The Sprocket Fish Spawning Rocket is the only, multi-species, artificial spawning structure, designed exclusively for nest protection and fry survival.

Self weighted and fully assembled, this 14 pound spawning rocket, can be installed directly from the box into shallow spawning water.

Three individual compartments provide fish a choice to bed in any direction with three sided protection, each measuring approx. 15″x72″ with an overall diameter of over seven feet!.  More habitat models at fishiding.com

Silt and sedimentation are clogging our nation’s waterways and reservoirs. Years of fluctuating water levels, erosion, development, nutrient loading and decomposition of natural materials, have put these waters in dire need of improvements. Fish habitat, which includes habitat for countless other equally important aquatic organisms, lacks to the degree on many U.S, waters, that no amount of fish stocking can improve the fishery. Without adequate habitat, the fish simply cannot survive.

I met Shane Titus, Seneca Nation of Indians Fishery manager over three years ago as we began to talk about fish stocking, fluctuating water levels and ways of improving overall fish habitat on the Allegany River/Reservoir. Shane contacted me directly to understand more about our artificial habitat products and working together with ways to improve his local conditions. Here is a man with a unique perspective on Tribal rights as well as American U.S./State policies. Proudly having an Indian mother and Italian father, his gentle blend of both “sides”, make it evident that he is a special and highly qualified man for this job. His utmost concern is for the land, waters and the creatures within, helping sustain this natural environment, which breathtakingly surrounds himself and his people in western New York.

Shane understands the benefits of adding habitat. He has installed habitat structures in the reservoir for many years and has a quite impressive reputation as a fisherman. “Because the reservoir is so lacking of good habitat, almost anything you add will usually hold some fish.” Prime habitat for all animals, including fish, focuses around diversity. All of the same is rarely best, no different than we humans see things. A less stressful environment grows healthy beings and fish health also is directly related to the stress they encounter surviving from fry through adulthood.

To best understand a healthy fish habitat, imagine a large tract of mature hardwood forest, noticing the plants from tiny grasses and ferns, up to shrubs, bushes and trees. Countless shapes, textures, densities and elevations provide unlimited choices of surroundings, depending on creatures needs. Tiny bugs and insects, utilize the fine forest floor, hiding and grazing on the abundant food available. Birds eat berries and some of those bugs, from the lower branches of bushes and undergrowth, while they defensively watch for danger from above or below.  Deer, rabbit, and other small game enjoy the shade from the undergrowth as they hunt or rest. The bigger the tract of forest, the more variety and abundance animals it can/will sustain. Fish habitat is no different than a mature and healthy forest, requiring infinite variety to support diversity and abundance.

Increasing fish habitat groupings on a large scale creates unique areas and corridors for fish to flourish and increase in numbers, not simply attracting a few fish to the area for potential fisherman/predator fish to enjoy.  The surface area of the habitat grows the food (periphyton) with more area being best and essential to a healthy eco-system. Tight, dense shaded areas are essential for small fish to hide and graze within the protection the substrate offers. Dense, ultra-fine cover at the water’s edge restores the once healthy mass of roots and aquatic plants, grasses and invertebrates that young fish need. Natural weed beds and large rocks once provided this surface area for periphyton and algae to grow, but now they have been lost to sedimentation.

Titus was instrumental in obtaining a grant to help construct a new fish hatchery on the Reservation a few years back, which is now pumping out walleye and smallmouth fry annually for the Allegany.

His next goal was to get the financial help needed to begin to reclaim areas of the Allegany Reservoir that had been degraded. “We have almost no shallow cover left for the fry, due to erosion and siltation. Bays that lock in fish as they lower the water levels, killing everything left. We need to scoop that stuff out so they can navigate in and out like they used to be able to.”

As Shane continued to follow up on applications for various grant opportunities, our plans to work together to improve conditions on the Reservoir within the Reservation began to take shape.  In late summer of 2014, notification was received of a grant award to the SNI from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation being part of the Hurricane Sandy Coastal Resiliency grant funding. I got the call from Shane that his application was approved and how he was not only grateful, but quite humbled. “Our people could never have been able to afford and accomplish so much, so quickly, on a scale of this size.  This will make a huge, positive impact on the fishery across miles.”

Plans were made to drive the 600 miles out to review the site, along with numerous models of our Fishiding artificial habitat. Decisions were to be made as to which artificial habitat models would be best, where the grouping would go and the overall quantities involved.

Fishiding.com produces artificial fish habitat from reclaimed PVC vinyl siding contained in a weighted base. Models from 18” tall up to 15 feet create unlimited variety, textures and densities of cover, creating a truly natural underwater landscape for aquatic life to thrive within. Over 2300 units consisting of five different models were selected totaling over 64,000 sq. ft. of surface area, ranging from 48”x84” to 18”x30” in size.

Means being used to document the habitats ability to provide sustainable habitat and deter erosion are by way of sonar equipment, water quality testing, underwater cameras and scuba certified staff. We (SNIFWD, USACE, USFS, and PAFBC) will be looking for signs of life such as invertebrates, algae growth, insect life, eggs of all life (insects, fish, amphibians, etc.) and any species of fish utilizing the habitat for shelter and food for research purposes and decision making for future habitat projects.

“It’s a no brainer as I see it,” said Titus. “Using this safe, durable, long-lasting material for fish habitat instead of buried in landfills, is a win for the people, fish and the environment. We can grow that stuff right into the shoreline, creating fry habitat and stabilizing the bank at the same time. We can plant them like balled bushes and watch them grow with life each year.”

