by Lizzy Reitzloff, Rock River Coalition
Wisconsin just lately got its initially decent snowfall of the winter year, so it’s time to ask the age-old dilemma, “It’s 11 o’clock, do you know the place your AIS are?”. It can be tempting to believe that with the dropping temperatures and ice, most of our aquatic organisms are simply just dormant and overwintering in many nooks and crannies. Though this is accurate of a lot of species, inquire any ice angler or stream biologist and you will hear all about how our nearby waterways are nonetheless actively teeming with everyday living underneath the frigid area.
As this kind of, visitors and users of our waterways ought to continue on to be vigilant about recognizing and blocking the spread of aquatic invasive species even in wintertime. The two primary invasive aquatic plants of issue this time of 12 months, curly-leaf pondweed and Eurasian watermilfoil, can be primarily tricky, mainly because they can persist and even prosper in frigid aquatic environments.
Both equally species can have considerable impacts on the high-quality of fishing and recreation in our lakes and waterways. Both equally curly-leaf pondweed and Eurasian watermilfoil can produce thick mats that bodily impede leisure pursuits, outcompete indigenous species, negatively influence fish survival, and launch phosphorus into the h2o when decomposing.
Devices this sort of as augers, fishing strains, and spears can conveniently disturb and snag on this vegetation and spread it to other locations if not cleaned properly. Even smaller fragments of Eurasian watermilfoil can increase into additional crops. For these reasons, ice anglers need to adhere to the similar protocols as other boaters and anglers before leaving their fishing web-site:
- Inspect boats, trailers and devices for hooked up aquatic plant, animals or mud
- Eliminate all hooked up vegetation or animals
- Drain all water from boats, motors, livewells, buckets and other products
- By no means go are living fish away from a waterbody
- Dispose of unwanted bait in the trash
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