The Zebras are here!

[rogwar]

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/newsmedia/releases/?req=20090421a

Found in Texoma and now believed to be collected in traps at Lake Lavon.

Bad on infrastructure but supposed to be good for the fishing.


If you have them, what are they like where you live?

[rogwar]

That article is a bit old but here is a more recent bulletin...

============

Last Thursday (July 30), TPWD collected about 20 live zebra mussels on samplers at 3 different sample locations at Lake Texoma (along the south shore from east of Eisenhower State Park to Highport Resort).

Today (August 3) it has just been confirmed through an inspection of the North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD) pipeline outfall into Sister Grove Creek above Lake Lavon, zebra mussels have established on substrate about 300 yards downstream of the outfall. Therefore, we can only conclude that zebra mussels are in Lake Lavon. We are deploying 10 mussel sampling devices in Lake Lavon to ascertain the level of infestation.

The potential now exists for zebra mussels to spread to Ray Hubbard and surrounding lakes via boats (livewell, bilge water, trailers, etc), downstream migration, and inter-basin water transfer.

We will be deploying samplers at Ray Hubbard ASAP and will be distributing information to all marinas to be on the lookout for the appearance of zebra mussels.


If anyone sees any zebra mussels, please contact TPWD at 817.xxx.xxxx


Thanks,

Tom Hungerford
Texas Parks & Wildlife Department
Inland Fisheries - District 2D

[Vudak]

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/newsmedia/releases/?req=20090421a

Found in Texoma and now believed to be collected in traps at Lake Lavon.

Bad on infrastructure but supposed to be good for the fishing.


If you have them, what are they like where you live?

They're up in Lake Champlain.  I decided to throw in a nightcrawler and just let it sit for a bit while I had some lunch, pulled it out a few minutes later, and had a fist-sized clump of the things all over my now-eaten bait.  About 20 minutes later, the same thing happened with a shiner.

I don't understand how that's good for fishing...

[Golfer]

You don't want them.  Sorry to hear that you do and that some ultra melon ship captain dumped his ballast water in the great lakes in the first place.

[MORAY37]

They're up in Lake Champlain.  I decided to throw in a nightcrawler and just let it sit for a bit while I had some lunch, pulled it out a few minutes later, and had a fist-sized clump of the things all over my now-eaten bait.  About 20 minutes later, the same thing happened with a shiner.

I don't understand how that's good for fishing...

Dreissena polymorpha is an obligate filter feeder.  It anchors and collects whatever is in the water by filtration.  I don't know what was eating your baits, but it most likely was not a zebra mussel, as they have absolutely no way to tear off, or for that matter, ingest, those types of food.

 There is really only one reason they are bad in a given waterway..

 They attach to ANYTHING, but have a particular affinity for man made structure, such as intake pipes and concrete culverts (and live native mollusks)



This inflicts a serious amount of damage to human infrastructure in the bodies of water they inhabit.

There are many studies that show that Dreissena is actually good for fisheries where they inhabit, by influencing the eutrophication  of a body of water and improving water quality.  This does come at the cost of local mollusks though, who can't compete with the zebra mussel. I've read multiple papers that attribute the rebound of the Smallmouth Bass fishery in Lake Erie directly to the incidental introduction of Dreissena into the lake. 

Also, Perch in Lake St. Claire have dramatically increased since the mussel made it there, though they are a favored prey item for perch.

http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/biology/a_zm.html
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/Driessena_polymorpha.html

[oakranger]

The biggest aquatic parasite we have in this country.  They are only good for food for catfish and some species of pan fish.  They can and will clog up city pipes, and other strucral that are in the water or pump water to other places.  If the lake is heavily infested with them, you can’t walk bare foot in the water because they will cut your foot.

If you catch a fish and notice little black spot on it, especially on the gills, take it to the nearest fisheries biologist.  tell him/her where exactly you caught it at the lake.  They will run a few samples in that area to confirmed it is zebra muscles.

It is enable for any lakes to be infested by them.  In Kansas, all the lakes that do have them will be equipping washing stations at every boat ram.  By law, all boaters will have to wash off their boat, trailer and vehicle that was in the water.  If you are caught with zebra mussels on your boat it is a heavy fine. 
Here is a link from Kansas department of wildlife and parks: http://kdwp.state.ks.us/news/Fishing/Aquatic-Nuisance-Species

[PFactorDave]

All I can say is, if you live or visit a body of water that has been invaded like this, learn all you can and join in on the fight against it.  It will screw up your fishing.

