Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Cattails

If you allow some short boards to float amoung the old cattail stems, these would provide lots of space for FH to attach eggs to. The boards would move up and down somewhat with the water level. Cedar shingles will also work good either floated or pushed into the pond bank in shallow water.

Hey John,
I got an idea for you.... If you want to try the cattails fine, I won't discourage you. Here is what I typically advise my customers to do. If you are going to introduce cattails then place them on the side where the wind won't blow the seed into the pond. For example: if the wind generally comes out of the West then plant them in the Eastern part of your pond. If you want to somewhat control them, make sure you cut all the seed pods off as soon as they come up.
Worst case scenario us Rodeo and a surfactant to kill them. Only professionals should use a chemical like Habitat. It has a residual of up to two years in the soil. Not a big deal unless you have trees around the pond, which it will kill everyone!

Interesting observation this morning. I saw a couple of bulls in the creek. They were eating the new cattail shoots. I didn't know they would do that.

I visited a pond at a nearby school around the time I was constructing my pond to observe an electroshocking demo by the ODNR. The pond was 1 acre excavated in the middle of a field with a clay bottom and completed surrounded with cattails. The water was crystal clear due to the plants pulling all the nutrients out of the water, according to the DNR people. The shocking survey turned up some very skinny bass, an 8# CC, a few small skinny BG and Green sunfish. No nutrients=no little fish food=no little fish=no big fish.

Dave,

With the drought we are facing down here my cows have eaten alot of the cattails. I didn't think that they would eat them either but I was wrong when I saw them chomping away.

TX715, I flew down to McAllen last night and drove back today. I saw nothing green until I was just South Of San Antonio. I stopped in Freer and talked to Leonel Garza. He told me that ranchers are feeding the deer pellets. Boy, it looks grim.

My poor pond started filling up with 1" of rain 2 months ago, and is now completely dry again. It is frightening to think about how dry my place is. I'm starting to worry about some 100 year old live oaks that look really stressed.