MORE INFORMATION

• New habitat for Lake Norman creatures
• Spotted bass, hybrids thrive in Lake Norman water

• WANT TO HELP?

  To volunteer with Saturday’s Lake Norman buttonbush planting and other N.C. Wildlife Federation projects, visit www.ncwf.org or call Chris North, federation conservation director, at 704-332-5696. GPS coordinates for the rock reef sites are on the federation’s web site.

LAKE NORMAN Fishermen watched from boats as a trackhoe on a barge dumped 270 tons of boulders into Lake Norman Thursday, and a worker placed a manmade osprey nest 25 feet above the water on a sturdy wood pole.

The nonprofit N.C. Wildlife Federation led the initiatives in an ongoing effort to build habitat for wildlife, both fish and birds of prey.

“The more rock piles, the more habitat you put in the lake, the more (fishing) tournaments you have and the more money you generate for the local economy,” longtime Lake Norman fishing guide Gus Gustafson said. “There’s not enough rock piles to go around.”

Gustfason and other fishermen pulled nearby as trackhoe operator Ignacio Martinez of Lancaster Custom Docks and Lift Systems dumped rocks into 25 to 30 feet of water off the southern end of Brawley School Road peninsula in southern Iredell County. Other boulders were dropped farther north, near Lake Norman State Park in Troutman. The rocks came from a quarry in Denver, N.C.

The boulders are intended to create habitat for catfish, spotted and largemouth bass and other prized catches at the bottom of North Carolina’s largest lake.

By Friday morning, the fishermen knew, shad, herring and other bait fish would cluster at the rocks for protection from the larger fish, which in turn become unsuspecting catches for rods and reels.

“It’s the same as how people congregate at the opening of a new mall,” Gustfason said.

The federation led the rock dumping for the second year in a row. In 2011, Lancaster trackhoes plopped 270 tons of boulders at two other locations on the lake, creating fish habitat on the lake’s otherwise sandy bottom.

Fishermen previously established habitat by tossing Christmas trees into the lake, but the trees rot in a year, they said.

In 2009, federation volunteers also placed 200 porcupine-like “fish attractors” in the waters north of the N.C. 150 bridge and 100 attractors in Mountain Island Lake. They’re still there, attracting fish and anglers, said Tim Gestwicki, federation executive director.

On Thursday, volunteers from the federation and its Lake Norman Wildlife Conservationists chapter also peered skyward as a harnessed-in Jose Mundo placed sticks on a platform made of chain-link fencing and galvanized steel tubing to form an osprey nest.

“The birds will drop their own sticks onto the platform and then weave them all together,” said Stephen Turley, a federation board member who built the nesting platform at his Lake Norman home and six other platforms to be placed on the lake this year.

The federation has placed nearly 50 osprey platforms over the years at lakes along the Catawba River chain, from Lake James to Lake Wylie, Gestwicki said. He said a 2011 survey revealed 50 pairs of osprey nesting on Lake Norman alone.

The federation also plans to add two great blue heron rookeries on Lake Norman this year. On Saturday, its volunteers will plant 1,000 buttonbush plants at seven locations on Lake Norman islands, wetland areas and shoreline to slow erosion. The plant’s white flowers benefit hummingbirds, butterflies and honey bees, and its seeds provide food for wood ducks, mallards and migratory teal.

In 2011, the federation provided $100,000 for Mecklenburg County to preserve land at Mountain Island Lake.

Duke Energy’s Habitat Enhancement Program fund paid for the federation’s initiatives. Proceeds from dock and other fees help pay for the program, which has awarded $433,000 to projects in the Carolinas since it began in 2007.