Lake Management Archives

Avoiding Noxious Algae: What to do when blue-green algae shows up in your lake or pond

August 23, 2021

A study of Water Quality – By Matt Ward

Cyanobacteria or blue-green algae is a large group of photosynthesizing organisms that are more closely related to bacteria than to green algae or pond weeds. These organisms disrupt water quality by producing harmful toxins.

Technically this means that they are in a category of their own and have attributes that make them and their management unique.

This article will discuss cyanobacteria and their management, touching on major concerns and primary management techniques.

Blue-Green Algae Concerns

After the death of some dogs that drank water tainted with blue-green algae in Texas lakes in 2019, blue-green hysteria seemed to strike the country.

Concerned dog-owners quit allowing their dogs to enter our public waterways or drink from untreated surface water. The truth is that all surface waters contain some amount of blue-green algae and many of these algae are able to produce toxins that can be harmful or even fatal to living organisms that absorb those toxins.

Most intake is through drinking though theoretically enough toxin could be absorbed through the skin to cause harm. In short any water body could have blue-green algae toxin in them and cause harm to animals that use those waters.

That being said, problems are most common when blue-green algae growth is dense. This growth can produce turquoise or emerald green film or sludge, dark green matted algae, particulate plankton aggregates, or many other forms of singular or collective cellular growth.

This growth is typically accompanied by strong smells and is almost universally judged as unsightly. Dense cyanobacteria growth always has the potential to suddenly release cyanotoxins which in turn can produce acute and chronic health consequences for other living organisms including fish and mammals.

Ultimately if your water body has dense cyanobacteria growth, fish and mammals that utilize that water are potentially at risk. If you don’t have that dense obvious growth the risk is greater than zero, but certainly reduced.

Particularities of Blue-Green Algae

Blue-green algae has a handful of attributes that lake managers need to understand to better manage its growth.

First, blue-green algae loves phosphorus. In scientific terms, low N/P (nitrogen to phosphorus) ratios favor blue-green algae over vegetative and green algae growth. Practically speaking this means that when fertilizers containing phosphorus are applied to a watershed, or manure builds up in the same, phosphorus levels will peak along with blue-green algae growth.

Second, even in the absence of excess phosphorus, blue-green algae have adapted to their environment by developing a phosphorus-mining technique. To do this, filamentous blue-green algae will smother the substrate, causing the pH to drop along this interface which in turn releases phosphorus from the sediment where it is commonly found.

Regardless of how the phosphorus ends up in the water column, blue-green algae soaks it up and grows extremely rapidly in the absence of competition. This means that ponds that have a lack of beneficial growth will tend to grow more cyanobacteria than those that do.

Finally, blue-green algae grows perfectly well in extremely hot water and while other plants slow their growth in the middle of the summer. This leads blue-green algaes to experience peak growth in mid-summer.

Management Objectives

The first step in managing blue-green algae is to kill excessive growth when it shows up.

Treatments can be done with various copper formulations but may also be done with various peroxide based chemistries. Growth forms will dictate which product and what formulation is best but know that granular and liquid products are needed in different situations.

It is also important to note that sometimes when algae is treated it can actually release toxins into the water column as it dies. This is where peroxide-based chemistry is particularly useful as peroxides are able to actually neutralize some of the algal toxins.

Proactively speaking there are two main approaches to managing blue-green algae growth.

First, N/P ratios can be manipulated and, second, total phosphorus can be reduced.

Many articles have been written about manipulating the N/P ratios in a given fishery. But in our experience it is seldom that adding some nitrogen to a waterbody suddenly shifts blue-green algae growth to green algae or vascular vegetation. More commonly, reducing phosphorus is key to pushing the N/P ratio in a positive direction and reducing the amount of blue-green algae growth a lake experiences.

There are three methods for accomplishing this:

Take steps to limit phosphorus inputs by reducing livestock densities and reducing fertilizer applications in watersheds.
Remove phosphorous that does end up in a lake through mineral sequestration via applications of aluminum sulfate or lanthanum bentonite or through uptake by beneficial aquatic vegetation.
Limit phosphorus levels by aerating a lake to prevent anaerobic conditions on the sediment interface.

Vigilant Algae Control

Keep an eye out for blue-green algae and if you have it take steps to reduce the growth. Treat excessive growth, limit phosphorus inputs, and when growth is dense keep your livestock off the pond or lake. Management of blue-green algae growth is a key to pond management success and maintaining a healthy water body.

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

Serving Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, Lochow Ranch Pond & Lake Management proudly puts more than two decades of experience to work for you. Our team includes biologists, technicians and other professionals with deep expertise in pond and lake management services.

Check us out if you are considering building a lake, looking for pond stocking services, to buy fish for a pond, or getting professional pond management and maintenance or fishery management. Our services include lake design, pond construction, pond renovation, pond water testing, electrofishing, pond stocking, control of pond weeds, and pond liming and fertilizing. Let us help you build your dream pond that will delight your family and friends for generations to come.

Click here to get in touch to get started today.

Matt Ward is a Fishery Biologist for Lochow Ranch Pond & Lake Management. He has a Master of Science in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University and has worked in fisheries management in Texas for 15 years. He brings a passion for good science and an interdisciplinary approach to the natural sciences to help property managers steward their aquatic resources and achieve management objectives.

Leave it to Beaver? Not when it comes to your lake

May 26, 2021

By Matt Ward

As lake managers we get any number of calls from clients about somewhat offbeat subjects. One of those call subjects is beavers and what to do about them.

The largest rodent in North America, the American beaver is a common resident of ponds and lakes across the state. Most of the time they tend to go undetected until a favorite tree gets felled or someone steps through a collapsed den access tunnel.

In less common circumstances, the client’s call might come after a beaver dam has failed and caused major damage to a lake. We have seen enough of those to say that paying attention to beavers is a worthwhile lake management activity. Here is a brief discussion of the things you should consider when it comes to beavers.

