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Post by fishnmusicn on Jun 2, 2016 6:44:18 GMT -5
I have lived and guided in Florida where spraying happen's all the time. Marsh creek has not been sprayed this year,just look at the grass in the lake it looks great. If it was sprayed it would be dead or dieing and it's not. Algae bloom is happening very noticeable in the water closer to the dam and that does kill some fish. I think the lake is the best it's looked in years and at the current rate it should be a great lake again in a year or two. (As long as they don't spray) Lets hope not. I also noticed more weedbeds than I've seen in quite a while and it was great to look down even in my kayak and see fish swimming there, for a lake with a healthy bass and muskie population, that's needed as well for the panfish population.
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Post by marshcreek on Jun 2, 2016 15:24:48 GMT -5
All, Please realize we post on here to inform you wants going on as we try to be as transparent as possible. We don’t get on here and Lie we have no reason to do that. I am sorry if you dislike how we manage the lake but we are truly looking out for the lake and doing our best so we can have this lake open to the public for all activity groups. We urge you to come into the office and talk to us if you have concerns or issues. Marsh Creek Lake is manmade. Manmade lakes have a habit of becoming impaired waters that have a lot of stress factors. As far as we can tell from looking at the dead fish it is due to stresses in the lake. (if you find live fish with growths or issues it should be reported immediately to PAFBC) The lake was listed as impaired waters by DEP in 2016 because of excess nutrient loading and invasive weeds. These two factors are why you see large alga blooms and the Dissolved oxygen content of the lake being much lower than it should be. Alga, low Dissolved oxygen, and spanning stress are likely what is causing a fish kill. We have seen these fish kills yearly for the last several years. A clear indicator the lake is under a lot of stress. The drawdown helped and hurt the lake It is true we did a drawdown 4 years ago and it did knockback the weeds greatly. This on top of the huge alga blooms that don’t allow light to reach the subsurface keep the weeds sparse in the lake. The weeds are back this year pretty abundantly and this will likely continue in years to come. By doing the drawdown we got rid of almost a billion gallons of stagnate water from the bottom of the lake that holds the most nutrients. We installed habitat that does work and can be seen when viewing the structures. When the lake was built everything even the town was removed leaving a barren mud flat. We want weds in the lake we agree weeds are good. Spraying as of 8:00 am this lake the lake was not treated for 4 years. This is RTK law and under strict permitting. We have no reason to lie about this and it would be illegal to do so. Also the current Permit for herbicide application on the lake only allows us to treat mooring and launching areas. It would be illegal to treat anywhere else. NO other areas in the lake have been treated in the past 10 years. WE DID treat the lake with herbicides today. We treated a .4 acre area directly in front of the West Side launch. We treated to control the pond weed and inhibit its growth. Meaning it shouldn’t die but it also shouldn’t grow anymore in that .4 acre area. Just because the boat is on the lake and all over the lake does not mean we are treating. It’s a survey boat to look at many factors regarding what’s going on in the lake. The major limiting factor in this lake is the nutrient loading we get. This Depletes dissolved oxygen levels and makes the lake a perfect environment for Alga blooms. These blooms further deplete the dissolved o2 levels especially if there is a large Alga die off. On top of all this Alga blooms do not allow sunlight to reach the bottom of the lake limiting weed growth. On top of this plants use up O2 when it is dark. This is called respiration when alga blooms block out sunlight weeds actually use up oxygen instead of creating it. Now that the lake is listed as impaired we will be putting a plan together to 1 limit alga, 2 control invasive plants, 3 establish native weeds and plants, 4 establish grater buffer zones around the lake. I’m sure once this gets underway there will be a public meeting. Again I am sure people will be upset with the park but we are simply doing our best and being as transparent as possible. For some more information check out this website aquaplant.tamu.edu/faq/dissolved-oxygen/
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Post by sk on Jun 2, 2016 21:48:33 GMT -5
I have seen the boat spraying parts of the lake in person, as have many of my friends who fish there. It was 2 years ago. I hope you don't think we are that stupid to believe the bs your saying here "marsh creek."
