zebra mussels

[MOPanfisher]

I never said it would change anything just that the lake is not ruined.  Loz, smithville, grand, perry, milford and the great lakes, just to name a few all have zebra mussels.  Some thing may require adjustment but unless a lake is extremely infertile to begin with I don't think they will take out the food chain base.  Don't get me wrong I wish they would vanish completely but it ain't gonna happen.  There is another related mussel the Quaggas I believe that can survive down to 60 feet  but I am not aware of any in the Midwest yet.

[Ham]

Having ZM in BSL is definitely going to cost me dozens of extra jigheads and/or lures a year. No doubt about that.

[mojorig]

Bull Shoals Lake Boat has found ZM as deep as 80 feet under some of their docks. They are certainly not as numerous at that depth as they are in the preferred range of 20-30 feet.

As mentioned in another post, we haven't found a measurable impact of the zebra mussels in BSL besides bothering the anglers.

[Ham]

3 minutes ago, mojorig said:

Bull Shoals Lake Boat has found ZM as deep as 80 feet under some of their docks.

No problem, we just to take it down to 80 foot low and leave it there for a month or two. JK

[Diamond City Fisher]

Here's a little more on the zebras:

http://bransontrilakesnews.com/news_free/article_ad3e7a78-9897-11e5-8dee-bb8d14f4147a.html

[Fish24/7]

http://www.lakenews.com/News.asp?ID=8F7FC2E7-03F0-4580-98C2-7003011284B0&SiteID=AR002

 

[Old plug]

Well something happens to them In the case of LOZ it occured in a blazing hot summef. I had been seeing these things flottihg buy the diat times that looked like ounkin seed. After awhile I got curios and scooped one up jt ws a zebra mussel. The die of webt on for several week hve no idea wht happened. But they were wiped out. 

[Sam]

They're bound to already be in Tablerock, just not in quantities to be noticed yet.  Lots of boats are used in both Tablerock and Bull Shoals.

I didn't realize that zebra mussels have been in Bull Shoals since 2007.  Because of such high water in BS since last spring, I didn't go back and forth between Bull Shoals and other lakes like I usually do - I haven't fished Bull Shoals since last February.  But I hate to say, if each zebra mussel produces 10,000 microscopic larvae that are suspended in the water - it seems almost impossible to fish between lakes from the same boat without spreading them.

When I'm fishing a lot, my drained live well never dries out.  There's a half inch of water in there, and probably some lake water stays in the bends and elbows of the PVC drain pipe that runs through the bilge and connects to the bottom of the live well, too.  There's water in my bilge that I pump out occasionally (yes, I can pump that out on land) - I think it's mostly melted ice water from the icebox, but there's probably some lake water mixed in from wakes and spray that come aboard while I'm running.  There's even a small amount of lake water riding in the cooling system of my 4-stroke outboard - not much I can do about that.  Normally, I fish 2 or 3 times a week from March on, Bull Shoals, Tablerock, Stockton, Pomme de Terre, etc.  Now I'm thinking about just not putting my boat on Bull Shoals at all until zebra mussels show up in the other lakes too.  (Not a big sacrifice with the Bull Shoals water level so unfishably high again.)

I think all our area lakes are going to get invaded by zebra mussels in time whatever we do, but I don't want to spread them if I can help it. 

[Fish24/7]

if only more people stopped to think like Sam did. A lot of people fishing have never heard of zebra mussels yet. They need to be educated by anglers like Sam and the rest of us to get the word out.

[Ham]

Lots of ppl can't figure out the different between a spotted bass and a Largemouth. I'm not sure its possible to educate everyone well enough to do all the tricks to clean a boat properly. And I'm not sure that everybody cares enough even if they really understood.