I was welcomed by Shane and the team of conservation officers at the Fish and Wildlife Department who proudly work to sustain this pristine land they call home. A first-hand view of the Reservoir in November, Shane showed me the areas that we had talked about, in dire need of restoration.

We walked the river edge, casting jigs for some feisty walleye and smallmouth, catching a few and releasing them back to swim away. “ I keep a couple here and there, but they still feel like my babies” Shane explained, after raising and releasing hundreds of thousands of fry from the SNI Hatchery facility he operates on the Reservation,  releasing them into the Reservoir. He showed me areas devoid of cover, after erosion and low water had worn away the plants, depositing sediment where rock/rubble once exposed. Huge bays landlocked, explaining how many fish die each year, being stuck with no way out as water levels drop, despite volunteers and staff netting and saving thousands of fish each season. Water marks so high, trees and plants were washed away, only to leave the water’s edge barren for fish to contend with in the spring as they attempt to successfully spawn.

Needless to say, excitement grew with the dream of being able to work along the river on a very large scale. To install thousands of individual habitat units creating tens of thousands of square feet of surface area would boost the fishery measurably. Concentrating on shoreline stabilization and fry recruitment, all targeting depths from 6 feet of water and under for the little fish, bugs and plant growth. Another additional benefit of large groupings of habitat is the excrement discarded by the fish and creatures that inhabit it fertilizing plant growth. Clearly aquatic growth, grass and weeds take root in the surrounding lake floor, being fertilized by the fish from above. Another win-win for the fish and the environment.

Project Abstract

The goal of this funding through established partnerships with the PAFBC, USFS, ACE will be to restore the habitat within the reservoir and create an enhanced water system that can tolerate high water events with minimal loss to wildlife and habitat.

The Seneca Nation of Indians has a long history of struggling to maintain its land base and yet there remains a unique and harmonious relationship between indigenous people and the concept of environmental sustainability. The Seneca people believe fully in the tenet of their forefathers, that everyone must plan for the future generations, up to and beyond the seventh generation. The current conditions that exist within the Allegany Reservoir create an intolerable struggle within the people as they are forced each year after year to witness thousands of fish dying, species disappearing or become species of concerns, a vital wildlife habitat lost. Over the past 60 years this reservoir has had numerous high water systems into the reservoir, suffocating aquatic species. Each event results in species lost, habitat lost, channels filled and community flooding.

The people of the Seneca Nation live and work on the same lands today that the Seneca people have inhabited for over 1000 years. The Seneca Nation holds title to five distinct but non-contiguous territories located in western New York, an area of the state where communities are primarily rural in geographic location. The territories are unique in its economic, social and environmental profile. With 53,884 acres, the Seneca Nation controls and holds a significant land base in western New York.

“The Allegany River/Reservoir Restoration and Resiliency Project”

Objectives/Outputs/Outcomes:

• Create a healthier habitat for aquatic species within the Allegany Reservoir
•    10 acres will receive in stream habitat restoration efforts.
•    50 acres will benefit from artificial and natural habitat structures.
• Enhance the flood plain and habitat restoration of the Allegany Reservoir through riprarian buffer restoration.
•    18.94 miles will have large debris removed from shoreline area.
•    10 acres will receive indigenous plantings.
• Restore hydrology to land locked areas of the Allegany Reservoir.
•    7 land locked areas will be reconnected to the Allegany Reservoir.
•    15 acres will be cleaned of sediment, silt and nutrients.

The habitat has been delivered and equipment is in place. Over the next two years, Shane and his team will work all year around, improving the many areas covered within the grant. A great deal of the work will be during the winter months, when water levels are down and lakebed areas exposed. The team will use an earth auger to drill/install the many pole clusters to be installed to regain a plant base in the many washes, streams and creeks flowing into the reservoir. These barriers will catch debris during runoff, creating a medium for plants to begin to take hold. Dozers, trucks along with a good amount of manpower will begin to remove the 1000’s of cubic yards of sediment from the bays and openings, allowing the fish to again, freely pass.

The artificial habitat units will be planted individually in shallow, drilled holes and backfilled like a balled bush. Planted in large clusters, these units will become exposed each year as the water levels drop in the fall, but take on new life each spring as water levels rise and fish move in to seek spawning protection. Not only will the shallowest models protect fish, but allow shoreline plants and their roots to attach and take hold, strengthening and buffering the eroded shallows. With this substrate in place, only good things follow.

Late in 2014, the Seneca Nation hosted its third annual “Allegany Reservoir Management Meeting”. Agencies that are represented at these meetings are: SNI Fish and Wildlife, SNI Administration Representatives, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, New York State department of Environmental conservation, US Army Corp of Engineers, ( KInzua staff, Pittsburg District), US Fish and Wildlife Service (Tribal Liaison, Great lakes rep., Hatchery  Lamar PA, and Hatchery Kinzua PA), US Forest Service and California University of Pennsylvania. Topics discussed at these meetings are all the topics mentioned in the grant, plus stocking strategies, fish sampling surveys, fish pathology and funding opportunities. These “first of their kind” meetings are a shared water body being managed as a single water body.

Aquatic species that will benefit from the habitat are: Walleye (tribally significant species to Seneca culture and heritage) Smallmouth Bass, Large Mouth Bass, Black Crappie, White Crappie, Paddlefish (endangered), Northern Pike, Muskellunge, White Bass, Yellow Perch, Bullhead, Channel Catfish, Sunfish, Rock Bass, Sucker, Emerald Shiner, Golden Shiner, Fathead minnows, Spot Tail Shiner and Bluegill, Fresh Water Jelly fish, Aquatic spiders and Macro invertebrates.