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Post by bassfever on Jun 3, 2016 4:02:27 GMT -5
Marsh Creek, thank you for that information.
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Post by teb67gt on Jun 3, 2016 6:29:10 GMT -5
I was on the lake last night for a couple of hours. Though I got the skunk I did notice some significant weed bed growth where I had not seen much for years. That is a great sign.
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Post by fishnmusicn on Jun 3, 2016 6:57:47 GMT -5
It's nice to see the weed growth and I personally hope they make a big comeback. If you look into the water now as it's clearing, you'll see many fish relating to this weed cover like they used to. From what I've understood, the weeds give oxygen, and also shade, desperately needed in summer. When all the spraying was done, and the weedbeds disappeared, that CREATED the algae blooms and murky water. It's very nice that additional habitat has been created and a lot of work has been done in that regard. But take a look at the quality of the water when weed growth had been eliminated and inhibited. Murky pea soup water!!!
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Post by Gsseagle on Jun 3, 2016 18:50:36 GMT -5
39" musky along with many crappies were found dead near the Lyndell ramp this afternoon by a friend of mine. Attachments:
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Post by hirstmusic on Jun 4, 2016 6:16:10 GMT -5
There are entire schools of fish around and under the Conestoga Rd bridge with this nasty pink/white growth on their lips, eyes, and gills. (Sorry for the crappy quality, couldn't get it to focus right)
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Post by icemole on Jun 4, 2016 10:29:15 GMT -5
While I have no reason to doubt "Marsh Creek" on the spraying, there seems to be something going on down there.
I hope some of you guys have reported it to the PFBC
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Post by marsh oldtimer on Jun 4, 2016 17:32:48 GMT -5
Honestly can't believe what i'm reading, maybe i'm at a different marsh creek lake? Not even sure I believe the marsh creek posting information is from a legitimate source? sounds more like hillary telling us what they think we want to hear?? There was healthy green grass growing at the lyndell ramp and then 3 days later it is brown and dead and loaded with dead fish. That shows spraying was done weeks ago just not recently. Nice attempt at cover up. The rest of the lake is crystal clear with no signs of algae or blooms anywhere, maybe they will come later but they are not there now not in any way shape or form. There are signs of some grass growing in other parts of the lake which is very encouraging but once those chemicals swirl around it will all be brown. Those spider crib things hold zero fish and are the worst design of fish structure ever thought of. They do hold hundreds of crankbaits though thanks to the einstein who came up with that idea. It is clearly evident that if you all would just leave the lake alone we would not be in this situation, and since you were not wise enough to anticipate the destruction your drawdown and weedkills would cause I have very little confidence you are qualified to solve it? It is as crystal clear as the lake right now that revenue drawing tourists will be the primary focus. I wouldn't be surprised if the park didn't send teams out there to clean up the dead rotten stinkin fish carcasses because it is affecting the bottom line and tourists are going elsewhere.
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Post by dmancari18 on Jun 5, 2016 12:37:21 GMT -5
While the information all seems to show some bit of time put into it and a great deal of information, I still am not buying it. I've fished the lake for several years, I cannot say that I've fished it every day for years like a lot of locals can, but I have fished it enough in the past 5 years to know that, yes fish kills have happened in the past. No doubt. Yes... The non-fishing recreational users of the lake has grown tenfold since I started fishing the lake. I feel like those who "take care" of the lake are catering to the crowd that uses to lake for non-fishing recreation (kayakers, sailboaters, paddle boarders, yoga boarders, etc etc) and that the people who fish the lake are a bit lower on the list as far as priorities go.