Basic Beaver Biology

Since the fur trade knocked beaver numbers back in the 80s, beavers have come roaring back and are found on all kinds of lakes and ponds across the state.

Beavers sometimes build showy lodges that you can see from a half mile away. But other times they will simply build dens into available dirt embankments with little sign other than submersed tunnel access.

Beaver dens are hollowed out areas (whether in a lodge or dirt embankment) that are above the water line with an access tunnel that is below the waterline. This design protects beavers from predation allowing them to rest and raise pups in peace.

Beavers are vegetarian, focusing their forage efforts on the living tissues of trees. Most of their food comes from the living tissue from felled trees though they will occasionally consume roots and other plant material.

A sure sign of an active beaver are freshly chewed branches from which all the living tissue has been removed. The leftover wood is often incorporated into lodges or dams to improve those structures.

Beavers use dams to impound water for safety. Ponds and lakes are easy places for beavers to avoid predators and beavers have a natural propensity to plug flowing waters with earthen dams that are reinforced with felled wood.

Beavers can be active at any time of day, but often seem to be most active at night. They will fell a wide variety of sizes and species of trees. These trees are generally felled near water though we have seen cases of beavers attacking large trees hundreds of yards from the nearest water.

You might notice this post doesn’t include pictures of actual beavers. The one at the top is actually a public pic from a free photo web site, not one of our work sites. That is the norm. Beavers are generally secretive and not easy to spot. So look for their sign and don’t wait to see the critter in person. Detecting problems early is always the best policy.

Now that we have the basics on beaver biology, let’s look at the main management concerns for lake owners.

Fish Worries?

This one is easy. Beavers don’t eat fish so you don’t have worry about losing fish directly to beaver consumption. If you have lost fish recently you are probably dealing with otters. Otters might live in an old beaver lodge but no need to blame the beavers if the squatters are the problem.

Dam Damage

A stopped-up drainpipe or a sudden failure of a beaver dam on a spillway can cause incredible structural damage to a well-designed lake. This kind of damage is very expensive to address and should be avoided through careful and regular inspection of lake overflow structures.

A beaver’s need to dam flowing water is instinctual. Beavers hear flowing water and naturally want to stop it up. So they shove sticks and mud into overflow pipes and build dams across spillways. Lake managers need to inspect their overflow structures and make sure that beavers don’t plug them up.

Targeting Trees

Beavers generally chew down small trees but we have certainly seen them go after trees of up to 30” in diameter.

Often times they select our favorite trees and really damage the aesthetics of a well landscaped pond.

Many times the first sign of a beaver will be a freshly chewed tree. Check the trees that grow along the shoreline and note any fresh chew marks. Beavers typically will spend multiple nights chewing down large trees though we have seen them take down dozens in a single night.

Be sure to protect any prized trees near your pond with a wrapping of hardware cloth. Encircle the entire tree and adjust the covering from time to time to ensure that you don’t constrict the tree and that the wire doesn’t come loose. Use regular tree inspections as a simple tool to look for any new infestations of beavers.

Lodging and Tunnels

Lodging and tunnels are an excellent way to find a beaver infestation.

These tunnels create a collapse hazard for people that walk over them but also contribute to erosion in steep banks. If you don’t see a defined lodge look for piles of sticks or tunnels into earthen embankments. Note that tunnels are often concealed under overhanging branches or a dock so you might need to pay attention to access channels that appear as cleared channels through weed beds to locate an obscured den.

In short, keep an eye out for beavers to avoid the expensive headaches they can produce. If you detect them get a professional opinion about the threat they pose to your lake or pond. Beavers can be fun to watch but can also be a drain on the pocketbook. Trapping services are not inexpensive but are certainly more cost effective than repairing structural damage to a dam.

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

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Maximize your fishery’s health by working with water

May 13, 2021

By Matt Ward

Water health needs to be managed just like fish and plant life health. In the first of these posts about water quality, I discussed the issues of water turbidity and nutrient control, both critical issues for a healthy fishery.

This week we’ll take a look at water alkalinity and hardness, two more pond water testing factors to be aware of as you look to maximize the health of your lake or pond.

Alkalinity

All lakes and ponds experience daily fluctuations in pH and this fluctuation can put stress on fisheries which in certain cases can lead to lower productivity or even minor kills.

Alkalinity is a measure of your waterbody’s ability to buffer (read “stabilize) natural daily pH swings and will certainly contribute to primary productivity (which ultimately results in gamefish biomass). Alkalinity is generally raised by adding agricultural lime to a pond or lake.

In general, alkalinity should be maintained above 25 mg/mL but would best be maintained in the ideal range of 50-200 mg/mL.

That being said, some lake’s watersheds are so large or lake subsoils so acidic that it is impractical to adjust alkalinity. In these cases costs and benefits will need to be weighed and other sources of productivity (like pelleted fish food) will need to be considered to promote good productivity in a fishery.

Also, lower water quality in the form of lower alkalinity can be better tolerated by certain fish species. Know your water’s alkalinity, adjust it if you can, and then work as best as you can with what you have.

Interestingly, I have noticed that alkalinity seems to be less and less of an issue as more and more ag lime has been applied to pastures especially across the eastern half of the state. This agriculture effort has certainly improved water quality in a large number of private fisheries.

Hardness

Hardness can be simplified to approximate the calcium content of a given water body. Fishery management is best served by adjusting hardness to promote good fish growth. Calcium is important for the development of bone and shell in living organisms and minimum levels are needed to promote their formation. Ideal hardness would be in the 50-200 mg/mL but again, the practicality of adjusting hardness should be weighed against the cost to do so.

To raise hardness you can add gypsum or agricultural lime to a given lake. In lakes with adequate or even high alkalinity, but low net hardness, hardness can be raised without affecting alkalinity by adding gypsum. If hardness and alkalinity are both low, just add ag lime. In lakes where water quality amendments are impractical, consider that fish can obtain calcium from their food.

A Note on Vegetation and Algae

Interestingly, hardness and alkalinity also affect vegetation and algae growth in significant ways.