Wildlife also benefitting from the habitat: Bald eagle, Golden Eagle, Cormorants, Loons, Ducks (all species), Canadian Goose, Osprey, Green Heron, Blue Heron, Snapping Turtle, Painted Turtle, Leather Back Turtle, Hellbender (amphibian, species of concern) and River Otter (species of concern)

Increased stewardship among the Seneca community will be an immeasurable benefit of this project. The SNI Fish and Wildlife Staff provide educational programs directed at youth to teach them about the environment and its importance to the health of all fish and wildlife. The SNI Fish and Wildlife Department plans on using these projects to create a three year educational tool for the youth and general public. The Seneca nation newsletter will be doing periodic articles to keep the public informed and involved in all aspects of the projects, to include the purpose, reasons, and outcomes of the work.

For more information regarding Reservoir habitat restoration, funding and other projects taking place, visit Friends of Reservoirs, which SNI Fish and Wildlife and Fishiding strongly support. Friends of Reservoirs (FOR), is a tax-deductible non-profit foundation dedicated to protecting and/or restoring fisheries habitat in reservoir systems nationwide. FOR is the funding arm of the Reservoir Fisheries Habitat Partnership, an organization of natural resource professionals and industry representatives, associated with the National Fish Habitat Partnership. FOR is also a coalition of local citizen groups dedicated to improving fish habitat in reservoir systems. David Ewald/ Fishiding.com

Underwater photography by Eric Engbretson, all rights reserved. For a complete library of Fishiding habitat underwater in various locations and conditions see Eric’s work here. Watch for much more information, photos and reports as this project gains momentum. We will be making many trips back to see Shane and his crew improving conditions on the Reservation. Fishing poles and tackle must be present for “testing”.

BACK FROM THE BRINK

How Lake Ellwood, Once Doomed Is Being Rescued

By Eric Engbretson, Engbretson Underwater Photography

Imagine a town consisting entirely of seniors. The town has no children, no teenagers, and no young adults. All the schools, playgrounds, and sports fields have closed. The town is eerily empty and still. And every year, as seniors pass on, the town’s population grows smaller and smaller. With no young people to replace the departed, the town will simply disappear from the map. A grim future indeed.

Until last year, this same sad demise seemed destined for Lake Ellwood in Florence County, WI.  In its waters, bluegill and largemouth bass had grown old. For the better part of a decade, no young fish were surviving to replace them. But now it seems that a corner has been turned and the news is good.  Today, Ellwood is a lake on the brink of recovery.  The story of the lake’s resurrection is a tale that involves invasive plants, a dedicated fisheries biologist, and a host of scientists working against the clock to save a small but beloved piece of Florence County.

THE CRASH

A healthy lake gets a steady stream of newborn fish every year, and the newborns that survive to maturity constantly enlarge the adult population. Fish biologists call this process recruitment. Of all native fish, largemouth bass and bluegill are both extremely prolific and they have shown outstanding talent for recruitment. Unlike walleyes, which require very specific conditions to reproduce, largemouth bass and bluegills thrive even when conditions are far less than ideal. Typically, when two years pass without largemouth bass and bluegill recruitment, fish managers become concerned, and Lake Ellwood has now seen seven consecutive years with failed recruitment.  Dr. Andrew Rypel is the state’s lead panfish researcher for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.  “It’s an eyebrow-raiser to be sure. What’s happened on Lake Ellwood has gotten our attention.  It’s very weird.”

Greg Matzke is the DNR’s senior fish biologist for Florence and Forest Counties. When I visited him in his office at the Florence Resources Center a year ago, he was eager to discuss Lake Ellwood.  “The fisheries biologist position for Florence was vacant for three years prior to my arrival,” he told me. “By the time I got here in year 2010, many of our lakes hadn’t been surveyed in a while.  When we got around to looking at Lake Ellwood in 2012, the fish population hadn’t been surveyed for a decade. What we found was a lake with few young fish. By the end of our spring survey it was clear to me that something was wrong with some of the major fish populations in Lake Ellwood.”  What Matzke documented in 2012 was an almost total collapse of the fish community. In Wisconsin, a failure of this magnitude in largemouth bass and bluegill recruitment is utterly unprecedented.

Matzke typed excitedly on his keyboard as a graph flashed onto the screen. Compiled from the data he had collected, the graph showed a sudden drop in northern pike recruitment after 2004, followed by bluegill and largemouth bass recruitment failures after 2006. Northern pike and largemouth bass recruitment had not occurred at all since 2004 and 2008 respectively, while bluegill recruitment fell off and became insignificant after 2006. “We surveyed that lake extensively, with 44 fyke net lifts and 7 complete electrofishing surveys totaling 20.22 miles (on a lake with 2.8 miles of shoreline) and couldn’t find a single fish younger than five, six and eight years of age, for largemouth, black crappie and northern pike. Not one.” said Matzke. “Nobody has ever seen anything like it.” In total Matzke spent 19 days surveying the fishery in one small lake, which is a great deal of time and effort, and I wondered how many lakes earn such scrutiny. “Not many,” said Matzke. I asked the big question: “What happened to the fish?” He paused and exhaled. In a reflective mood, he lowered his voice: “At first I had no idea, but after gathering and analyzing all the data it’s quite clear…. I believe it has to do with the milfoil treatments out there.”