Marsh Creek can post all they want about how the lake hasn't been sprayed in 4 years while countless people who are on the lake have actually witnessed this as being not true. The real question is who will actually call them on it and actually hold them accountable to show us proof of this? They can post all they want about laws and such, but we've had a very mild spring, cool spring, so the "warm up" has been considerably more gradual. To say these fish are stressed due to spawning, explain the picture of the Muskie up there that's NOT spawning. Maybe someone didn't release it well, viable explanation, so explain the mostly 3-5" dead crappie that are not of spawning age? Start there. I also saw a few smaller blue gills and largemouth bass that, explain those. The lakes' impaired? Well that is obvious, but what's with the growth on the fishes mouth? The pink/white fuzzy growth around their mouths... What's with that? Spawning? Come on Marsh Creek. Get out on the lake and collect the samples and tell us what's going on as opposed to asking us. That's part of "taking care of the lake" right? I witnessed multiple LIVE fish with the growth and another black growth on bluegills (5-6 of them suspended around the lake), they had black rashes (best way to describe it) with pink/red bumps about the diameter of a dime on their bodies. What's causing that?
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Post by duratechfa on Jun 5, 2016 18:35:48 GMT -5
It sounds like the same crap that's going on in the Susquehanna
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Post by jesseb on Jun 6, 2016 9:09:01 GMT -5
I don't know about all of the backstory/history with any issues on the lake. I was there for muskies on Friday and after seeing how bad the fish kill was, I did a quick Google and stumbled across this. The crappies were dead/dying in all corners of the lake, although they were especially bad near the boat launches. When I took out of the west end, I was stepping on dead crappies, and near the East launch I witnessed at least 8 floating in a weed pile about 100 yards from the launch. These were the worst areas, but they were floating, or on the verge of dying everywhere...I'm guessing I witnessed close to 150 on Friday, maybe more.
As for the muskies, I saw one tiger, about 30" floating at the West launch when I put in that morning and then I think I saw that same 40" tiger that's pictured above along the shore to the west of the boat rental. I didn't happen to see any cut stomachs as I've heard rumors about here in the past, so they appeared to die from some other cause (which I acknowledge could still be from anglers).
As with the crappies, I think the 3-5" reports are a little misleading. Most of the ones that I saw were at least 5 inches. I don't target them and quite frankly don't know the spawning size, I'm just saying I think many were closer to, if not larger than 5"
I'm not trying to stir the pot or pick sides, just trying to objectively say what I saw. The West launch certainly reeked of dying fish and it was unpleasant taking out there and avoiding stepping on the dead fish, and seeing two dead muskies, knowing how much money and effort has been spent on that fishery is certainly discouraging to see which was why I Googled this after what I saw on Friday.
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Post by dmancari18 on Jun 6, 2016 21:47:35 GMT -5
Jesseb, there were certainly more fish in the upper range of the 3"-5" range I mentioned, but I wouldn't say many over. Maybe add an inch to make it 6"? Maybe that's sufficient? But there were plenty in the smaller end of the range as well. When I say hundreds, I literally mean hundreds-and that was only in the stretch of water I fished from. You could see them floating, you could see them on the shore, you could see them on the bottom of the lake. I even saw a mink on the side of the lake as I was passing slowly watching deciding which of the 4-5 dead fish it would grab from the shore before it ran off with one in its mouth (yes a mink! Not a muskrat... First time I've ever seen one in the wild). The lake is a mess. If they wanna blame it on spawning or lack of oxygen, whatever, but more than 75% of the fish I saw are not of spawning size and that's with me giving the benefit of the doubt and saying a 5/6" crappie is of spawning size...
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Post by jesseb on Jun 6, 2016 22:37:54 GMT -5
Dmancari18...whether it was 5 or 6, I can't say, but I do recall them being on the larger side of the suggested sizes. The other thing that makes me think spawning/temps might be an explanation is it just seemed to affect one species. Aside from 2 muskies, virtually all anyone has seen are just crappies.
I have no real dog in the fight, I just travel here periodically to attempt to C&R some muskies so again I'm not trying to pick sides in what appears to be a history of frustration with how the lake has been managed. I'm just trying to be as objective as I can be based on what I saw. Obviously it was extremely unsightly and discouraging to see, it's why I chimed in on this. I even emailed someone with the state about what I saw, so I'm with you and anyone else who is upset about what happened...I just can't say I know the cause.
Although I saw dead and dying crappies everywhere, I can't dispute there were many more near the launches where they were apparently sprayed, so I don't know what caused it, but there appears to be evidence to support the spawning and the spraying arguments.
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