My family owns 20 acres of woodland, with a small cabin on a lake in the Northwoods of Wisconsin.  We have been fishing up there since before I was born.  About 20 years ago, the lake was invaded by crayfish (crawdads, whatever you like to call them)...  It has taken the effort of the State, County, Local homeowners Association and every interested part all these years...

The once fantastic fishing is just now starting to come back. 

Don't let it go thinking that it isn't a big deal.  It can destroy the fishing in your lake!

[Ghosth]

Vudak, don't know what was on your bait, but strongly doubt it was Zebra Mussels.
Recently saw first ones in Mississippi River near Little Falls Minnesota. They only time they are free floating is in the egg stage. The rest of the time they are stuck to a rock.

They were scattered zebra's stuck to the rocks on the shoreline. Not a huge mass of em, but 2 out of 3 fist sized rocks would have one stuck to it.  City water intakes, spillways, turbine intakes, anyplace with there is a mechanical structure to stick to, combined  with a good flow of water is going to have problems with them.

They push out native species by out performing them and out breeding them.
Being filter feeders they can attach and stay in places  no predator  can reach or live.

[Rich46yo]

They were responsible for the great salmon crash on Lake Michigan. And the perch crash. And the smelt crash.

What they do is eat the algae and smaller food base that the main forage base thrives on. So shad, alewives, smelt...ect numbers will go down which really affects the numbers and size of the larger sport fish species. Years ago when I first started salmon trolling on the great Lakes it would be nothing to spot on a fish finder huge clouds of alewives suspended in mid water. I'd mark it on my LORAN and just keep trolling thru it while the rods snapped. But now you dont see such prey numbers on your fish finder.

And since they eat the algae the lakes they infest will grow clearer and clearer. Not a good thing. When I was a kid you could fill up bucket after bucket of tasty smelt during their run in spring. Now nobody even fishes smelt anymore. Improved clarity in the water does not mean better fishing. Or even improved water condition. It mostly means a crash in the low rung of the food chain, which will crash the upper rungs.

You dont want these things in your waters. Believe it!

[Vudak]

Well, the next time I have it happen I'll take a photo and have us all try and figure out what they are.  All I know is in 20 years or so, that's never happened until a few years ago, and that was after the warnings that zebras were in the lake.  I put 2+2 together, but I never was good at math

Perhaps there is another new species Lake Champlain has to worry about?

(For those on the lake, this happened NE from Putnam Creek (on the Vermont side).  Along the weedline that stretches along the shore north of Buoy 34...

[Dago]

They were responsible for the great salmon crash on Lake Michigan. And the perch crash. And the smelt crash.

What they do is eat the algae and smaller food base that the main forage base thrives on. So shad, alewives, smelt...ect numbers will go down which really affects the numbers and size of the larger sport fish species. Years ago when I first started salmon trolling on the great Lakes it would be nothing to spot on a fish finder huge clouds of alewives suspended in mid water. I'd mark it on my LORAN and just keep trolling thru it while the rods snapped. But now you dont see such prey numbers on your fish finder.

And since they eat the algae the lakes they infest will grow clearer and clearer. Not a good thing. When I was a kid you could fill up bucket after bucket of tasty smelt during their run in spring. Now nobody even fishes smelt anymore. Improved clarity in the water does not mean better fishing. Or even improved water condition. It mostly means a crash in the low rung of the food chain, which will crash the upper rungs.

You dont want these things in your waters. Believe it!

The way Rich described it is exactly right.   Fish will not survive.

[oakranger]

Well, the next time I have it happen I'll take a photo and have us all try and figure out what they are.  All I know is in 20 years or so, that's never happened until a few years ago, and that was after the warnings that zebras were in the lake.  I put 2+2 together, but I never was good at math

Perhaps there is another new species Lake Champlain has to worry about?

(For those on the lake, this happened NE from Putnam Creek (on the Vermont side).  Along the weedline that stretches along the shore north of Buoy 34...

i assure you that it is not zebra musclrs that is doing that.