Though most fishery managers think of water quality management as a tool to boost fish production, water quality parameters sometimes need to be manipulated to promote shifts in aquatic plant and algae communities to better support existing fisheries.

Minding water quality

Water quality involves a variety of factors that must be considered in fishery management and lake and pond management. We haven’t covered all the different things that you might need to consider but hopefully this discussion has given you some food for thought. When fisheries don’t perform the way we expect them to, consider pond water testing and get some professional advice. Your fish will thank you.

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

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Liquid assets: managing water quality for healthier fish

May 6, 2021

By Matt Ward

In the interest of full disclosure it should be noted that my academic background is in biochemistry so I get pretty excited about water quality issues. That being said, this stuff really is important even if the details can’t quite inspire excitement like trophy largemouth.

Water quality issues across the nation go largely ignored as lake managers continue to reactively treat the symptoms of poor water quality.

Time after time, pond weeds and algae growth run rampant while water quality issues that drive this growth are not addressed. Fish kills occur and aeration systems are installed all while water quality issues that should be addressed go ignored.

Sometimes a little water quality work is all it takes to transform a water body and generate a healthy fishery with lower net annual input requirements. In other cases, fundamental water quality issues need to be addressed for fishery management techniques to even stand a chance. Let’s take a look at the four most important pond water testing parameters and how they can be adjusted to create a healthy fishery.

Turbidity

Turbidity represents the ability of a water body to absorb light that penetrates the surface. Turbidity is measured by peering into a pond or lake and determining the depth at which a highly contrasting object (professionally we use a secchi disk) disappears from view.

This depth is reported as the lake or pond’s visibility or turbidity. Turbidity is generally caused by one of two factors (though turbidity can certainly be altered with commercially available dyes): plankton or suspended solids (especially clays).

Turbidity from plankton represents primary productivity in an aquatic system and is generally desirable in most cases.

A highly productive pond or lake should have 18-24 inches of visibility. This level of turbidity will support high levels of fish production while avoiding increased risk of a plankton bloom crash which could easily lead to a fish kill. If a given lake has substantially less than 18 inches of visibility steps should be taken to reduce plankton production to protect the fishery.

Turbidity caused by suspended solids like clay particles are another story. Muddy water shades out the bottom sediments and supports low levels of primary productivity. A pond with turbidity from suspended solids will not support as great of a fish population as a similar pond with lower turbidity. This pond should generally be cleared.

To settle out turbid water, a clearing test should be run to determine how your water can be cleared. Most muddy water can be cleared with a flocculent like aluminum sulfate, but some waters are simply muddy from getting stirred up by cattle or even an overabundance of bottom fish like catfish or carp. In some cases a pond will need to be killed out in order to reset the fish populations and enable better water clarity to prevail, other times agricultural practices may need to be modified a bit to decrease turbidity.

Nutrients

The next water quality factor we’ll consider are nutrients. Ponds and lakes are nutrient sinks. All the basic nutrients in the landscape run down hill with the rainwater and end up in the pond.

In some cases, nutrient levels are low and a fishery’s productivity will need to be improved through fertilization. But in many other cases too much inflow means that pond managers must deal with endless cycles of growth of vegetation, algae, or phytoplankton.

In extreme cases, excess nutrients can lead to regular fish kills as excessive growth can easily absorb too much oxygen during the night or during cloudy weather. Excess growth can be temporarily reduced by targeted treatments, but ultimately growth should be curtailed by nutrient management.

The first step in managing nutrients is to understand where the bulk of a pond or lake’s excess nutrients are coming from. The most likely sources are applied fertilizers (both inorganic and organic), high nutrient well water, and direct animal waste.

Mitigation is both direct and indirect. Direct management might include applying fertilizers farther back from the pond, leaving a band of unfertilized shoreline around the pond or lake. It might call for reducing the fertilizer application rate or reducing the amount of well water inputs you use or even drilling another well to tap into a different aquifer. Other direct management techniques could involve herd control such as reducing herds or fencing them off of the pond or lake.

Indirect management, on the other hand, seeks to absorb the nutrients that are coming into the water body. This type of management might include establishing a buffer of marginal vegetation or other beneficial aquatic plants to soak up available nutrients. Another technique is to stocking forage that takes better advantage of phytoplankton helping to convert plankton bloom into fish biomass.

Another indirect technique is to apply inorganic minerals that deactivate nutrients like phosphorous, or using activated charcoal to directly absorb dissolved nutrients.

Some pond managers prefer to use aeration and micronutrients to create a better environment for beneficial bacteria that can also be used to process excess nutrients.

Nutrient management isn’t rocket science but best management practices will normally require a little professional direction. It’s important to prioritize the right management tools in your specific situation to best impact nutrient loading.

We’ll continue exploring water quality and pond water testing as part of comprehensive lake and pond management in next week’s posting, focusing on alkalinity and water hardness.

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

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Time to treat: consider your treatment options for control of pond weeds

April 6, 2021

By Matt Ward

At some point in the life of any body of water, pond weeds or algae growth is going to have to be controlled. In last week’s blog posting, we mentioned that most of the time this is going to involve herbicides and algaecides.

Think of these chemistries like scientifically tried and true pharmaceuticals for addressing pond weeds or algae growth. Treatments can be short term or provide extended control. Treatments can target all of one species of plant or target a broad spectrum of growth. Treatments can be in a particular area of a pond or occur across an entire water body.

All herbicides and algaecides serve particular purposes in particular situations. Just like any designed chemistry, these products are designed to be safe to use in the manner directed on the label.

Determine your target growth, select the appropriate chemistry, and learn the appropriate application method for that chemistry. In short use these products only as appropriate and only as stated on the product label.

Always remember that proactive control of pond weeds is essential to a healthy fishery. You should plan your vegetation treatment as part of the big picture as you consider your pond stocking plan and other pond management.

We obviously can’t go into detail on how to treat every kind of pond weed or algae you might encounter, but let’s go over a few basic uses of aquatic herbicides or algaecides ….

