Just found out that the total alkalinity is 123 ppm if that helps.

The lake was shocked a couple years ago by Mo dept of Conservation Fisheries Biologists and I was in the boat with them. The report says, " Stunted bass and stunted bluegil. Both species were fairly skinny. Likely due to dense stands of milfoil. Redear are descent and bluegil growth could be good enough to produse 8 inch fish."

The recommendation was to "Control vegetation. Milfoil is extremely thick. Try to get down to 25% coverage. Can use grass carp up to 10 per acre if you can harvest them if they are eating too much vegetation. I would also use some chemical control. Treat algae first (copper sulfate) then Milfoil. Establish native plants to compete with milfoil."

We stocked grass carp two years ago at 10 per acre with no visible results yet. I also spread Navigate granular around boat docks and that works well, but only for a year and its expensive.

We are working on having a drawdown pipe put in so we can drop it about 6ft from Dec to Feb to freeze out the shallow vegetation. Since I've been on this website I've realized that that could open us up to more FA problems in areas that the milfoil has left.

We've had a few otters in the lake off and on since tha GC were added and it makes me wonder what our mortality rate is and how many we've had wash over the spillway during heavy rains.

Thanks for the help.