Pocket the Plastics Part II

My article Discarded Baits Could Be a Fish Killer . . . has generated lots of interest and quite a few comments.

Everyone agrees: Pocket the plastics; don’t throw them away.

Here are three comments from those in the fishing business:

Teeg Stouffer, executive director of Recycled Fish, found a plastic bait in a crappie that he cleaned this past spring. That’s his photo above.

“Didn’t kill the fish,” he says. “But I’m sure it limited its growth potential.

“How does a crappie get a plastic lure in its belly that doesn’t have a hook in it? Only one way: Someone threw it overboard. It’s not likely they (crappie) can tear it off a jighead.”

A second commenter says the following:

“Glad that you brought that up. I think it (discarded plastics) might be the No. 1 reason for fish fatalities, especially in smaller impoundments like farm ponds, where there’s a lot of pressure.

“Anglers don’t have a clue they could be cutting off their nose to spite their face.”

And a third:

“Read your article on old plastics eaten by bass and you are 100 percent right. When we were younger, we brought home a small bass to put in our large aquarium --- not knowing that was probably against the law.

“Some anglers from our fishing club came to the house for a meeting. One of the jokester types decided to see if ‘Bo’ would eat a purple plastic worm.

“He did. And several days later, he passed a white worm. Bo was fine, but I can see where bass that eat numerous discarded plastics would die. I know they eat them.”

Angler Activism Important, But Frustrating

In my years of being a conservation writer for B.A.S.S. Publications, I’ve come to realize that many who buy lakefront property don’t do so because they like natural beauty.

Rather, they want those lakes to be as lifeless as swimming pools, just as they want their lawns to be sterile extensions of their wall-to-wall carpeting.

Preventing this selfish and/or thoughtless destruction of our waters is one of the foremost challenges for activist anglers. Education and outreach are among the best tools, as the Seven Coves Bass Club on Texas’ Lake Conroe has shown.

But anglers also must get involved in the political process by attending public meetings and voicing their opinions. While doing so is critical to protect our waters and our fisheries, it also can be extremely frustrating.

Here’s what an activist angler in the Northeast shared with me regarding his involvement:

“I really wish someone would go with me to these workshops/seminars and maybe they might get involved if they knew just how bad it is.”

Part of his frustration stems from the disregard that lakefront property owners show for the water. One of them told him that he didn’t care if the plants near his dock were beneficial native plants and not troublesome exotics. “I want them gone,” the property owner said.

“These people just don't have a clue and want a quick fix even if means harm to the environment,” says the frustrated activist.

And much of his frustration comes from government ineptness and corruption, including the political cronyism that he sees between bureaucrats and the herbicide industry. He wonders if kickbacks might be going on between herbicide companies and state officials.

“I watched first-hand what was going on at a workshop/seminar held by both and they didn't educate the public,” he says. “If anything, they were recruiting them so they could spread more aquatic herbicides on more lakes and ponds throughout the state.

“They want the lakefront homeowners to 'rake' the lake bottom and 'call' to eradicate the non-native vegetation they find in their lakes.

“You know as well as I do that a lot of aquatic vegetation is very similar to look at, and do you really think the chemical companies would turn down a new client/lake?”

This frustrated activist has tried to get members of his fishing club involved with him, with no success. Meanwhile, he says, the state, property owners, and aquatic herbicide companies have strengthened their reckless herbicide strategy.

I feel his passion and understand his frustration. Unfortunately, most anglers just don’t care enough to get involved.

Toxic Algae at Record Levels on Lake Erie

As Activist Angler reported yesterday, many fisheries in the Great Plains are plagued by toxic algae blooms. They aren’t the only ones.

Blue-green algae blooms have been a seasonal problem on Lake Erie since the mid 1990s. But in recent years, they’ve grown worse, fed by farm fertilizers and sewer overflows. Possibly exotic zebra mussels have contributed as well, gobbling up more benign algae and other phytoplankton, while leaving the toxic blue-green to flourish with less competition.