Marginal Growth

Sometimes pond weeds grow around the edge of a pond and create a significant barrier to access.

These pond weeds may need to be treated in their entirety or lanes cut into the growth to allow point access to a water body. This kind of growth can be treated with some full lake in water treatments but will generally best be addressed with foliar treatments with either systemic or contact herbicides.

Contact foliar herbicides usually only take a few days to work and rapidly turn growth brown beginning decomposition of plant material immediately.

Contact herbicides work quickly but often leave basal or root material viable. This live tissue often regenerates, rapidly regrowing a treated plant.

This means that contact herbicides are best used when plants are dormant or when rapid results are required.

In most cases, foliar systemic treatments will be used in lieu of contact herbicides. These chemistries tend to be slow acting taking many days to several weeks to kill the target pond weeds. These chemicals enter the plants through the leaves and then move through the plant to the roots killing the plant all the way down.

Systemic herbicides usually provide the best control but must be applied to actively growing plants.

In some situations a combination of contact and systemic herbicide is used to provide quick knockdown and extended control. Do note that seeds will generally escape various treatments eventually resprouting in the cleared area. Depending on the plant this can occur in a few weeks or up to several years after treatment.

Submersed Growth

Most of the growth that lake managers struggle with is submersed pond weeds.

Whether algal or vegetative, submersed growth fills a lake’s water column, clogging up a waterway and causing the oxygen and habitat issues we have previously discussed.

Depending on your goals, treatments should be conducted whenever vegetation growth hits about 20% coverage. Treating proactively when growth is at lower levels reduces risk to the fishery and preserves good habitat.

With experience, a good fishery manager will know what the most problematic vegetation is and which treatments to prioritize.

Often certain pond weeds can be left alone because they have less aggressive growth habits or because they are easier for fishermen to fish.

Other pond weeds are prone to top out in deep water or grow very quickly.

These latter are always prioritized for treatment.

A plethora of chemistries is available for treating submersed plants and care should be taken when selecting the preferred product or application method.

Matted growth in deep water often responds well to the use of droppers to place the product directly on the growth. In other cases, granular products can be used to great effect. When you are dealing with topped out vegetation, sprays are usually employed for best effect. That being said, care should be taken to get the applied product down into the mat and not just misted out over the surface.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind about submersed vegetation is the extreme amount of vegetation you will have per surface acre of water.

Many types of pond weeds can produce many tons of vegetative material per acre. This means that when you treat vegetation there is a lot of material that needs to break down.

The breakdown happens by decomposition, which is an oxygen-intensive process. It is easy to kill too much vegetation at a time and this can cause an oxygen depletion event which can easily lead to a partial or catastrophic fish kill. This risk is multiplied in the heat of summer when water’s oxygen carrying capacity is already strained.

Floating Vegetation

The last category of pond weeds is floating vegetation. This can range from duckweed to water hyacinth or the infamous giant Salvinia.

Some of these plants are native and many are exotic invasives.

Know that floating vegetation makes a barrier between your water and the air and as such can prevent oxygen exchange. A solid covering of floating vegetation can cause an oxygen depletion event which leads to a fish kill. Treatments are certainly species specific, but include systemic whole waterbody in-water treatments, contact foliar herbicides, contact herbicides, and foliar systemic treatments.

It’s important to target all of the growth as most of these pond weeds reproduce quite quickly. Look for brushy banks where floating plants can hide out. Selecting the right product to use is integral but correct application methodology is equally important to ensure you get the growth as thoroughly as you can.

When treating floating vegetation always take a look up the watershed from your pond or lake. Is there another water body that flows into yours? If so, try to find out if the floating vegetation comes from there.

Oftentimes a well-designed treatment is undone after a heavy rain brings a fresh batch of floating plants down from another water body. This is the time to get to know your neighbors and try to design a watershed wide management plan when possible. If you can’t address water bodies upstream it is occasionally appropriate to erect a floating barrier to prevent plants from washing into the main body.

Manage Pond Weeds for a Thriving Fishery

Know your plants, learn the correct product to address the growth, and learn the correct application technique or hire someone who does.

Correctly controlling pond weeds is key to fishery management, the first part of our fishery threesome (Habitat, Fish, and People). Correctly managed vegetation helps your fishery thrive, improves fish fecundity, improves water quality, provides aesthetic benefit, and allows access for fishing and other water activities.

Take a look at your lake and take care of the growth now, so as to avoid considering heavy treatments in the heat of summer.

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

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Pruning around the pond: vegetation control is important for lake maintenance

March 30, 2021

By Matt Ward

There are many aspects to aquatic vegetation and we’ll explore several of them over time with this blog, but here we want to focus on management and control of pond weeds.

With everyone receiving their spring pond stocking, it is important to not neglect the vegetation, which may prevent pond managers from getting the most out of their stockings in the year to come.

Certainly, not all vegetation is a detriment to a healthy fishery and moderate amounts of growth are to be encouraged in some situations. Desirable growth will not detract from your lake’s aesthetics, and will also absorb excess nutrients, reduce erosion, and allow you to effectively fish the lake.

Vegetation in the right amounts can also give small fish a place to grow up and avoid over-predation, and even provide bass with quality ambush points for efficient feeding.

The rest of the time, some form of vegetation management will be in order to maintain the fishery and the overall function of the lake. It’s a good idea to make vegetation management part of your overall pond management and maintenance activities.

Why Manage Vegetation Growth?

Of course there are always functional and aesthetic reasons to control vegetation growth on ponds and lakes. Many good resources are online to help you identify vegetation and learn how to control it, such as Texas A&M’s AgriLife Extension AquaPlant site.

But in a broader sense, control of pond weeds boils down to extending the life of a pond or lake by slowing the aging process (the technical term is eutrophication).

In short, lakes fill up over time with plants and sediment, so controlling vegetation means slowing the fill-in process. This is a long-term benefit of vegetation control but there are many more immediate benefits to good vegetation management.

