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| Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [30 messages per page] Muskie Fishing -> General Discussion -> Saving Chautauqua Lake muskies |
| Message Subject: Saving Chautauqua Lake muskies | |||
mikie |
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Location: Athens, Ohio | This petition has been going around out-East, thought you all may be interested in the issue. Same old story about rich homeowners associations vs. sportsmen. m https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-chautauqua-lake-fisheries.... | ||
| mikie |
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Location: Athens, Ohio | The petition with be displayed for signatures by Chapter 69 at the NY Muskie Expo scheduled for April 25, 26 in Mayville, NY, and by Three Rivers Chapter at the Western PA, Muskie Max, March 7, 8. Those who have fished at Chautauqua recognize given its geographic location and its reputation, it receives intense fishing pressure and throughout the years has been able to tolerate that pressure and remain one of the top regional muskie and multi-species fisheries because of its abundant vegetation based habitat supporting a great forage base along with game fish populations. In the way of background, for years, vegetation control on the Lake has been by mechanical cutting and harvesting by a non-profit organization that has had borderline funding. Several years ago, a small group of land owners hired a lake management company (herbicide contractor) who apparently recommended that the Lake be rid of “invasive weeds”, curly leaf pondweed and milfoil, despite that these species had been colonized as part of the lake plant community for many decades, made up a significant part of fish habitat, and there was no objective evidence of increasing density of these plants. Of course the recommended way of doing this was by using herbicides. Since then, there has been a progressive push for herbicide use in the Lake using claims of “no drift” of herbicide effect beyond sites of application, and “herbicides kill only invasive weeds”, leaving “good” native weeds behind to flourish in the absence of the “bad” invasive weeds. This group has become well organized and well funded and has effectively used PR with twice yearly pep rallys, “news letters”, and a complicit local news paper to convince local politicians and the general public that killing the “bad weeds” in the Lake is a good thing. In 2018, 80 acres of the Lake were treated with herbicides, supposedly restricted by permit to no more than 200 feet away from shore. However, within several weeks following these applications, all vegetation in the adjacent littoral zones was gone, demonstrating that both “no drift” and “herbicides kill only invasive weeds” at least on Chautauqua Lake was untrue. In 2019, permits were requested to treat 80-90% of the littoral zone in the Lake’s South Basin which represents most of the structure in that portion of the Lake. Eventually, 400 acres received herbicides in mid May, about 2 weeks before the opening of muskie and bass season with the stated objective of clearing the Lake of weeds for recreation (boating, jet skiing, and swimming) for the Memorial Day weekend. It is estimated that at least 2000 acres of offshore submerged weed beds, critical for bass and forage fish spawning and refuge for young-of-year, were destroyed by mid June. Over the remainder of the summer, there was further progressive regression of vegetation to become barren bottom except for a few isolated areas accompanied by increased water turbidity and more intense algae bloom in the South Basin. The ecology monitoring company, Racine-Johnson with their September/October survey found an almost total absence of all vegetation in the South Basin compared to previous years (18 consecutive years), but found the expected amount of vegetation in the North Basin which received no chemical herbicides. They pointed out the importance of littoral zone plants for the health of the Lake and warned that the South Basin was at risk of changing from plant based to algae based and the loss of vegetation posed a risk to the fisheries. The contractor who applied the herbicides while agreeing with the observation of almost total absence of vegetation in the South Basin by the end of summer, claims that the herbicide treatments could not have possibly been responsible. However the only difference between the North Basin which showed no decrease in expected vegetation and the South Basin that demonstrated defoliation, was the South Basin received extensive herbicide applications and the North Basin received none......a bit of a smoking pistol. Despite the above, local “leaders” and herbicide advocates are calling the 2019 herbicide program “a big success with no adverse effects”, and are promising more to come. A group of us who are muskie fishermen that fish Chautauqua a lot, have protested the herbicide use as it has been carried out, and have attempted to point out what is happening to the Lake. However the “leaders” are essentially discounting us, claiming “the fishermen are happy” (we don’t know who they may be), and that “fishing was really good” during the 2019 season. It is recognized that herbicide use may be a controversial topic among fishermen. However in this circumstance, it is how the herbicides are being used that is the issue, and the stated desire “to kill every invasive weed in the lake” by herbicide advocates is chilling. There should be no denying what was done to the South Basin, essentially half of Chautauqua Lake, in 2019, had an adverse effect upon the fisheries in the short and long term (even if it were true that some had “good fishing” throughout the 2019 season), and if repeated, will take a long time to repair. It is apparent that efforts with the”locals”, who are the prime movers in the herbicide use, to bring some recognition what is happening to the Lake is not going to gain much traction. The only hope is to get the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to exercise its authority to protect fish habitat by limiting/more closely controlling herbicide use to preserve the multi-species fisheries in this public lake owned by the State of New York. The guys at MI Chapter 69 based in Rochester, NY have initiated a petition drive aimed at NYS DEC to demonstrate there are many who enjoy Chautauqua Lake muskie fishing as well as other sport fishing, and are concerned about herbicide induced destruction of fish habitat upon which the fisheries are dependent. Additionally, a large number of signatures would counter the Chautauqua “locals” claims, this is a concern of “just a few people”. The petition asks for the DEC to impose specific restrictions for herbicide use in the Lake including controls to protect offshore weed beds, delaying any use until after the end of June to protect spawning, restrict the use of liquid forms to attempt to limit “drift”, deny use of herbicides to maintain “navigation channels”, and allow herbicide “spot use” only. | ||
| esox109 |
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Location: Neapolitan Chain Of Lakes | I hate hearing these stories. We were told the same thing "It only kills the bad weeds" and "it does no harm to fish". Really? No drift herbicide? Child please. This has happened on a couple lakes in my area and it leaves clouds of discolored water, dead fish, and of course complete weed elimination. Maybe it didn't drift out into 30 feet of water where there were no weeds!!! And if it did how would you know? But it sure did drift into more shallow water. The only somewhat encouraging thing is that the milfoil, curly leaf, etc. did grow back partially the next year and completely the second year. | ||
| muskyhunter07 |
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Location: Northern Illinois | happens on the fox chain in northern illinois every year | ||
| mikie |
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Location: Athens, Ohio | The WV DNR guy had n angle on the good weeds / bad weeds statement. His concern was that when the bad weeds die, they cover over the good weeds and keep them from sunlight. m | ||
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