06-10-2009, 10:03 PM
Forgive me, just some thoughts on the current status of the invasive mussels.
I looked up some facts on the 100th meridian website. It basically states there is no way to contain downstream spread of the mussels. Electric lake to huntington to san rafael river to colorado river to lake powell and so on. I also only found a single instance of treatment on a small pond in virginia and it was very expensive. These are here to stay, we need to learn how to live with them.
They (DWR, State Parks) have set up a voluntary (with the exception of lake powell) honor system to prevent spreading any further. Now if just under 50% of the people checked at strawberry last year were in violation of catch limits, do we have a chance that these same people will really decontaminate, wait the 2 weeks after being to a contaminated water? How many people drop a boat into electric and then head on over to mammoth or cleveland, or huntington or joes valley or nine mile, pali
es etc..
Remember the sky in falling mentality when whirling disease first hit the scene. Seems we're getting through it OK, I think it was one of the driving forces between the aggresive tiger trout stocking program.
I think we're going to see these little critters showing up in a lot of lakes. They are probably already in dozens of lakes already. I do not have any faith that my fellow fisherman will follow decontaminate guidlines, heck 50% of them probably don't even know what they are. They will be spread to all of the popular waters (if they already haven't been).
I hope, as with most thing like this, that the effect on the ecosystem of a lake is exaggerated and we'll learn to live with the mussels just like we have with whirling disease and illegal fish introductions.
I will do my part and I'm sure 95% of the guys on this forum will do theirs, but there a many guys that will ignore it complelety.
Not calling anyone or any organization out, just putting into words the reality of the world today.
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I looked up some facts on the 100th meridian website. It basically states there is no way to contain downstream spread of the mussels. Electric lake to huntington to san rafael river to colorado river to lake powell and so on. I also only found a single instance of treatment on a small pond in virginia and it was very expensive. These are here to stay, we need to learn how to live with them.
They (DWR, State Parks) have set up a voluntary (with the exception of lake powell) honor system to prevent spreading any further. Now if just under 50% of the people checked at strawberry last year were in violation of catch limits, do we have a chance that these same people will really decontaminate, wait the 2 weeks after being to a contaminated water? How many people drop a boat into electric and then head on over to mammoth or cleveland, or huntington or joes valley or nine mile, pali
es etc..Remember the sky in falling mentality when whirling disease first hit the scene. Seems we're getting through it OK, I think it was one of the driving forces between the aggresive tiger trout stocking program.
I think we're going to see these little critters showing up in a lot of lakes. They are probably already in dozens of lakes already. I do not have any faith that my fellow fisherman will follow decontaminate guidlines, heck 50% of them probably don't even know what they are. They will be spread to all of the popular waters (if they already haven't been).
I hope, as with most thing like this, that the effect on the ecosystem of a lake is exaggerated and we'll learn to live with the mussels just like we have with whirling disease and illegal fish introductions.
I will do my part and I'm sure 95% of the guys on this forum will do theirs, but there a many guys that will ignore it complelety.
Not calling anyone or any organization out, just putting into words the reality of the world today.
[signature]