Dense vegetation growth will actually allow your baitfish to escape predation and make your bass go hungry. A fresh pond stocking of bluegill could very well hide in dense vegetation, preventing your bass from benefiting from the effort.

Healthy bass fisheries usually only have 10% to 15% vegetation coverage. Vegetation should be controlled when coverage hits or exceeds 20% coverage. The right amount of vegetation is especially helpful to fishermen as it will help them easily identify the “fishy” areas of the lake since vegetation provides a simple visual cue for fishermen to target.

Too much vegetation can put too much demand on your dissolved oxygen levels, especially during warm weather or in the presence of a healthy fish population.

Certainly, plants produce oxygen during sunny weather and during the day, but at night and in cloudy weather, plants use oxygen just like all other living organisms. If dissolved oxygen levels fall too far, a fish kill could result.

This kind of kill is especially likely when dealing with floating plants like hyacinth or duckweed, which can literally smother a pond. Interestingly, studies done on dense stands of vegetation have found oxygen levels to be near zero in the heart of the vegetative stand – meaning there can actually be too dense of growth to allow fish to live inside that stand even when the lake in general is perfectly habitable to fish.

Apart from biological reasons to control pond weeds, excess growth can block recreational access, preventing fishermen from having clear casting lanes from the shore or from accessing various portions of a waterbody by boat.

Vegetation can also prevent effective fishing when fishermen spend more time cleaning pond weeds from their lures than actually fishing. This is, of course, particularly frustrating to young anglers.

Begin with the Outcome in Mind

Most discussions on vegetation devolve into management methodology, but never forget that determining the desired outcome is certainly the first step in determining the best strategy to manage your vegetation.

In fishery management we are always encouraged to pursue integrated pest management strategies for best results. Once growth of pond weeds has reached the management threshold (growth exceeds desired level), we want to generally consider three options for management: mechanical, biological, chemical.

Mechanical

If the amount of vegetation that is growing is light or you need to quickly remove growth from a particular area, mechanical control may be the best management option.

Most of the time this would involve raking up vegetation around a dock, removing a few plants that grow up in the wrong location around a lake, or perhaps clearing pond weeds from around a water intake.

In some situations, mechanical harvesters could be employed to remove larger stands of vegetation to open up water and remove some biomass. In general, mechanical removal is labor intensive and results are short lived.

Biological

Next, biological control should be considered.

Triploid grass carp have particular vegetation preferences that should be considered, but in general, these sterile vegetation-eating fish can provide general and non-specific control of vegetation growth.

When stocked at the right level, some vegetation can persist while the bulk of the vegetation stand is reduced. In general, grass carp will take a couple of years to reach their management potential and then may persist in a given water body for up to around 15 years.

It should be known that in certain situations, grass carp will exceed their management objective and need to be removed after introduction in some waters. Excess grass carp prevent all forms of vegetation growth and may muddy the water.

Note that triploid grass carp stocking requires permitting in the state of Texas and must be planned for in advance.

Tilapia offer a second form of biological control. Tilapia are omnivores and do eat plants, but tilapia really shine in their ability to control algae growth.

Each water body is different, but at high densities, algae control has been consistently achieved in a variety of water bodies. Be sure to follow state rules on stocking tilapia, but at the moment no stocking permit is required in Texas.

Do note that tilapia will compete with sunfish to a degree and ultimately reduce your lake’s sunfish carrying capacity.

Tilapia provide a decent alternative forage for bass, but check with your biologist to consider the impact tilapia will have to your water body before stocking. Do note that tilapia are tropical fish that can survive some mild Texas winters (especially in southern Texas), though they generally require annual stockings for their populations to be maintained.

Chemical

In most cases, chemical control will be required to achieve the desired level of vegetation control.

There are a lot of factors to consider in how to approach managing vegetation and algae with chemistry and we will go into this in more detail next week.

Until then, go check on your lakes and ponds and see if you can begin to identify vegetation issues before they start to get out of hand. This is the time of year we can actually get a jump on pond weeds before they get out of control.

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

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Bang for the Buck: Building a premier fishery with pelleted food

March 17, 2021

By Matt Ward

Fisheries at their most fundamental are a combination of habitat, fish, and people.

The perfect blend of these three ingredients should create a healthy system with plenty and bigger fish for fishermen to target.

Many factors go into creating a successful fishery, but likely the single most efficient step toward improving an angler experience is a fish feeding program.

High Points

After 15 years of doing this job, I already know that some of your eyes are glazing over as the image of little brown pellets of feed flying out over your pond fails to inspire.

But try a few of these facts on for size:

Did you know that when you feed fish with a quality feed their conversion factor can be upward of two pounds of fish food to grow a pound of fish?

Compare that to forage fish, for which bass must consume 10 pounds to generate one pound of body weight.

As for cost, quality fish food can be fairly expensive compared to some other animal feeds. But considering our conversion rates, we can usually grow forage like bluegill for around $2 per pound, which is much less expensive than purchasing bluegill from a hatchery.

In the end quality fish food is about 20 times more efficient than fish stocking when it comes to feeding fish in an established fishery.

Why Does the Type of Feed I Use Matter?

Different fish have different nutrition requirements.

Catfish can often be efficiently grown on relatively inexpensive low protein feed. Higher order predators or insectivores generally thrive on higher protein feed.

At Lochow Ranch, most of our pond management and lake management services and products focus on feeding largemouth, hybrid striped bass, bluegill, and trout, all great choices when pond stocking.

We manufacture a custom feed specially formulated for accelerated fish growth in intensively managed lakes. This feed blend approximates natural foods for target fish.

Testing indicates that quality feed, though more costly than the cheap stuff, will generally grow more fish per dollar spent. In the end, this means that if your goal is growth, you are better off feeding a lesser amount of quality feed than to settle for a bottom shelf bargain.

How Do I Feed?

The key to a successful fish feeding program is consistency.

If you can visit your pond multiple times per day, every day, hand feeding will easily accomplish your purposes of feeding the fish.

