I have a 3/4 acre deep pond in Galveston County, Texas. Its well stocked with blue and channel cats and copper nose bream. I also have a few LMB that arrived someway, not sure how. Along the banks of the pond I have cattails very thick and need to thin in certain areas. I have bought and used some chemical herbicide designed for ponds that want injure fish and it seems to work ok but was wondering if anyone has a better idea maybe mechanical, as to how to get rid of some of these cattails?

like most tubers, you're better off digging them up than trying to treat with chemicals

I use AquaNeat which is one of the herbicides recommended by the Illinois DNR for control of cattails. It's a pond safe glyphosate like Rodeo and AquaPro. Seems to work well for me at a 0.75% solution with a surfactant in a pump sprayer. I try to make sure I get it all covered, not just a few leaves on one side.

Thanks Bill, I have some herbicide my wife ordered and have used it last year and it works fine, the problem I have is I have so much to spray, so many cattails. My arm gives out by pumping the sprayer, I guess I'll pickup a 12 volt sprayer one of these days.
I was also thinking of building a rake like devise that would fit on my tractor, just haven't done it yet. I believe something like that could be built and should work.

I have a little 21 gallon 12V sprayer I pull behind our little tractor. It works great when you have a lot to spray.

Just closing the loop on this. My efforts with AquaNeat were 100% successful. I went from cattails invading 2/3 the perimeter of my puddle to gone. I am currently cattail free.

Just wondering where one could acquire AquaNeat. I have two ponds, biggest is 1 acre and am wanting to limit the spread of the existing cat tails. Right now, they are not a problem but will be within a few short years if something is not done and digging them out is certainly labor intensive.

A friend of mine in the landscape business got the AquaNeat for me at one of his suppliers. If you can't find AquaNeat, any pond safe 53.8% glyphosate herbicide, such as Rodeo, should do the same thing. I also added nonionic surfactant to the spray (I used Cygnet) which I think is important for good results.

Be sure to cover the entire plant. Anything that hasn't turned brown in two or three weeks should be sprayed again. Don't forget to remove and dispose of any seed heads you see.

I am happy to report that I am still cattail free!

I’m planning on ordering rodeo for cattails. Anyone have any input on what stage in the plants life to spray them? Appears supposed to wait til the plant is mature so that means fall but was hoping to knock them down now instead of seeing them all summer. Any thoughts? Thanks

After a 2 second Google search, here's this:

Glyphosate is most effective when it is applied to young plants that are actively growing. After the plants are full grown, their tubers are also mature and the chemical cannot move from the leaves to the rhizomes to kill them. ... Dormant tubers, or tubers that are unattached to the foliage you spray, will not be killed.

We always tried to hit our cattails as soon as they started to green up, spraying both sides of the trail out to open water (about 100 yards) and it would keep the path open all summer.

I decided to go with Roundup Max Concentrate. Local price for 2.5gal was $55 and it's 51% gly compared to many generics of 41%. It also has a surfactant in it. Going to go spray in the coming days. Maybe i will able to be included in the billions of dollars lawsuit If anyone would like to share what mixture you used for cattails I'd sure be interested. Thanks

The surfactant in that mix is extrememly toxic to amphibians and as such not rated for water use.