Here is the latest from the Great Lakes Echo:

The news about Great Lakes algae just keeps getting worse.

Data at the University of Toledo’s Lake Erie Center in Oregon, Ohio, shows twice as much potentially deadly microcystis in western Lake Erie as there was this time last year. That’s significant because 2010 recorded the most such algae since a new reporting method began in 2002.

Read Lake Erie on pace for record toxic algae crop to learn more.

Texoma Turns Toxic, So Does Kansas' Milford Reservoir

Weeks of hot, dry weather have turned many of the reservoirs in the Great Plains to toxic soup.

For example, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Tuesday that all of Lake Texoma is now under a blue-green algae warning and water contact is prohibited.

To the north, meanwhile, Kansas’ largest fishery, Milford Reservoir, is suffering the same fate.

The Wichita Eagle reports that three dogs have died from ingesting Milford’s water and several people have become ill.

“As of right now, you can’t even fish from the bank,” said Brad Roether, owner of a fishing guide service. “Nothing is allowed: no boating, no fishing.”

He also said that resource managers were out in boats last weekend, telling people to get off the lake.

The Abilene Reflector-Chronicle decribed the situation this way:

The algal bloom has been the result of a “perfect storm.” The lake is about 14 feet over conservation pool of 1,144.4 feet above mean sea level. Because of high water and flooding downstream along most noticeably the Missouri River, the Corps has held water back in its lake, Harms said.

Rain in the Republican basin watershed has carried agricultural fertilizer and nutrients downstream into the reservoir. Since July a hot spell has struck and without much release from the outlets it has “turned the lake into a large farm pond.”

Algae thrive during hot, sunny weather, especially when water is calm. A day or two of clouds will slow down or even stop the blooms, as the sun can’t provide energy for growth. Wind and water flow also can break them down.

Extended cloud cover can lead to a die-off of the algae, which will burn up oxygen in the water as they deteriorate. And that can kill fish, especially if the blooms have had plenty of time and prime conditions to grow and spread.

Here are links for Texoma, Milford, and a Corps list of closures, warnings, and advisories for Oklahoma reservoirs.

Discarded Baits Could Be a Fish Killer; Put Them in the Trash

Plastic worms catch lots of bass. They also might be killing a few.

If you’re still tossing used plastic baits in the water as you fish, stop it!

You could be killing bass when you do it.

How do I know? Well, first let me say right up front that I have no definitive evidence.

But I have some pretty convincing proof that bass eat those discarded baits. And if they’re eating these soft, long baits, intestinal blockage is a distinct likelihood for at least some of the fish.

Should that happen to a bass, it wouldn’t be able to eat. As a consequence, it would grow skinny and eventually starve to death.

Intestional blockage by a plastic bait could make a bass skinny and eventually kill it.

How often does that happen? We have no way of knowing. Fatalities wouldn’t be obvious, as they are when a kill occurs because of pollution.

And how frequently do bass eat discarded baits? We have no way of knowing that either. Because of the popularity of catch-and-release, we rarely clean fish and take a look at their stomachs.

But Joe Ford did just that, after a 10-pound bass that he caught at Lake Amistad died in his livewell. It had        swallowed a Senko and he put the fish in his livewell to see if it would survive.

It did not, and so he cleaned it. In its stomach he found 12 plastic baits, weighing about 4 ounces.

“They were different sizes and colors,” he told Activist Angler. “But mostly they were large. It was amazing. I don’t know how that fish would have passed them.”

Fisheries biologists also have told me about catching bass for display at outdoor shows. The fish are held in tanks for a few days for their systems to “purge” so they won’t foul the show aquariums.

“We often see plastic baits in the bottoms of those tanks,” one biologist said. “”Ninety percent of the time, they don’t have hooks in them. Those fish are picking up discarded baits from the bottom, thinking that they are something to eat.”

So, please, don’t throw those torn baits in the water or on the ground. Put them in the trash, where they belong.

And tell your buddies to do the same.

If we aren’t good stewards in this regard, we are hypocrites when we preach and practice catch-and-release.