Zebra Mussels Discovered in Lake Ashtabula

[emerald]

would chickens and pheasant eat ground zebras?probably sweeten the meat ,are they good with scotch

 

[Downrigger]

I really enjoy being able to sleep til 9, have breakfast and then go catch a limit. MN fishing by comparison sucks balls

Big weights still come out in the middle of the day. Again, cant fish like grandpa did.

 

[MSA]

I've fished Milford reservoir in central kansas many times. Milford was loaded with zebra mussels, and the water was never clear. All the locals I ever talked to about it said the fishing stayed the same or got better.

 

[Lycanthrope]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling... :::

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WY bans all wild caught minnows from being used state wide so the minnows are farmed in Arkansas instead, $5 a DOZEN, drainage minnows are still $3-4 a dozen

Also all boats are inspected at the border in WY before being allowed to enter a lake, all boats passing an inspection station also have to stop. If WY is doing it ND should too. They have found many boats and crafts with mussels. ND should be more proactive especially because of the importance of fishing industry commerce

like the "dump them in every lake and get it over with" idea better.
I

 

[Trip McNeely]

With the amount of erosion and nitrates that hit our lakes every year I have a hard time believing zebras will give us “gin” clear water like alot of the “sky is falling” crowd predict. The hit to infrustructure may increase but my gut tells me this isnt as big of a problem as weve been led to believe.....

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One of my favorite fishing spots has crystal clear water now and seems to still pump out the piggys.

 

[Walleye_Chaser]

Yeah having out of state boats checked at the border would be awesome, but I'm guessing the cost would be insane.

 

[westwolfone]

Yeah having out of state boats checked at the border would be awesome, but I'm guessing the cost would be insane.

They make the out of state boaters pay for it

 

[guywhofishes]

Big weights still come out in the middle of the day. Again, cant fish like grandpa did.

I’m listening...

 

[dean nelson]

I've fished Milford reservoir in central kansas many times. Milford was loaded with zebra mussels, and the water was never clear. All the locals I ever talked to about it said the fishing stayed the same or got better.

Yeah the Kansas lakes were mention a number of times and some of the research papers I was reading and they held a lot of weight with me since they're likely to have similar high nitrate runoff from Farm Fields like ours do. Devil's Lake is the only like North Dakota lake i could see truly getting cleaned up by these things since it's a closed basin but she also has a b**** load of nitrates in her too so will be interesting. Seems like overall they're just more of an infrastructure problem and less of Fisheries problem.

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Not quite. Rather, someone (this was about 12 years ago) placed a mason jar of water on the steps of some MT DNR or USFWS office step with a cryptic note. In testing the jar it was found to have zebra mussel veligers in it. Nobody then knew if it was intended to be some kind of eco terrorism threat, an actual sample from some body of water, or ???. To date I am not aware of any body of water on the upstream end of the Missouri having documented zebra mussels.


One thing is for sure, this will really put a corkscrew into the plans for the fish hatchery at Ashtabula. Where are they going to take fish that were raised in contaminated waters? The answer is...nowhere.

I would assume they'll just dump them all in the Ashtabula the sheyenne and the red if they can't use them anywhere else. Might make for one hell of an interesting year there. The one question I have is did they stock any lakes this spring already with stuff out of the Hatchery especially something like put and take rainbow trout like they do in so many lakes. Be ironic if it was the game and fish actually just spreading it to a whole bunch of new lakes.

 

[Dirty]

Adults can live out of water for a week, so even if one follows all of the recommended procedures, it's still pretty easy to see how someone who regularly enjoys different bodies of water for fishing or boating could unknowingly spread these. I agree with a few posters who have said the spread to most bodies of water is inevitable. You can only hope to delay it.

 

[Trip McNeely]

At this point in the game I feel it would be wiser to spend our money on researching and finding feasible and cost effective ways at mitigating potential damage to underwater infrastructure. Spending it on prevention at this point seems somewhat foolish if we will have to double down our money later on mitigation anyhow.....