THE MILFOIL CONNECTION

In the bars of Spread Eagle, fishing is a hot topic among the locals. It fills the air in the summer months, when local businesses are booming and lakefront owners are spending more time on the water.  Between rounds, someone mentions the fish crash in Lake Ellwood, and explanations flow like beer from a freshly-tapped keg. On a steamy night last July at the Chuck Wagon Restaurant, the fate of the lake engaged almost every person in the room. Barroom biologists blamed culprits ranging from low water levels to fish cribs and even invasive Eurasian watermilfoil (EWM) sucking the oxygen out of the lake.

Back in their offices, Matzke and his colleagues considered these possibilities and decided none of them were credible because these same conditions exist on hundreds of lakes throughout Northern Wisconsin, and none of the lakes has shown collapses in fish as was documented in Lake Ellwood. In their opinion, the crash stemmed from chemical herbicides applied to control the invasive plant Eurasian watermilfoil.

Eurasian watermilfoil (EWM) was discovered in Lake Ellwood in 2002. Treatments started during the next spring. The Lake Ellwood Association contracted with a lake management firm to monitor and treat the lake every spring thereafter with very good success. As chemical treatments continued, invasive plants began to subside.  Encouraged by their success, the lake association continued treatments in the hope of eradicating small but persistent areas that would materialize.  An unintended consequence was that native plants were also being killed by the herbicide.

Once considered the most crucial problem facing the Lake Ellwood Association, milfoil has now taken a back-seat to the lake’s most urgent issue:  The fish crash.  It was a shift in priorities that took time to embrace.  Matzke recalls that “when it came to Lake Ellwood, too many people were focusing on the wrong thing.  In the beginning, when I told them about the fish crash, they listened, but still seemed more concerned about the milfoil.  I explained that milfoil was not the biggest problem.  A milfoil-free lake is worthless as a fishery if it can’t sustain healthy fish populations.”  Many people were still talking about invasive species ruining the lake when it was losing its fish at an alarming rate.  “We needed to do something to encourage fish recruitment before it was too late.”  Despite being alerted to the collapse of the lake’s fishery and a hypothesis that linked the crash to the milfoil treatments, in the spring of 2013, the Lake Ellwood Association applied for their annual permit to continue chemical treatments.  The news of the disappearance of what was once a balanced, self-sustaining, and vibrant fish community had seemingly fallen on deaf ears.  Matzke, along with WDNR water regs staff, denied the permit application.  He defended what was an unpopular decision at the time by saying, “We need to take a time-out and find out what’s going on in this lake. It’s not a stretch to suggest that the milfoil treatments may be doing more harm than good.”  At first, many were unconvinced that any connection existed, but since then, those who have studied the data compiled by Matzke admit that the evidence is hard to ignore.

So how could treatments aimed at invasive plants be hurting Lake Ellwood’s fish?  The exact pathways behind the crash are still being investigated, but two plausible reasons might explain why multiple fish species have failed to recruit.  One is that the chemicals disturb the aquatic insect community that young fish need for survival, and the fish literally starve to death in their first few months of life.  Another theory that holds more water is that the chemical herbicides have depleted too much of the lake’s native plant community that young fish need for refuge.  Without dense plant beds to hide in, young fish may be preyed upon by larger fish, and by the fall, entire year classes of fish are gone with no survivors to contribute to the lake’s fish community.  It could also be a combination of both of these scenarios.  While it’s unknown exactly how the fish crash happened, it’s clear that the chemicals played a key role.  Native vegetation is critical to fish.  There are many examples illustrating this important connection.  On other Wisconsin Lakes, the loss of native vegetation has proven to be the cause behind similar crashes of largemouth bass and bluegill populations.  In those lakes, rusty crayfish or common carp were responsible for removing too much native vegetation, causing largemouth bass and bluegill populations to collapse.  On Lake Ellwood, the same thing has happened.  But on this lake, humans, using herbicides, are behind the loss of native plants fish need.

Dr. Andrew Rypel, Wisconsin’s leading panfish researcher, says that the complex relationship bluegills have with plants are just beginning to be understood by fish scientists.  “We’re trying to understand how this occurred and we’re looking at other water systems with aquatic plant management programs around the state to see if this is an anomaly.”  He added, “With bluegills, we know habitat is important.  In fact, for the first time, we’re really starting to study how plants affect fish quality”.

Is there a way to save the fish, preserve native plants and still limit invasive milfoil?  “Yes,” says Greg Matzke, “But not with continual use of chemical herbicides.” Denied permits to use any further chemical herbicides, the Lake Ellwood Lake Association cleverly looked to alternative methods of milfoil removal.  Last summer, they contracted with an Iron River company, Many Waters LLC, to use Diver Assisted Suction Harvesting (DASH) as an alternative to herbicides.  The DASH system features a giant vacuum cleaner atop a pontoon. At the bottom of the lake, scuba divers use their hands to pull out invasive milfoil (and avoid native plants) and then feed it into a tube that takes it to the surface for collection and removal. Unlike chemical treatments, DASH acts selectively by focusing only on milfoil and leaving other plants generally undisturbed.  Matzke gave his warm approval to DASH: “We need to preserve and expand native plants in Lake Ellwood for fish to have a chance at survival. The DASH system removes milfoil without harming the native vegetation essential to fish.” Early results appear encouraging:  In the summer of 2013, DASH took more than two thousand pounds of milfoil out of Lake Ellwood.

 HOW BAD ARE INVASIVE PLANTS?