For the rest of us, this means using an automatic fish feeder. A quality fish feeder should hold an appropriate amount of feed to allow you to avoid having to constantly fill it. The feeder also should keep the feed dry and work consistently for years with limited repairs.

That being said, even the best feeders will occasionally have issues and require maintenance. Be sure to check your feeder’s operation each time you fill it. Filling and maintaining feeders is standard fare for all of our regular maintenance accounts.

How Much and How Often to Feed

This is a highly subjective decision.

A good biologist will weigh fish density, time of year, type of fish, daylight hours, and a budget to determine how much and how often to feed. A conversation with a good biologist should help you determine the amount that is appropriate for your pond or lake.

A few general principles apply: First, feed during daylight hours. Feeding during the day avoids allowing predators to grab a quick meal under the cover of darkness.

Fishermen generally visit ponds and lakes during the day so daylight feeding also will encourage the fish to be active when fishermen can most easily target them.

Second, spread feedings out over the day. Fish are similar to us in that they can only digest so much at a time. Feeding multiple times per day is better than all at once.

Third, you should expect your fish to eat more during the warmer months of the year than the cold. Feeding can be turned down during the winter. The one exception to this rule is trout. Trout can feed steadily all winter long.

What About Waste?

If you have fed fish for long, you are no doubt familiar with the occasional sight of a little leftover feed sitting at the edge of the lake.

Most lake owners are immediately concerned about this wasted feed.

But let’s dive into a few other things to consider.

First, know that fish have moods. Being cold blooded, they won’t feed evenly every day of the year. Occasional bits of leftover food are to be expected.

Sometimes fish experience delayed feedings, waiting 15 minutes or more before hitting the feed. Other times leftover feed might indicate that predators are terrorizing your fish. Keep a close eye on the feeders at feeding time and look for birds or otters that might learn to hang around the feeder.

In the vast majority of cases of leftover feed, marginal vegetation and algae is trapping the feed and fish just can’t get to that feed.

Effective management of pond weeds will reduce the growth and most of the time the fish will start cleaning up the remnants. If these reasons are explored and you are getting consistent waste, it’s time to turn down the feedings.

Turn the feeders down slightly and monitor excess feed to find the proper levels. Make sure to give your fish a couple of weeks to adjust to new feeding levels. Of course, on the flipside, if your fish are eating all the applied feed you can likely increase feeding levels to boost your fish production.

Fish Follow Food

In the end, fishing requires fish.

The more fish your lake contains, the more fish you will be able to catch when you fish.

If you remember nothing else, remember that fish food is the most cost-effective method we have at boosting the productivity of a given pond or lake. Establish a good feeding program as part of your fishery management and pond stocking plans and your fishing will improve.

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

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Love your lake? Let’s learn what lurks there

March 9, 2021

By Matt Ward

In order to accomplish great things, we have to take an honest look at where we are and decide on where we want to go.

This is no less true of lake and pond management than it is of life.

Knowing how things are in your pond at any point in time is the only way to be sure of what fishery management steps need to be taken and how a fishery is progressing over time.

Maybe you are planning pond stocking, wondering how pond weeds are affecting your fish, thinking about adding bass or trout, or wondering if you need to add forage fish.

The right first step is to assess the current fish population in terms of numbers, types and size.

Multiple assessment tools have been developed over time including gill nets, hoop nets, seining, pole and line, and electrofishing.

All of these methods have a place and have been developed to move fishery analysis from the “yarn” to science. Each of the first four methods are generally biased to a specific type or size of fish, making general assessment difficult.

Electrofishing is the closest thing we have to a broad-spectrum fishery analysis tool. Electrofishing is somewhat biased toward shallow water fisheries, but generally offers the most complete analysis of the widest variety of fish in a given pond or lake.

That’s why we are giving away five free electrofishing surveys to lucky Texas pond owners. There is no better way to learn what lurks in your lake.

What is electrofishing?

Electrofishing involves the application of specific current to a given water body with the goal of temporarily stunning fish in order to safely collect them. Sampled fish are netted and analyzed as needed to assess the fishery.

After analysis, fish are safely returned to the water to swim away unharmed. Equipment to conduct this work is quite sophisticated and requires extensive experience to maximize sampling efficiency and minimize risk to fish. Desired current varies in each fishery, just as conductivity of waters varies across the country.

Our electrofishing equipment is optimized for scaled fish and involves a gas generator, which is connected to a rheostat that allows us to cycle between DC/AC, various electrical frequencies, and a wide variety of applied voltages.

These settings are combined with a variety of telemetry equipment that allows us to track amp pulls and the load on our generator at any given point in time. In addition to varying settings on the rheostat, we have a variety of different hardware settings we can use to manipulate our anodes and cathode to optimize our equipment to a given water body.

Electrofishing involves applying very powerful current to water and as such involves significant risk. This risk is managed by crew training and safety policies that ensure the safety of our customers and ourselves.

Be sure to pay attention to safety instructions given prior to an electrofishing survey.

What information is collected?

Sampled fish are recorded for species and relative abundance. Next, the relative size distribution of all species is recorded. Specific gamefish are then measured and weighed to determine their relative body condition. This data is recorded and plotted against standards that have been set in scientific literature.

In addition to these direct observations, every decent fishery manager should be making many secondary observations that are critical to developing management strategies.

These include aquatic vegetation, non-living cover, water temperature, clarity, depths, predator signs, and access. All fishery assessments should also include a basic water quality analysis to check for buffering capacity and nutrient loading.

What information is gleaned from this data?

Fisheries managers use this information to understand the general species composition of a particular fishery.

Combining that with relative size data, managers are able to provide a good understanding of the forage availability for various gamefish. Gamefish data allows for an understanding of the size structure of a population and the relative health of gamefish of various sizes.

Ultimately, this data is used to determine the predator-to-prey ratios and general forage availability. In short, we find out what your fish are eating and if they have enough to eat; if you have enough fish in your lake to enjoy the fishing; if you are getting hit by predators; and the list goes on.

