Get with your county AG agent. They can help you with a pond management program. They had a seminar with a speaker from Texas A & M on aquaculture and how to maintain your pond. Talked about fertilizing the water to get the algae to bloom to cut down on water clarity and on maintaining your different water weed growth. Very interesting all of the things you need to do to maintain it and manage it correctly.

I wonder if you could take a piece of chain link and tie some cinder blocks to it and tow it around the bottom of the lake and tare up the plants. You could create lanes and points and great spots to fish. I am sure it will grow in but you could do it yearly for just some time and just a little boat gas money.

BTW I have no experience with pond management, just an idea.

We have a similar issue with one of our ponds and I am going to add some triploid carp. I forget the ratio but for this 8 acre tank, it's only something like 20 carp if I recall the permit I filed.

I woudl give Bob Lusk a call over at PondBoss.com. Reading through his FB postings is very educational. He is based in East Texas and definatly knows his stuff.

We put in a few triploid grass carp . DO NOT FOLLOW THE RECOMMENDED AMOUNT. Stock about 1/10th what is recommended

Yes, I'd put only one in there and see what happens.
Hopefully, only one will not figure out how to self replicate.

Hey Dilly,

The bulk of what I see in that photo is coontail with some strands of hydrilla.

Grass carp are by far the most cost effective method on coontail and hydrilla but coontail is not one of their preferred plants, and they probably won't do much at all to milfoil. The magic number for control without elimination is notoriously difficult to hit. It'll probably be somewhere between 5 and 10 grass carp per vegetated acre. I'd try 3 per vegetated acre to start and add aquatic dye (aquashade is a popular brand name) right now to slow down the growth of whats already in there. The carp won't have any effect on plant abundance this year, but you should see some difference next year because they'll be in there and eating it when it first emerges in the spring. If you don't see improvement by next summer, add 2 more grass carp per vegetated acre / year until you start seeing control. Once they're in there, you won't get them out for 7 to 10 years so be conservative with grass carp stocking. Remember to get your permit for triploid grass carp.

Dye won't stop growth in water shallower than 3 feet but it'll help in the deeper water. Application instructions are brand-specific and they're printed on the product label. You'll probably need to reapply a time or two the rest of the year to maintain the dye. You can stop applying it in the late fall as the plants naturally recede. Start applying the dye again in December-January to reduce growth from the beginning.

Chemicals are the fastest option and you can spot-treat with some of them to just kill off areas you want clear. Those three plant species are common nuisances so there are several chemical options. Call your county Extension office or Todd Sink at Texas A&M for guidance on chemicals, each state has its own rules (I work in Arkansas, don't want to guide you wrong). If you go with a contact chemical, only treat 1/3 or so of the pond, wait two weeks, then treat the next section because those chemicals break down plants quickly and can cause oxygen depletion and fish kills if you do too much at once.

The chain dragging method LakeForkGroupie mentioned is actually not that far-fetched. You can build an apparatus like that or buy a weed cutter you could drag behind the boat to cut down the stems. Like he figured, it's a short-term fix (probably in the order of weeks) as those plants grow quickly and both coontail and hydrilla can spread by stem fragments. So, it could spread the plants to unvegetated parts of the pond if you have some, or make the vegetated areas even more dense. If the whole pond is vegetated then it probably won't make much difference

Don't put fertilizer in this pond until the plants are mostly, if not completely, gone. Fertilizer at this point would just make the rooted plants way worse. You might be able to get away with an early spring fertilization IF the water chemistry is in order to allow a plankton bloom. Otherwise the fertilizer will just boost the rooted plant growth.

Would be a good idea to get a water analysis done to see why the water is clear. It may be a nutrient thing, it may be a pH thing. A water test would answer some questions and focus your appropriate treatments.

Alternatively, you can hire a pond management company. There are several great options in Texas. They can seem kinda expensive if you just look at the bill, but instead of learning all this mess and trying it yourself and potentially doing something wrong, possibly killing fish it took 10 years to grow, you can say "here's some money, fix it" and your job is done. If you do your homework and get guidance from the A&M Fisheries Extension staff, you can do this on your own, it's just a bit of a hassle to keep up with.

- Scott

There is a cutter you can throw out and cut grass short to make awesome casting lanes. Wind will have to blow it out of your way and requires more maintenance but I think it would be worth it. They have different models this is first one I found.


Aquatic Weed Cutter

Awesome. I appreciate it. Thanks for all the input guys. Once I get it cleaned up I want to stock it with some Florida’s. I don’t remember the company but they offer 1-3 inch and 6-8 inch. I know a very minute amount of the 1-3 inch would survive, ball park what do y’all think would be the survival rate of the 6-8 inch? I was just guessing 20 percent?

This guy is very sharp. Small family fish farm. Handles vegetation issue and stocking.

https://www.southwestaquatic.com/fish-stocking/

Years ago I used Dunn’s Fish Farm to stock a pond on my property. Found them very reasonable compared to others. They make regular deliveries at feed stores all over the state. Saves on shipping/delivery. Good luck on your new hobby! http://www.dunnsfishfarm.com/

Your guess is probably a fair one Dilly. Research I've read on year-1 survival of advanced fingerlings (6-8 inches) can be anywhere from 0 - 40%; lots of variables at play on that figure. I've seen several studies on cost-effectiveness leaning towards the 4 inch size class but there's a lot of variability in some of that work too. The advanced fingerlings are several times more expensive per fish than the smaller size class, so it might start getting cost prohibitive depending on how big the pond is and how many you ultimately stock.

I'd caution you on how heavily you stock the Florida's because it sounds like you already have a pretty good bass crop going now; adding more will reduce growth especially in the mid-size fish and some in the large sizes unless you also stock more forage as bluegills or even tilapia. Since you're not starting over from scratch, I'd suggest looking at your Florida stocking like the state does for the public reservoirs; you're trying to introduce the Florida genetics to the population, not so much replace the bass that are already in there. So, all you need to do is get enough Florida's in there long enough to spawn with the existing fish to slowly increase the frequency of Florida characteristics without overloading the system with more mouths than it can support. Possibly adding X number of Florida's each year to keep fresh genetics coming in. Just food for thought.

I have used similar tools. it really does well on cat tails or tulies. I will add it is VERY labor intensive. what ever gets cut decays if not removed. I used to wear a wet suit and remove bundles by hand to the shore, then into a wheel barrow and then again into a truck bed. oh, then I had to dump it.

Right on, thank yall

Great info