Dr. Jennifer Hauxwell is chief of fisheries and aquatic sciences research at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.  Headquartered in Madison, her team of scientists have been studying Eurasian watermilfoil for ten years.  What they’ve discovered so far is that EWM is tough to pin down.  It doesn’t seem to behave in any two lakes quite the same way, and there’s no way to predict if it will peacefully co-exist with native plants as it does in most lakes or reach overabundance as it does in others.   Hauxwell says, “In some lakes EWM never ‘takes off’ or expands to levels requiring any management.  In some lakes EWM is a major component of the ecosystem and may provide structure/habitat complexity if native species diversity is low or absent.  In some eutrophic to hyper-eutrophic lakes EWM may be the only species keeping the lake from turning to algae dominated.” Hauxwell says her team has found other cases where it’s proven beneficial.  “Lake Wingra, once suffered from murky water due to algal blooms and lots of suspended sediment”, says Hauxwell.  “When carp that root up sediment were removed from the lake, the water cleared, and light was available to support plant growth. EWM quickly expanded in the lake and helped further clear the water and keep algae and suspended sediment low. It’s now a recreational nuisance, but it’s definitely playing an important ecological role in the lake community.”   Currently, EWM occurs in 4% of Wisconsin’s lakes mostly in small colonies that are not problematic.  “Our researchers quantified the amount of EWM in approximately 100 EWM lakes to get a sense for how widespread it may be in any given lake and across different lakes.” Says Hauxwell.  “We found that there was a wide range in abundance.  In the majority of the lakes we studied, it was sparse and occurred in less than ten percent of the inhabitable zone.” When does it reach nuisance level, I wondered? “’Nuisance’ is very difficult to define, and it’s in the eye of the beholder”, says Hauxwell.  Her team is excited about a plethora of research studies currently underway that will shed even more new light on this enigmatic species.

Mike Vogelsang is the DNR’s fisheries supervisor for the Woodruff area and oversees all fish management in six counties in Northern Wisconsin, including Florence.   He’s more concerned with the chemicals used to control EWM than with the invasive plant itself.  “There’s some real questions by our biologists, since they’re the ones required to review, and ultimately approve chemical application permits.  What are the effects of chemical use going to be twenty years down the road?  We’re already finding that in some cases they don’t break down as quickly as believed-they have toxicity long after the manufacturers say they do.”

Vogelsang also says that because it’s expensive to control and impossible to eradicate, learning to live with milfoil is inevitable.  “Where are we really going with these treatments?  When do they become excessive?  What effects are they having on fish communities?  These are some of the questions we’re talking about now.”  Vogelsang isn’t satisfied that EWM is the destructive threat that’s worthy of all the resources directed to control it.  “When EWM first came on the scene, there was a lot of fear associated with the plant, because it was a new potential threat, and the Department wasn’t sure if it would negatively impact our waters.  To help stop its spread, there was a lot of gloom and doom talk with lake associations and the general public.  We heard all these things about exotics and how bad they are, but it hasn’t been the end of the world.  The sky didn’t fall.  In many lakes, fishing got better with the invasives.  I’m not saying exotics are a good thing – and we should do everything we can to prevent their spread – but EWM hasn’t impacted our fisheries.”

Is an unwarranted level of fear driving lake associations to respond too aggressively to milfoil?  If so, it’s a fear that today feels like an over-reaction to a plant that now doesn’t seem to be capable of ruining lakes after all.  Ironically, while EWM hasn’t harmed fisheries, the unintended consequences of using chemical herbicides to control it has, as it did on Lake Ellwood.  Is what happened on Lake Ellwood an indictment of chemical herbicides?  “When over-used, I think so.” Says Vogelsang.  “It’s simple: No weeds equals no fish.  If I had my own private lake and it got milfoil, would I attempt to control it with chemicals?  No.  I would leave it alone and know that eventually the plant would become naturalized with the native plant community – like it has on many lakes where no chemical treatments have been used.”

Steve Gilbert, another fish Biologist, echoes Vogelsang’s observations.  He reports that for the past 22 years that he’s worked in Vilas County, the negative impacts of EWM on fish in Vilas County lakes has been zero.

While the DNR has consistently denounced EWM, new plant science and testimony from fisheries managers now seem to undercut the agency’s long-standing rhetoric. The days of demonizing Eurasian watermilfoil may be nearing an end.  Stated simply, EWM is not be as bad as we formerly thought. It’s a tough bell to un-ring and DNR insiders are struggling to navigate the complicated path to this more moderate public position, without undermining their credibility.

THE FISH RETURN

May 2014.  A year has passed since my last meeting with Greg Matzke and I’m back in his office to discover what has happened with Lake Ellwood since we last talked. The spring of 2013 was the first year in a decade when chemicals weren’t applied and the results were instant and dramatic.  Grinning now, Matzke tells me that his fish surveys from the fall of 2013 show an astounding thirteen-thousand percent increase in young-of-the-year bluegill since 2012 (the last year of chemical treatment).  The 2013 survey also found young-of-the-year largemouth bass, which makes the 2013 year class the first successful recruitment of this species in Lake Ellwood since 2008. In fact, largemouth bass recruitment in 2013 was measured at a rate more than double the recruitment level in 2002 (before chemical treatments began). This immediate rebound adds solid weight to the theory that herbicides did indeed cause the famous collapse in the fish community. A thirteen-thousand percent increase in bluegills sounds incredible and I asked Matzke to put the numbers into context. “We captured just over 97 age-0 bluegill per mile during our electrofishing survey; this is up from less than one age-0 bluegill per mile in 2012. The 2012 year class still looked poor with only 0.67 age-1 bluegill per mile during the 2013 survey.  For the first time in a long time, conditions are acceptable for bluegill and largemouth bass to reproduce successfully. And they’re responding.”  Putting the question as directly as possible, I asked if it was simplistic to think that “no plants equals no fish” and that “with plants, we have fish.” Matzke said, “That’s an interesting point. I mapped out the aquatic vegetation in Lake Ellwood during August 2013 with acoustic equipment to get a picture of the plants.” Showing me a multicolored map of the lake, he pointed to red-shaded areas that contained the most concentrated areas of plants. “We didn’t find a dense plant community by any means, but in certain near shore areas, there was dense plant cover where there hadn’t been any before.” Matzke draws an optimistic conclusion: “This suggests that for bluegill and largemouth bass recruitment, overall plant abundance may not be as important as these narrow strips of dense aquatic vegetation that are now found in Lake Ellwood after the herbicide treatments have stopped. These areas serve as great nurseries for young fish, offering preferred prey items and cover from predatory fish, giving bluegill and largemouth bass a fighting chance to recruit.”

