Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment widgeon grass

i have a 55 acre lake that was constructed and filled in 2001.
average depth is 7 feet, with some 10-12 feet water in deep areas, and a channel that is 18-19 feet deep in deepest areas.
this summer i have a grass that has shown up that a friend of mine who is a bioligist says is "widgeon grass". looks like coontail, but leaves are like bermuda grass. it is around perimeter to about 5 foot deep (10 feet wide from bank to edge).
is this harmful or a good place for baitfish to hide? i have a resident flock of several hundred canadian geese who seem to be feeding on it heavily right now. can it be controlled with any kind of carp? pond has bass, bream crappie, channel cat, and talapia right now.

Welcome to the forum...

I am not sure widgeon grass looks like coontail with leaves that are burmuda grass like, but individual plants within the same species do have some variance. Do you have any photos of it?

The talapia should be eating it already. Widgeon grass is a preferred food source for many species of waterfowl, Canada geese included. If the widgeon grass is around the whole perimeter to 5 feet, that is a bit excessive. Grass carp will help control it and the grass is fairly high on their food list. 55 acres is a large BOW, so you'll need a fair number of carp though if you want to see dramatic results.

If you're a waterfowl hunter and use the lake for that purpose, it may not be such a bad thing... Widgeon grass is a definitely a good place for baitfish to hide. Depending on your goals in the lake and the percentage of widgeon grass coverage will dictate if and how much you want to treat it.

When managing a large lake like you have, you may want to consult a professional biologist to do an on sight evaluation. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. Please, don't be a stranger on the forum. Share some photos of your lake, we'd love to see it!

we do waterfowl hunt on it.
i will try to get picture this week of grass.
have tried a professional to help manage, must have gotten a bad one, he didn't know as much about it as i did. i have been managing it since inception on what i read in pb magazine.

Well, at least you know the value of PB. I am glad you found the forum. There are some very knowledgeable guys on here! Give this thread some time to soak and see what others have to say about your situation. A firm ID on your aquatic plant is key though...

If indeed widgeon grass and only in shallow margins and considering the time of the year I woudl leave it alone. It is not a bad plant, helps hide fish as you said. Great for waterfowl if that does not hurt pulling them there instead of more preffered area. Next year consider spot treatment with Reward when it starts to appear. If you would like a second opinion we are out that way quite a bit picking up fish. Give us a holler and we can swing by for a consult day before pickup.

Do you stock tilapia yearly? If you stocked them this spring in proper quantities and size, they should have easily controlled the plants. Another possibilty is that you were given Nile tilapia. The Niles are not a good choice in waters that get too cool because the spawn at a much older age than Blues or Mozambique or even many hybrids. Younger Niles are unable to provide the required reproduction rates needed to provide vegetation control or to be a good forage source. Blues and Mozambiques can spawn at 2-4 months of age. Niles and many of their hybrids don't reach maturity till 6-18 months of age.

this is the third year i have stocked talapia. had trouble getting them this year. only got about 600, but they were huge, 1 to 3 pounds when i put them in in may. i don't know what kind they were. they came out of florida. got em' from a friend of mine who is a fish farmer. some had babies in there mouths when they were put in.

Larger tilapia reproduce far less often than younger ones. If they were mostly a nile strain, the first offspring wouldn't reproduce. At an average of 1200 pounds stocked in 55 acres, you had about half of what would normally be used when stocking an early spawning fish. With a Blue or Mozambique, spawning begins at 2-3 months of age where niles start at over a year in age with many of the hybrid nile's starting around 6 months. It may well be a combination of the low numbers stocked and a late spawning species, but either one ends with less than optimum results.

I certainly hope I can be your fish-farmer-friend next spring!

By the way, I sent you a private message. You can click the blinking envelope at the top of the page to open it.

i have photo's of grass, but can't figure out how to post them.

See the Archive thread on posting photos.

If you want to email me a pic or 2 I'll put em up for ya. I can't figure how to make em big, but I can get em on here. staceydwhitehead@yahoo.com