Golf resorts are popular vacation spots, and guests often have permission to fish water hazards as long as they don’t hamper golf play.
In large golf Meccas, frequently several courses are available, and many feature large, wandering connected ponds and creeks that snake around the area. Many such waters appear small, but instead might cover hundreds of acres, with many places surrounded by overgrown vegetation that’s ideal fish habitat.
Sometimes small, lightweight johnboats, canoes, kayaks and float tubes can be put in, which allows anglers to get far away from golfers and other people — to waters rarely fished. Electric fishing motors often are allowed on boats in golf course communities.
At some golf resorts, angling by visitors is encouraged on water hazards, to the point that improved boat ramps are available, and large bass boats even can be launched and used for fishing. Usually, no big outboards can be used, however, only quiet electric motors.
An important plus for golf course waters is that most are small, shallow, and have limited fishing pressure. Therefore, it takes comparatively little time for anglers to locate fish. More often than not, course ponds and lakes were dug by construction crews for use as fill when building greens, tees and bunkers.
Consequently, water hazards commonly have great structures such as holes, underwater islands, humps, bars, tapering points and drop-offs. Some golf ponds are mini-reservoirs, complete with creek channel edges, flooded timber and stumps, riprap and deep dam water.
In some shallow, natural golf course waters there is no well-defined structure to hold fish. In such waters, the outside edges of grass lines and lily pads might hold almost every fish in the lake or pond. Sometimes, ponds have deep undercut banks that harbor big bass and other species, particularly in sunny weather. Find a cool, shady bank with overhanging willows or other trees and you might have discovered the best fishing spot on an entire water hazard.
Bulkheads around greens and near fairway bunkers, and small footbridges for golf carts over water hazards, also can be outstanding fishing spots. I once stopped on such a bridge on a public Florida golf course and looked down into the shadows, hoping to see bass or bream.
Instead, I spotted a school of about a dozen catfish, none less than 10 pounds.
A little schmoozing of the club pro got permission to fish for the cats, and that afternoon friends and I worked them over using baits on bottom. We caught over a dozen hard-fighting channel cats, including one behemoth pushing nearly 20 pounds.
We released every cat, and have several times since fished the same water hazard — no doubt landing and releasing some of the same catfish over several years.
Not once have we seen another angler working the same spot, though many dozens of golfers cross the bridge daily.By Bob McNally
LEADVILLE — Fish habitat enhancement work is set to begin later this year on public parts of the upper Arkansas River below the Highway 24 bridge as biologists and engineers with Colorado Parks and Wildlife prepare to restore a section of river that was once mostly lifeless because of decades of mining activity.
The river restoration work is a key part of the federal and state effort to restore the California Gulch Superfund Site, an 18-square-mile area where historic mining activities occurred. Mines in the area created the discharge of heavy metals and acid into California Gulch at the headwaters of the Arkansas River, making the river in that area unable to sustain healthy fish populations. The river currently supports a trout population because of earlier mine cleanup efforts.
Improvements will be centered on an 11-mile stretch of the river from California Gulch downstream to Twobit Gulch. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.
Conservation groups, lake associations and local governments can help improve fish habitat and water quality through a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) grants program. Read more…………fish
Pleasant Valley — Students at Pleasant Valley Middle School have become experts at river ecology. First, educators from the Estuary Partnership visited classrooms to teach lessons on river ecology. Then students applied the lessons by donning gloves and boots and planting 1,100 native plants in Pleasant Valley Community Park next to their school on March 12 and 28. These students join a larger partnership of Estuary Partnership and Northwest Wild Fish Rescue working to restore fish habitat in the park. Additional funding for stream restoration was provided by Clark County. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.
WASHINGTON, DC – Federal legislation now requires the Army Corps of Engineers to address the safety risks of placing dead trees in Lake Chelan to offset the environment damage allegedly caused by building a dock.
The House Appropriations Committee passed a bill April 25 that requires the Corps to address the safety risks to recreational users of woody debris placed in Lake Chelan, according to U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wenatchee). For about a decade, agencies issuing building permits for docks on Lake Chelan required applicants to offset the alleged damage to fish habitat by placing large woody debris in the form of dead fruit trees, bundled with steel cable and rocks, on the lake bed. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.
“Individuals wishing to construct a residential dock must pass through an exhaustive and very expensive permit process,” wrote boating safety instructor Russ Jones in a guest column to The Mirror. “Yet any agency wishing to deposit non-native species into the lake appear to be able to do so without the simplest of review processes. This was also the case with the use of submerged fruit trees. No prior study was conducted nor has there been any follow up study.”