When news of the Lake Ellwood fish crash started to spread, says Matzke, “I started getting calls. Other fish biologists from around Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota had heard about Lake Ellwood and they were looking for more information.” They were consulting Matzke to learn about signs of incipient problems in their own lakes. Matzke also took “calls from regular folks around the State” who lived on lakes with invasive milfoil and who worried that chemical treatments were hurting fish populations in their waters. Was the same thing happening to other lakes? Matzke shrugged: “It’s really hard to say. To know for sure, you need to steer your sampling efforts to target young-of-the-year panfish. That’s not something fish managers typically do in their ordinary work.  Unless you’re specifically looking for it, it’s the kind of problem that could go undiscovered for a long time and may go unnoticed until the adult population begins to be effected, as it did on Lake Elwood”.

Now retired, fisheries biologist, Bob Young oversaw Florence County Lakes from 2000-2007.  He fondly remembers Lake Ellwood as once being a high quality panfish lake.  He’s been following the recent changes closely and feels another important lesson can be learned.  “The invasive species folks should be working closer with fish managers so they can avoid situations like this. I’ve always been uneasy with the notion that total chemical war needs to be made on any and all invasive plant populations. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing for Lake Ellwood.”

A PROMISING FUTURE

Events in Lake Ellwood have also drawn the attention of the Dr. Greg Sass.  Sass is another member of the DNR’s elite Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Research Section. As the agency’s equivalent of a CSI unit, these fish detectives answer calls to solve the most perplexing mysteries in the fisheries of the State. They’re the team whose groundbreaking scientific work in many areas over the years have directly led to major improvements in Wisconsin’s fishing.  Sass visited Lake Ellwood in 2013 to investigate and define the forces behind the crash in the fish community.  His ongoing study will gather more data not just from Lake Ellwood, but from two other lakes (Cosgrove, and Siedel) in Florence County.  Sass is hopeful that eventually his team will be able to mechanistically explain the bluegill and largemouth bass recruitment failures observed in Lake Ellwood.

In Florence, meanwhile, Matzke says his office will continue fish surveys to monitor the recovery now underway.  He remains optimistic about the future (which doesn’t include any further chemical treatments for Eurasian watermilfoil.) “It’s my hope that we can come to a clear understanding of the things that drive natural reproduction of the fish in Lake Ellwood.” Turning to the crash in the fish community, Matzke expressed his hope that “we can plausibly explain how the fish community crashed. So far the signs are quite clear; it was the treatments to eradicate milfoil—not the milfoil itself—that have seemingly indirectly caused the collapse in fish recruitment.”  Lake Ellwood still has a few acres of invasive milfoil and likely always will.  But native plants as well as young bluegills and largemouth bass are beginning to return.  For fishery managers, that makes for a tradeoff with the sweet taste of victory.

Let’s go back to that town you imagined, the place where every citizen was a senior. The place is turning robust, as a new cohort of kids has taken to the playgrounds, sports field, and schools. “That’s not the same as a town with a lot of young adults,” cautions Matzke, “but it makes for a promising start.” At this time, the Wisconsin DNR’s careful work seems to justify the same spirit of cautious optimism about the future of Lake Ellwood. More habitat articles at fishiding.com

(For further information, questions or comments about this article, please email Greg Matzke at Gregory.Matzke@Wisconsin.gov)

Tournament competitors dropped Fishiding “Safehouses” to improve habitat at Strom Thurmond Reservoir.

Activist Angler note: Teaming with Fishiding, PotashCorp introduced a conservation component to its benefit tournament last year and plans to include it again this year. I hope that other tournament organizers will take note and follow the leader because these kinds of projects actually could improve fisheries.