This information allows us to figure out what the best fish to stock would be and how many of those fish could be stocked. This kind of analysis can easily save a pond owner many thousands of dollars per acre that could be wasted by stocking “blind.”

When To Shock

The best time to shock a lake is when you need to understand the state of that fishery.

This can really be done most any time of the year with one general exception. Hot weather is hard on fish, so generally we try to avoid shocking most lakes in the heat of summer (but even this rule has exceptions).

In a perfect world, we shock all lakes annually in the fall to understand trends. The fall is preferred because standard fish data is also collected in the fall giving the best possible picture of the state of a given fishery.

That being said, we shock throughout most of the year to assess loss to predation, the strength of a spawn, fish loss due to a flood, and to conduct selective harvest.

There are also specialty shocking events that can serve specific purposes. My favorite is the pre-spawn shock for largemouth bass. Because largemouth bass females peak in weight and move shallow just before the spawn, this is the best time of year to go looking for trophies!

Final Thoughts

Electrofishing is a very safe method for sampling fish by stunning fish for short periods of time while data is collected. Check out our video of the process here.

Note that fish can occasionally be killed by the stress of electrical shock or by getting hit by the electrofishing boat’s propeller, but this loss is very rare.

Efficiency does vary though, and it should be noted that standard professional electrofishing is highly effective on scaled fish that inhabit shallow water and somewhat less effective on deep water denizens such as crappie or scaleless fish such as catfish.

All in all, if you love your lake, schedule an electrofishing survey and find out how to make your fishery shine.

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

Click here to get in touch to get started today.

Fish stocking advice: knowing your lake is the key to effective stocking

February 25, 2021

By Matt Ward

Looking out across the country, you can see countless waterbodies dotting the landscape – ponds and lakes of every size.

Most will have fish, but they’re subject to endless pressures: droughts that constrain fisheries; floods that scatter fish about the countryside; waterfowl gathering calories for migration; fishermen invited or not who ply their lines; or even otters grabbing a meal as they pass through the landscape.

Sooner or later virtually all water bodies will need to be stocked with fish in order to support healthy fisheries. Whether minimal inputs or high-catch rates are your game, thoughtful stocking is key to lake success and effective fishery management.

Let’s take a look at a handful of the most popular fisheries and discuss how pond stocking can best be employed.

New Lakes

New lakes offer the most opportunities for lake owners.

Careful selection of the timing of introduction, species, and numbers of fish stocked is key to producing the kind of fishery a lake manager wants. A good pond stocking plan should take into account expectations during a drought, the desired fishery outputs, water body physical composition and available cover. A good pond stocking plan should also be preceded by water testing to make sure all is in order.

Trophy Bass

If you are looking for a trophy bass fishery, you will need to introduce forage fish at the right time, helping small forage to peak at the time that you introduce fingerling Florida bass.

Trophy fisheries are relatively low-density fisheries and so a pond stocking plan should be put in place to boost your lake’s carrying capacity if you want consistent catch rates. This should be accomplished with pelleted fish food and/or supplemental forage.

Feed-trained Largemouth

Other popular fishery options include feed-trained largemouth bass, which can provide some of the highest catch rates around.

Well over 100 feed-trained bass can be stocked per acre as long as feeding rates are kept up. This kind of fishery is ideal for casual fishermen, the young, or the young at heart. Feed-trained bass can easily hit weights of 5 pounds or more. While feed-trained bass are fertile, young do not learn to eat fish food so restocking is needed to maintain their populations.

Hybrid Striped Bass

Hybrid striped bass can also be stocked at high rates allowing for exciting fishing.

Hybrids are sterile, but rapidly grow to 5 pounds with some achieving well over 10 pounds in weight. These fish are relatively inexpensive and sold at small sizes that rapidly grow into hard-fighting bruisers.

Contrary to popular belief, hybrids can be stocked in small waters and often offer a tremendous option for small pond owners. Most hybrids live for seven or eight years in the South, achieving much greater ages in the North. Restocking should be planned to maintain populations.

Catfish

A quality catfish pond should almost always be stocked with channel catfish. Blue catfish do grow larger and can be stocked if desired, though these apex predators usually grow so large that only low numbers of fish can be supported in a given pond or lake.

Flathead catfish are even more problematic and tolerate even lower stocking densities. In channel catfish fisheries baitfish are beneficial though their value is secondary to pelleted fish food for feeding the fish.

Channel catfish taste excellent and can be stocked in relatively high numbers when supported with supplemental feed. Up to 500 catfish can be stocked per acre. Higher stocking rates should be accompanied with high harvest to keep the fishery healthy.

In the aquaculture industry, channels are normally grown to a couple of pounds before harvest so plans should be made to begin harvest of channel catfish within a year or two of stocking to keep populations in check as the pond ages.

Existing Fisheries

Existing fisheries may require stocking for a variety of reasons.

Put-and-take fisheries with feed-trained bass, hybrids and catfish should be restocked to maintain populations of a finite resource of fish. Forage fish may need to be stocked to recover a population if predator fish populations exceed their food source.

Lakes that recover from droughts often need stockings to recover fish populations that have shrunk with falling water levels. Some situations are simple, but most require an intimate knowledge of the fishery to be correctly selected.

Effective stockings of existing fisheries should generally be preceded by a thorough survey of the fishery. Beware of services that offer to stock large numbers of fish without taking the time to know your fishery.

One stocking you can generally pursue without a prior fishery survey is Rainbow Trout. Rainbow Trout provide an exciting winter fishery when stocked in sufficient densities.

These fish won’t survive long once water temperatures warm in spring, but can provide excellent table fare in the meantime. That being said, trout are predatory fish so do know that trout will generally lower forage populations over the winter, so be sure to provide them with plenty of fish food to minimize forage loss.

The key to getting the most from your body of water is to develop a strategic pond stocking plan as central to your fishery management.

