09-06-2020, 11:45 AM
(09-06-2020, 05:52 AM)Jmorfish Wrote: Hey T.D.....I applaud your efforts on the garbage clean-up, and especially on the phrag....I don't fish UL, but my wife has ties to Provo, and we've had occasion to drive in the park area in the past, and just a couple months ago also..We were amazed to see who and how the shorlines are being used, and the trash all around also....I know it's not BFTers....I don't know who to blame the phrag problem on, but if you could donate your same time and effort at some of my duck hunting places, I'd appreciate it....Actually, it has ruined some huge acerages of marsh, or (used to be) open lands along (used to be) creeks flowing to the GSL....Used to be good duck and pheasant hunting along some of those creeks, but now all eaten up by phrag....if I'm in an area where it looks like it's just starting, my pathetic effort is to uproot as many of those 10, 15, 20 foot new runners, and just pile them up on the Mother plant....I like your idea of using the shovel to uproot that nasty Mother plant, but where I'm already carrying 20 lbs of stuff on my back , and a shotgun to boot, don't know that I can do that....I sure do wish the State or Fed gov't would take the phrag problem seriously....cows are eating some in some of the WMAs, but I haven't seen or heard of a burn effort in years....in the past, some of our Airboat Association members have gone out with cycles, machetes, and chainsaws to open up phrag-choked channels, like in your pics....Anyhow, good luck with your efforts....Sorry, Bro. Yer on yer own with the phrags in yer huntin' spots.
I have been fishing Utah Lake since the 1960s...and remember the days when it was wide open around the whole lake...no phrags, no tamarisk, etc. It was still clear when I moved to Arizona for a few years in the 1980s. But when I returned to Utah in 2004 I was aghast. There were so many spots around the lake that the shoreline was totally inaccessible to the public because of invasive species.
There has been some successful effort to knock down larger areas of phrags. There is some good reading on the Utah Lake Commission site. (http://utahlakecommission.org/phragmites/) There have been other published articles and web pages. I am attaching the synopsis I put together a couple of years ago.
Unfortunately, there is not the budget or the incentive for the state to totally eradicate every single phrag plant in the state. Thus, it continues to spread and becomes a major headache for farmers, fishermen, hunters and anyone else who would prefer to enjoy our outdoor resources without the benefit of phragmites. It is our Covid 19 of the plant world.