Aquatic Playground Can Turn Water Tanks Into Fish Schools

Hooked for life – by Bruce Kania

Fish Fry Lake may be the best fishing hole in Montana…at least for kids!  The lake is only 6.5 acres, but the water’s invitingly clear and it is extremely easy to catch yellow perch, crappie and bluegills.  Even some Yellowstone Cutthroat trout happen here…which may be their easternmost extension.  Fish grow fast in this lake at Floating Island International’s headquarters 25 miles from Billings, Montana.  Fish Fry Lake is a test site for BioHaven® floating islands as well as other embodiments of BioHaven technology.Last year over forty kids (and a couple adults) caught their very first fish on the lake.  For most of these fisher people it was as simple as attaching a piece of nightcrawler onto a small jig head, then flipping the baited hook into the crystal clear water and watching their line for some indication of a bite.  Typically the line will twitch when a fish picks up the offering, and then it’s a straightforward process.  Lift the rod tip and reel in a scrappy panfish.  Some kids start off with a cane pole, just like I did way back when.  Today there’s even lighter fiberglass extension poles and it’s pretty easy for little guys, and gals, to swing the offering over open water, wait a moment, then pull up a seriously exciting fish!The pond is also home to painted turtles, leopard frogs, bullfrogs, tadpoles, blue herons, mallards, wood ducks, teal, spoonbill, widgeon, yellow and red headed blackbirds, woodpeckers, garter snakes, the occasional bull snake, crawfish, salamanders, Canada geese, osprey and even the occasional Bald Eagle, all of which tend to be of great interest to kids.  As I was growing up there was a similar wetland within walking distance…and kid tracks along the shoreline evidenced fascination with critters and plants, and pretty much everything wild.  Episodes with poison ivy notwithstanding, kids and water and fields and wildlife, they used to go together as naturally as water flows downhill.  Today though, computers seem to have taken over some of that space, some of the territory that used to be reserved for kids and nature to get to know each other. 

We are not against computers!  The advances associated with the huge strides in information transfer technology that we’ve experienced in the last twenty years are life changing, and mostly positive.  But wouldn’t it be ideal if we could retain some connection with nature?  And certainly not just on a computer screen, but in person and up close!  Catching a fish, splashing after a leopard frog, or sneaking up on a big old gander goose is the stuff of childhood, and I don’t think it’s a good thing to miss out on.

I remember a troupe of kids passing by with fishing rods in hand one day last summer, when one of the boys, lagging behind, complained about the sun being “too hot!”  A young gal in the group suggested he “man up”, at which point the young lad was pretty much forced by the amazing power of peer pressure to deal with conditions.  Not sure if those kind of life lessons happen frequently in front of a computer screen.

And kids don’t catch fish automatically.  Not even on Fish Fry.  They must learn the process, think it through, and then connect the dots.  Along the way, with a bit of patience, they are rewarded.  This is good stuff for kids.

There was a young gal that could not handle touching a worm.  When it came to touching a fish, that was at least as bad as the idea of touching a worm.  An hour later she was independently doing both.  Real life lessons, and a new connection with where food comes from.  More good stuff!

Today the majority of fresh water lakes in the U.S. are so nutrient rich that they are at risk of running out of dissolved oxygen, without which fish die.  Fish Fry Lake has turned this condition on its head.  We have learned how to cycle those same nutrients into fish, instead of algae.  Catch rate on Fish Fry is a fish every two minutes on average.  The 6.5 acre lake yielded 5,168 fish last year, which translates to 210 pounds of fish per acre.  And along the way the water in Fish Fry was kept within Cutthroat Trout temperature requirements.  A nearby public lake, with conventional management, yielded about ten pounds of fish per acre.  And those fish were stocked, while Fish Fry’s are wild and naturally reproductive.  In late summer, the bottom half of the public lake is devoid of breathable oxygen.  Trout that were stocked in that lake in the spring have a choice…they can cook in the warm water on top, or suffocate in the stratified cooler water below.  The same conditions repeat themselves in thousands of U.S. waterways every summer.  But it doesn’t have to stay this way.

What if we focussed on our public waterways, especially in cities and villages?  What if we took that water and cycled the nutrients that are already there, into fish?  This is a very real prospect.  We do have the science, and we have the tools.  Dive into our website and keep this vision in mind…of kids catching fish hand over fist.  This is a new vision of abundance, and it’s within reach.  We can concentrate nature’s wetland effect and the result is an upward spiral that leads to both clean water and huge abundance of healthy, vibrant and edible fish.

Following are a few Thank You notes by kids who’ve fished here on Fish Fry:

Dear Ms. Anne and Mr. Bruce.

Thank you for letting us go to Floating Islands.  It was a lot of fun. I loved catching fish.  It was fun.  I like your dogs.  I think the picnic was fun, too.  I think I learned a lot about fishing.  You made my day.  Thank you for everything.

Thank you for letting us fish and play with the dogs.  I caught four fish.  It was awesome!  The floating islands are really cool and I hope to come back again.

I liked….. fishing, seeing the fish.  Thank U.

Thank you for letting us fish for different kinds of fish.  I enjoyed fishing.  I also caught a ton of fish within the small amount of time I spent fishing.  I also enjoyed walking on the floating islands.  I really enjoyed throwing frisbees for the three cute dogs….. I thoroughly enjoyed going to Floating Islands and I hope to come again.  Thank you very much.

– See more at: http://www.floatingislandinternational.com/2013/05/hooked-for-life/#sthash.iT9q5opN.dpuf

Lake on the Brink:

The unexpected consequences of fighting Eurasian Watermilfoil

By Eric Engbretson

In 2012, Greg Matzke, a fisheries biologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, made a startling discovery on Florence County’s Lake Ellwood. During a comprehensive fish survey which included spring, summer and fall netting and electrofishing surveys, Matzke discovered that all of the lake’s largemouth bass were older than 5 years of age, with approximately 91% of the largemouth bass population being at least seven years old.  The absence of younger fish indicated a recruitment failure for a number of years.  Such failures in largemouth bass recruitment over multiple years are unprecedented in the state of Wisconsin.

“The current largemouth bass population is in serious trouble,” Matzke reported. “It appears that natural reproduction of largemouth bass has not occurred since 2007. As these older/larger fish move through the population, a significant reduction in largemouth bass abundance will take place, with the potential for the complete loss of this species of fish unless the current situation changes.”