When deciding what fish to stock, make sure that your pond stocking plan is developed by an experienced biologist with a solid reputation. Good biologists will design a pond stocking plan that will help you efficiently pursue your fishing goals for years to come. When you get your stocking plan, ask if the person you hire will provide support as needed after the initial stocking.

Ponds and lakes are dynamic environments that can experience a variety of problems that may require intervention. An ounce of prevention … well, you get the idea ….

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

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The Big Freeze: how did last week’s arctic blast affect Texas ponds and fish?

February 23, 2021

By Matt Ward

First, let me say that we sincerely hope that all of you are OK after last week’s extreme winter weather. Our thoughts are truly with those who experienced the worst of the power and water outages. If you were among this group we hope that you are on the road to recovery this week.

I have to say it was heartening to see so many coming together to help each other out during the big freeze.

On a related note, we have received a good number of questions from our clients about the effect of cold on ponds and lakes so we hope this brief summary helps to answer most of your questions.

Please drop us a line if you have any other specific concerns or questions we can answer around fishery management or pond management in general.

What about the fish?

As most of you know, fish are cold-blooded (“ectotherms” would be a more scientifically correct term for the science nerds).

This means that during our unusually cold weather, fish body temperatures mirrored the lake temps and as such fish metabolisms slowed to a crawl. In general, most of the fish that live in our waters are accustomed to short periods of cool weather and will have fared the weather just fine.

That being said, there are a few fish that are a bit more cold-sensitive so we do want to keep an eye out for these fish and note any losses.

Threadfin shad

The most cold-sensitive fish we have in our lakes are threadfin shad. Threadfin generally experience at least partial die-offs when water temperatures dip below 45 degrees Fahrenheit.

On top of this, threadfin shad get highly lethargic and even the fish that would have survived the cold will generally get swallowed up by largemouth bass which are much less affected by the low water temps.

With last week’s cold front, we expect that we lost most or all of the threadfin shad in most every small impoundment in the state.

We’ll be monitoring populations in lakes with large amounts of shad, but we don’t expect to find shad left over. Threadfin shad availability will also likely be down this year, so expect supplies to be short as well.

If you want to restock the fish, get your orders in early and know that demand should outstrip supply.

Florida Bass

While far more cold-hearty than threadfin shad, Florida bass are famously more susceptible to cold than their northern counterparts. While cold weather can kill off Florida bass, fishery managers stock Florida bass successfully well north of the Red River.

Losses in Texas should be minor though the farther north you are, the more attention you should pay to your Florida largemouth bass stock. Northern largemouth bass are fully adapted to cold water like we experienced last week, but certain populations like feed-trained bass can be a bit more susceptible to rapidly cooling water temps.

While we expect that threadfin shad are the primary victim of last week’s arctic blast, an electrofishing survey is the best way check for any other significant impacts.

Predators get active during cold

Fish instincts do generally cause fish to go deep during cold weather, providing a small degree of protection from predators. But cold weather also increases the metabolisms of both otters and birds who need to eat more to keep warm.

While your fish may survive the cold just fine, predator consumption will rise and fish losses from predation should be expected. Do what you can to minimize loss, but look for changes in catch rates and be prepared to stock.

Vegetation takes a hit

The one really bright side of last week’s weather is that the cold-snap should provide a welcome reprieve from undesirable early season growth of pond weeds.
Cold water temperatures have likely pushed the growing season back several weeks allowing for a thorough winter kill and forcing pond weeds to grow again from seeds and roots.

Note that marginal vegetation will likely have turned completely brown. But have faith. Most native vegetation is built to survive this kind of weather event and growth will return once temperatures warm. While browned-out growth can be removed for aesthetic purposes, know that removal will likely slow recovery.

Forage fish lose cover

Whenever we lose submersed vegetation, forage fish often lose a majority of their preferred cover.

This cover loss can enable bass to depress forage populations which may not recover for several months or until supplemental stockings are deployed.
These kinds of situations really demonstrate the value of non-living cover which provides stable cover regardless of winter vegetation die-back.

The best way to monitor the impact from winter forage loss is to monitor bass health as the weather warms. If bass remain fat and healthy forage loss is likely not a concern, while thin bass indicate a lack of the same. While all gamefish benefit from robust forage populations, do note that pelleted feed-based fisheries need not be concerned about temporary forage fish depressions as gamefish rely primarily on fish food.

Keep an eye on your fishery

All in all, cold weather certainly impacts fisheries in significant ways. These impacts are generally specific to each fishery and difficult to predict across the board. In general predation will have increased and forage fish populations will have fallen. To keep your fishery developing appropriately you should monitor the fishery and make needed adjustments in a timely manner to keep your fishery developing appropriately.

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

Click here to get in touch to get started today.

Lake Management

A study of Water Quality – By Matt Ward

Blue-Green Algae Concerns

Particularities of Blue-Green Algae

Management Objectives

Vigilant Algae Control

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

By Matt Ward

Basic Beaver Biology

Fish Worries?

Dam Damage

Targeting Trees

Lodging and Tunnels

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

By Matt Ward

Alkalinity

Hardness

A Note on Vegetation and Algae

Minding water quality

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

By Matt Ward

Turbidity

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

By Matt Ward

Marginal Growth

Submersed Growth

Floating Vegetation

Manage Pond Weeds for a Thriving Fishery

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

By Matt Ward

Why Manage Vegetation Growth?

Begin with the Outcome in Mind

Mechanical

Biological

Chemical

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

By Matt Ward

High Points

Why Does the Type of Feed I Use Matter?

How Do I Feed?

How Much and How Often to Feed

What About Waste?

Fish Follow Food

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

By Matt Ward

What is electrofishing?

What information is collected?

What information is gleaned from this data?

When To Shock

Final Thoughts

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

By Matt Ward

New Lakes

Trophy Bass

Feed-trained Largemouth

Hybrid Striped Bass

Catfish

Existing Fisheries

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

By Matt Ward

What about the fish?

Threadfin shad

Florida Bass

Predators get active during cold

Vegetation takes a hit

Forage fish lose cover

Keep an eye on your fishery

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

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