{"id":3241,"date":"2010-03-30T16:48:30","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T15:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/?p=3241"},"modified":"2013-11-20T08:23:10","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T07:23:10","slug":"dealing-with-weed-in-a-carp-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/dealing-with-weed-in-a-carp-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with weed in a carp lake"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Andrew, the owner of Molyneux<\/a> lake;<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Weed is not particularly desirable in large amounts in a carp lake for 2 reasons – it\u2019s difficult for anglers to deal with when fishing and it can have a negative effect on the eco-system.<\/p>\n

Phytoplankton and weed are in direct competition with each other in a lake, they both photosynthesize and require the same nutrients to grow. Weed is a trophic dead end as far as carp are concerned, the can\u2019t eat it and although they can eat the animals that feed on the weed, these are limited in numbers and difficult for the carp to find when compared to the animals that eat phytoplankton.<\/p>\n

Phytoplankton will add more oxygen to the lake than weed will, so all things considered it\u2019s more beneficial to reduce the amount of weed in a lake and increase the amount of phytoplankton.<\/p>\n

The weed in my lake came out of nowhere! I had no weed growth for 2 years and then suddenly one summer it appeared. In the last two years I\u2019ve completely stopped the weed growth in my lake and the weights of the carp have rocketed upwards. It\u2019s been hard work but certainly worthwhile.<\/p>\n

So if you want to reduce the amount of weed in your lake what options do you have?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>Mechanical removal<\/span><\/p>\n

A very hard and time consuming job but does reap instant results… it doesn\u2019t seem to have a lasting effect though. I bought a very expensive electric cutter, it looks like a hedge clipper mounted on the end of a pole that clips onto the back of a boat and is very effective if you can get afloat. Its best done on a windy day as the cut weed floats and will drift into the side where it needs to be collected as you don\u2019t want it to rot in the lake.<\/p>\n

A large rake does a very good job and is a lot cheaper. I made mine out of a couple of wrought iron gate posts with a number of long bolts driven though it. It needs to be taken out with a boat as it weighs around 20kg and it needs 2 people to pull it back due to the weight of weed that collects on the rake. The good thing with a rake is that it removes the weed from the lake as it cuts. The hardest method but incredibly effective!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve personally not tried this method put was told if you attach a length of chain to the bank and then row the other end out into the lake and winch it in in an arc that it will cut the weed just above the roots and the weed will float free of the chain.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>Chemical<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of the effective weed killers have been banned in France, although they can still be found elsewhere but if you get caught using them the fines can be very harsh. Using chemicals is not something I would recommend as you can cause serious oxygen problems in the lake… it\u2019s certainly something for the experts.<\/p>\n

Biological<\/span><\/p>\n

There are a lot of studies that have conflicting results of how effective Grass carp are in controlling weed growth, I\u2019ve found them to be incredibly effective! Some people worry that Grass carp will compete with the carp for food and therefore slow the carp\u2019s growth rates down, however I\u2019ve read studies that show the opposite. The Grass carp eat the weed that for the carp is a tropic dead end, the Grass carp will then defecate into the lake, this is almost perfect fertilizer for the phytoplankton. As the amount of phytoplankton increases so does the zooplankton and benthic organisms, these are then fed on directly by carp.<\/p>\n

If anglers want to avoid catching Grass carp then by fishing tight to features rather than open water and not feeding particles they can be almost avoided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Andrew, the owner of Molyneux lake; Weed is not particularly desirable in large amounts in a carp lake for 2 reasons – it\u2019s difficult for anglers to deal with when fishing and it can have a negative effect on the eco-system. Phytoplankton and weed are in direct competition with each other in a lake, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[966],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carp-lake-management"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}