Matzke next began looking at the lake’s panfish population.  What he found was stunning. Overall, the lake’s panfish abundance had fallen an estimated 75% in just the last 10 years, with bluegill and rock bass abundance down an estimated 65% and 89% respectively, showing that these populations also appear to be collapsing. Intense sampling throughout 2012 found only a single black crappie under six years of age, showing another alarming recruitment failure in several consecutive years. When Matzke analyzed the ages of Lake Ellwood’s northern pike population, the results were even more disappointing: There were no pike under the age of eight!

Matzke stared at the data he had collected. His department had never seen a mystery like the absolute and complete recruitment failures of native northern pike, black crappie, and largemouth bass (along with significant reductions in recruitment of other panfish populations). He shared his findings with other fisheries professionals across the state and they all said the same thing.  They had never seen a collapse like this in their careers. Matzke and his team scrambled to collect more data and tried to find a cause that could have brought the fish to the brink of extirpation in Lake Ellwood. Surveys from 2002 had shown normal abundance, size structure, growth, and recruitment in all of these species. What had happened in the last ten years that was preventing fish from successfully reproducing?

The only thriving species of game fish in the lake were smallmouth bass. Their abundance and size structure had grown in the last decade and recruitment was high.  This suggested that the problem was targeting specific species of fish. Because Lake Ellwood’s smallmouth bass were doing so well while the other species were collapsing, the focus turned to the lake’s historically sparse but important aquatic plant community. All the species showing recruitment failures are highly dependent on aquatic vegetation for spawning as well as cover and food for their young. Matzke observed that smallmouth bass seem to be different. “The fact that this species was not affected by the reduction in plant life,” he said, “is not a major surprise since as a species smallmouth bass are less dependent on aquatic vegetation.”

The Smoking Gun

Eurasian Water Milfoil was discovered in Lake Ellwood in 2002. Herbicide treatments began in 2003 and increased every year. By 2007 recruitment of northern pike, largemouth bass and black crappie had come to an end. “When I started to analyze the data it was strikingly obvious to me that there are some problems associated with the herbicide”, said Matzke. When he graphed the fish abundance (by year class) over the last decade and overlaid it with a graph showing yearly herbicide treatments, he found what he believed was a critical connection.  Fish numbers fell as the amount of herbicide increased.  Interestingly, in the year following a relatively low application of herbicide, young bluegill (and black crappie to a much smaller degree) began to appear again, but their numbers are still very low and they will likely disappear before they reach age 2.

Year class strength, indexed using age estimation to determine number of individuals of each year class captured during a 2012 comprehensive survey, for northern pike, black crappie, largemouth bass and bluegill plotted against the number of pounds of 2,4-D (not acid equivalent) used to treat aquatic plants in Lake Ellwood, Florence County, 2003-2012.

“We still wonder which stage of reproduction has failed in these species”, says Matzke. “Aquatic vegetation plays a major role in spawning site selection and in the survival of eggs and fry. Plants are also the source of primary production providing food and habitat for young fish and prey items, including invertebrates and minnows. It seems likely that one or all of these important phases of reproduction are dwindling in Lake Ellwood.”

On April 17, 2013 Matzke met with the Lake Ellwood Association to reveal his data and conclusions. He told the group, “The main cause for failed northern pike, largemouth bass and black crappie recruitment (along with the massive reduction in panfish abundance) appears to be the loss of aquatic vegetation.” The 2-4-D herbicide used on Eurasian watermilfoil had been successful in reducing the abundance of this invasive species significantly. Conversely, other native plants were also harmed by years of chemical treatment. Matzke said he has no reason to believe the chemicals have directly caused a failure in reproduction of any species of fish in Lake Ellwood. However, Matzke does believe that the chemicals have indirectly caused recruitment failure by eliminating too many of the aquatic plants young fish need in order to survive.  Matzke has called for a change in the way the Lake Ellwood Association has been managing the lakes aquatic plants.  He recommended that further chemical treatments for milfoil be stopped.

“First and foremost,” says Matzke, “we need to promote and strengthen aquatic vegetation in Lake Ellwood.” He stresses the role of aquatic vegetation in spawning and concludes that the loss of vegetation (including the invasive milfoil) has almost certainly wiped out a great deal of forage for young fish.

It seems that milfoil treatments controlled the invasive plant but also jeopardized the health of the lakes fishery. Today the lake contains a dwindling and rapidly aging population of largemouth bass, black crappie, northern pike, and bluegill. Matzke hopes the plants will come back in time for the remaining old fish to produce at least one year class before they die. If that doesn’t happen, many fish populations will likely be extirpated from Lake Ellwood. New fish can be stocked, of course, but the lake would lose the unique genetic lineage of the fish that have lived there for thousands of years.

The Future

Could chemical herbicide treatments for Eurasian watermilfoil be reducing fish recruitment in other lakes? None of the other lakes that have been receiving chemical treatments have had their fish populations surveyed this intensely. Large scale recruitment problems due to loss of important plant cover could be taking place throughout the region where the invasive plant is now being fought. There is no way to know if this is happening, and frankly, up until now, there has been no reason to find out.  Fisheries experts around the state are only now learning of Matzke’s findings on Lake Ellwood. In the future, they will likely start paying more attention to fish recruitment on lakes treated for Eurasian watermilfoil which would allow the Department of Natural Resources to determine whether this crisis is an isolated instance or a more widespread problem.

In the meantime, it’s a race against time for Lake Ellwood’s native fish. The question remains: Will the plants come back in time to save these fish populations?

Artificial Habitat Benefits Bass Fisheries

Friday, March 8, 2013 at 9:21AM  ActivistAngler.com