With the dramatic rise and fall of the water level through the different seasons, local residents have raised concerns about the possible movement of this woody debris and the safety hazards that it poses to boaters and other recreational users of the lake, Hastings said.
“Washington residents have enjoyed waterskiing, swimming, boating and fishing in Lake Chelan for generations, and it is critical that it remain a safe environment for recreation,” said Hastings, who contributed language in the bill, “I am pleased that the Appropriations Committee acknowledges the need for the Corps to address the safety hazards of woody debris in Lake Chelan and reevaluate its use in the future so Lake Chelan can remain a safe place for Washington families to enjoy recreational activities. Additionally, I question the science and lack of monitoring of large woody debris as a mitigation requirement.”
In January 2011, Chelan City Council members unanimously adopted a complicated resolution restricting the use of large woody debris as an environmental offset to construction projects such as boat docks over the lake.
“In layman’s language, it would allow large woody debris but only low enough where it won’t interfere with boaters,” said council member Wendy Isenhart at that time. “It’s our responsibility to make policy here and we need an expression of our policy.”
Chelan County Commissioners followed shortly thereafter with a similar resolution.
Hastings’ language, which was included in the report accompanying the Fiscal Year 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, requires the Army Corps of Engineers to report back to Congress on their efforts to address the safety hazards posed by woody debris in Lake Chelan, the liability of the Corps and private dock owners should a person or property be injured or destroyed by the woody debris, and whether woody debris should continue to be an acceptable option offered for mitigation within Lake Chelan.
In March, Hastings, who has long questioned the need to mitigate the impact of docks on fish, submitted a request to Administrator Lubchenco of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the science used to determine the impact of docks on fish species.
Lubchenco has yet to respond to this request. At least six federal, state and county agencies require anyone building a dock on Lake Chelan to offset its alleged environmental detriment to fish.
One prescribed method is to anchor apple trees, referred to as large woody debris, near the shoreline to create artificial fish habitats. The Army Corps of Engineers and the State Department of Ecology created a prospectus that includes research allegedly proving this method would work in Lake Chelan.
The agencies call the trees “large woody debris” and fear that every time a portion of the lake is covered by such things as docks, it has a negative impact on the ecology of the lake.
Making up for that negative impact, by tethering dead trees near the lake shoreline to create habitat for fish, is called “mitigation.”
Gulf Council begins process to properly recognize value of artificial reefs
CORPUS CHRISTI, TX – A request to have the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council begin the process of classifying rigs and other vital artificial reefs as Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) was unanimously approved by the Council at its April meeting in Corpus Christi, Texas. Dr. Bob Shipp, Council member from Alabama and chairman of the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of South Alabama, made the motion as part of an effort to protect those structures from a 2010 federal directive to summarily remove all non-producing energy structures within five years of the issuance of that directive.
“This action sets in motion an amendment process that could be huge in the battle to save these structures, many of which are covered in tons of living coral and form the basis of thriving ecosystems,” said Pat Murray, CCA president. “We greatly appreciate Dr. Shipp for bringing this important issue to the Gulf Council to emphasize how important these structures are to the marine environment, and to anglers and divers.” See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.
If artificial reefs are eventually designated as EFH, all federal agencies would then have to consult with NOAA Fisheries on federal actions that may adversely affect them. The number of required consultations could be considerable given the current rate of platform removals and installations and, despite these consultations, NOAA Fisheries could only make non-binding recommendations as to how to conserve the affected habitat.
“This is a significant part of the effort to elevate the importance of artificial reefs and save them from an ill-conceived federal order, but we have to continue to work this issue in Congress and with the Administration,” said Murray. “With the offshore season upon us, the realization of the impact of rig removal is only going to become more acute as anglers go offshore and discover that rigs they have fished for years are gone.”
In a misdirected response to the Gulf oil spill, the U.S. Department of Interior issued a directive in October of 2010 ordering that all non-producing rigs be plugged and any remaining structure removed. There are approximately 3,500 offshore structures in the Gulf of Mexico and the directive, known as the Idle Iron Policy, would immediately impact roughly 650 structures that have not produced oil or gas within five years of the directive issue date of Oct. 15, 2010.
Sen. David Vitter (R-La) and Rep. Steve Palazzo (R-Ms) have filed legislation that would prevent rigs and other structures from being summarily removed from the Gulf of Mexico, but both bills face a difficult road through the current Congress. NOAA Fisheries declaring artificial structures and rigs as Essential Fish Habitat is a significant addition to those legislative efforts.