 

[MuskyManiac]

I can tell you from being on the same lake for as long as I can remember that the mussels have destroyed the fishing on Lake Lida. This used to be a premier fishing lake, but after having known mussels for 6 years now, the last couple years have been horrible. The DNR is saying the worst test netting in the history of the lake. This was a lake that was never recently stocked and had all natural reproduction. Not anymore. Going to be several years now before it gets better.

 

[JayKay]

Not quite. Rather, someone (this was about 12 years ago) placed a mason jar of water on the steps of some MT DNR or USFWS office step with a cryptic note. In testing the jar it was found to have zebra mussel veligers in it. Nobody then knew if it was intended to be some kind of eco terrorism threat, an actual sample from some body of water, or ???. To date I am not aware of any body of water on the upstream end of the Missouri having documented zebra mussels.


One thing is for sure, this will really put a corkscrew into the plans for the fish hatchery at Ashtabula. Where are they going to take fish that were raised in contaminated waters? The answer is...nowhere.

On the radio today at lunch, they said that the walleye from Ashtabula, that WERE going to be transplanted, are now going right back in Ash..

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With the amount of erosion and nitrates that hit our lakes every year I have a hard time believing zebras will give us “gin” clear water like alot of the “sky is falling” crowd predict. The hit to infrustructure may increase but my gut tells me this isnt as big of a problem as weve been led to believe.....

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One of my favorite fishing spots has crystal clear water now and seems to still pump out the piggys.

I agree.

A) I do not mind fishing at night at all.

B) While I don't like change, sometimes worrying about the change, is worse than the actual change.

C) The tailrace has quite clear water, and nearly all would agree, the fishing there can be very good.

 

[3Roosters]

They have groups volunteering to clean ditches. Perhaps something along those lines can be promoted at lake accesses as well?? Volunteer..or pay people.. still cheaper in the long run. Of course it won't eliminate the problem but it would be addressing it and doing SOMETHING. I know in MN they have paid workers working pretty much every access I have been at...weekends anyway. Mostly retired or semi retired gals and guys.

 

[emerald]

could pay them with bud

 

[SDMF]

Yeah having out of state boats checked at the border would be awesome, but I'm guessing the cost would be insane.

The fines on in-coming illegal out-of-state bait and outgoing over-limit walleyes would WAY more than cover the up-front costs of inspections.

 

[MuskyManiac]

I've seen it mentioned just a couple times in passing in this thread, but birds can spread ANS big-time. This type of spread is impossible to stop.

 

[BBQBluesMan]

I've seen it mentioned just a couple times in passing in this thread, but birds can spread ANS big-time. This type of spread is impossible to stop.

I am not sure I buy this. Has there been any actual studies on this that your aware of? The few I have seen sort of dispute this argument, but I dont believe there has been a large scale study done either. I am not saying its not possible or does not happen, but IF its true that they can spread zebra mussels big time, a lot more lakes in Minnesota and North Dakota and elsewhere would have zebras not? Like A LOT more of them? It seems like lakes with large amounts of recreation are the ones to get infested.

 

[guywhofishes]

I too wonder about waterfowl.

There are so many cases where lakes are less than a mile from an infested lake but stay uninfected for years and years.

you’d think the closer the two water bodies, the more intact planktonic zebras would make the ride

 

[NDSportsman]

I am not sure I buy this. Has there been any actual studies on this that your aware of? The few I have seen sort of dispute this argument, but I dont believe there has been a large scale study done either. I am not saying its not possible or does not happen, but IF its true that they can spread zebra mussels big time, a lot more lakes in Minnesota and North Dakota and elsewhere would have zebras not? Like A LOT more of them? It seems like lakes with large amounts of recreation are the ones to get infested.

It happens. If these things can be transported by a boat that's been out of the water for a week they can most definitely be transported by birds, turtles, you name it.