Grass at Fellows

[MoCarp]

his should help

[MOPanfisher]

Good stuff. I have looked at the photos and drawings etc.have them in my office even. Of hydrilla, elodea, milfoil, coontain, parrot feather etc. And it helps, but the hour I spent at an MDC hands on training, fondling all of them in buckets of water was a solid gold.  

[MoCarp]

1 hour ago, MOPanfisher said:

fondling all of them in buckets of water was a solid gold.  

LOL

[MOPanfisher]

I used "fondling" as one of them has a distinctive gritty fel, another emits a unique odor when squished.  Which I wasn't very good at detecting.  Also they were militant on the plants, even the buckets were marked and only used in certain watersheds. No way are they gonna be a part of causing any spreading of things like hydrilla, their boat decontamination procedures were impressive too.

[Bass Yakker]

I am also quite familiar with this vegetation and have examined it up close because it's what I always catch on my lures and hooks when I fish at fellows.  Instead of fish

[MOPanfisher]

Fish do like vegetation for the shade, cover and it's where the bait likes to hide.  Unfortunately some forms become very aggressive and will take over a body of water and choke out the more preferred native vegetation.  Hydrilla is one of the bad ones, has been found in a lot of private ponds in the Pomme, Sac, and James watersheds.  The good thing so far is that it is responds well to a level of herbicide (primarily Komeen and Sonar I believe) that doesn't also kill the native plants.  It likely got its start due to an aquarium dump or fish/aquatic veg tranfer.  It transports easily, will reproduce from clippings, tuber and turions, waterfowl and critters like muskrats can transfer it overland to other bodies of water.  A lot of time, effort, and expense is being spent to inspect, document and eradicate it whenever found. The treatment process lasts roughly 5 plus years from the last live plant found.

Sorry for going off on a tangent, have been involved in this program for a few years now, waiting for the day and announcement of "no new finds".

[slabstacker]

Those are good detailed pics along with the picture bassfisher had with the weeds in his hand.  After seeing the diagram it is definitely that coontail weed that is everywhere.  The crappies are stacked up in it thick.  We caught them all weekend last weekend in that stuff and ran out this evening for a couple hours and hit them again. They are biting good around that stuff and its easy to find most of the coves have it in them.  We caught them tonight on pink jigs about 3 or 4 feet under a float, they didn't want anything moving just wanted the jigs dead still.