What would it take to get grass at Canyon Lake !?!?!?!

I am originally from East Texas, and grew up fishing Rayburn and Toledo back in the 70's and early 80's. I moved to San Antonio in '86 and was amazed at all the rock lakes with no grass. Then I noticed Lake Austin, Travis, even LBJ held some form of grass. Then I noticed that just about every other river system around here holds hydrilla.....hmmm. I researched an earlier post and found a thread 10 years ago here about this argument and besides the lone cat fisherman and a lonely biologist, everyone else wants it. SOOOOO, my point is, why can't this happen naturally? Does the guadalupe river just not have the right stuff to sustain it? And secondly, why can't TPWD see the overall benefit? They make the motherload of money on our licenses, they should be our advocate. They certainly have no problem introducing all kinds of other harmful species, so why no grass? Please limit your comments to the topic, not your desire to see it a jet flea lake or whatever, this is a fishing forum isn't it?

Illegal stocking of an invasive species.

if you build it , they will come

yes, but it's already here, in just about every other clear water river chain. My point is, there are forms of grass that are native that grows in abundance, so why not that at least? They force feed us striper, hybrids, white bass...get the point?

The Lake doesn't hold a constant enough level to keep the grass growing. When the lake is full(if it ever gets there again) if it had it and then went down 10 feet the grass would die. The more constant level the better chance for grass. Amistad is a good example.

Johnny

Some lakes are just different, has to be a good reason. Lack of nutrients , water levels etc.

I know of two lakes that at their closest point are less than ten miles apart.

One is full of grass and one is baren.

There are some grassy areas (but very little). As has been mentioned, the fluctuating water level plays a part. The many rocky banks are not conducive to grass either. TPWD and some local bass clubs and other volunteers build brush piles. The fish attractors do hold fish.

The brush locations are listed on TPWD website.

Fish Attractors

??? Have you ever actually been to Amistad or are you saying it goes up & down too much? Up 30 ft, down 52 ft, up 60 ft, down 55 ft, up 3 ft. It's the least constant level lake in Texas.

Anyways, there is Hydrilla in Canyon right now. I won't disclose where it's at but it's there. Hopefully it'll keep growing but Canyon just doesn't seem to have the nutrients needed.

Yes...nutrients seem to be the main problem.

Have I ever been to Amistad? lets see I was there first in 1969 right after the Lake Walk dam was dynamited. I have seen Amistad from when it was filling up, twice when it was way over full and when it was down over 50 foot the first time. When it stays full for a fairly long time the hydrilla completely covers many acres but when the lake goes down the grass dies out in nearly all of those places. When the level stabilizes the grass comes back.

Johnny

When the lake goes down the grass gets stronger. That's why the lake was so good a few years back after it came up

What really made Amistad good when it came up a few years ago was all of the under brush that grew while the lake was down. Lots of flooded mesquite and cactus.