Caddo Salvinia 11-11-13

[fishinforsanity]

If you were hoping like I was that the salvinia floating down the river last week was a good sign for Caddo...Think again! These pics look like a hay meadow but they are actually the basin. Bring on the freeze and a flood!

[BassmanRudy]

Good gosh... :-(. Spray the salt on THAT S**T and if a few  cypress trees die so be it!! They say it only takes a minuscule amount of salt to KILL IT...

[Harry Jones]

Bassman Rudy,
Bite your tongue, Don't you know the LDWF says salt water is bad for the lake.  As if the lake isn't in bad shape at the present.  Before the EPA came into being, the oil field operators would drain the salt water from the storage tanks into Caddo.  My Daddy always said Caddo and the bass needed that little bit of salt water to stay healthy.  Man, back in the day, even as a kid, I would always have a couple of schools of bass during the summertime.  I've even caught them with oil slicks on the water. The salt and oil didn't seem to bother the fish or the LDWF back then. LOL.
Here's the ? for Bassman.  Are we still going to Caddo in December???  Seems like the lake will fish smaller than usual..

[Mike Cork]

Wow.... If the basin is gone, and I've heard that Jeems isn't much better, where are all the fish living?

[Harry Jones]

Mr. Cork,
There ain't no bass in Jeems.  Keep on going into Texas and fish the river!!!!!

[andy52887]

I fished the benefit tourney on caddo last sat. I feel like I know Caddo pretty good and usually can catch some decent fish.Well I dont have a boat anymore so I just bum rides with buddys and had a friend ask me to fish.So I havent been to the lake since probably june and knew it was bad.But I couldnt believe what I was seeing sat.The areas we fished were spots I have never been to before in my life.The reason we fished the spots were because it was the only open water.Jeemes was just as bad as the pics you see here.We caught 4 slots and all were very healthy.We didnt go to weigh in but heard 6lbs.which is not good for caddo this time of year for 3 fish.I wont be back out there for awhile unless a miracle happens.

[Meangreen]

You did well to catch 4 slots. 3rd place was 1 over at about 4.5 lbs. and i think it was their only fish. I think the low weights were a combo of unfishable water and a tough bite that day. 2 small overs and an under won it. I talked to at least 3 boats that didn't catch a fish.

[ExcelF4]

When you say the "basin", is that a name for a spot on the lake?  Those pics kinda look like Jeems across from Kool Point. I was just curious on where these pics were taken. Thanks....TJ

[Mike Cork]

The Basin refers to the area on most maps called "Ames Basin" or "Ames Spring Basin", it's the flat if you were to drawn a triangle between Brits Gap, Martha's Crossing back to Potters Point.

[Russ199A]

Looks more like the end of "C" row or somewhere around "L" or "K" row.
Last time I was out there I couldn't fish the water I wanted to, plus a person needs to be very careful when on pad running through this stuff due to the hidden floating debris.

I fished the marsh east of New Orleans this past weekend - may have to give up the fresh water around here until this stuff gets under control.

[Donald Garner]

Wow, I've always heard you guys talk about this stuff but this is the first time I've seen pictures of it.
That is sad looking there.   So refresh my memory how did this stuff get started in your lakes there?

[duckhuntmcnutt]

Harry,
I was out there a month or so ago and as soon as you went around the S curve on boat road A the river was blocked and you could only get within about 200 yards of where the river starts getting deep going up toward johnsons ranch.  It seem like the whole texas side was covered in that stuff.  We ended up fishing close to the main lake going toward Jeems and catching 2 was all. 

[Mike Cork]

Wow, I've always heard you guys talk about this stuff but this is the first time I've seen pictures of it.
That is sad looking there.   So refresh my memory how did this stuff get started in your lakes there?

Several years ago, one of the companies that sells water plants for the backyard ponds offered it as a bonus. If you ordered enough plants you got Giant Salvania for free. In the photo's it looked really cool and would be a great accent to any back yard pond. We'll from there no one really knows. It could have been pond owners around lakes that flushed it in the lake when they realized it took over their small ponds in a matter of days, it could have been a natural flush into the lakes from storms, it could have been birds landing in the ponds and then the lakes.... But that's the best guess to how we got it, we bought it!!!!

[Paul Keith]

As of yesterday afternoon the salvinia in the first picture was 90% gone(floating towards the spillway). The river from the big lake is clean and can be run all the way to the 43 bridge. I went from potters to marthas crossing yesterday afternoon and hit very little of the stuff. Everyday is different depending on wind direction and current, but there is about 50% less of it than there was at the end of summer(at least on the texas side). Have not been up Jeems in a bit.
There were huge mats everywhere floating out with the high winds and the current from water still going over the spillway. The lake is still about 6 inches high and as of today there was still 1924 cubic feet per second going over the spillway. All we need now is for Pines to fill up(about 2 ft) and we can really start flushing even more out.

[Mike Cork]

That is great news Paul, thank you for the update.

I love your avatar, very impressive

Now for the important questions.... Are they biting?

[Harry Jones]

Gentlemen,
Mother Nature will take care of Caddo just like she has always done in the past.  All we need is some water going over the dam/spillway and some cold weather and a majority of the problem will be solved.  I have seen Caddo so choked with hydrilla that you couldn't run a boat through it, but we killed the mess out of ducks and caught huge bullfrogs in it.  That lasted for a couple of years and then we had high, muddy water for a couple of months in late winter and early spring and it killed the weed.  So, in my years on Caddo I have seen Mother Nature do her thing and our wonderful lake will be back to normal!!!  It might take some time but you watch what happens!!!!

[fishinforsanity]

Was wondering (hoping) what the high north winds would do to this area. One day later, thanks Paul! If it pushes out past big green break in to big lake I have faith it will move on out.

[ExcelF4]

Thanks for the reply Mike...always wondered what that actually was.

[Donald Garner]

Mike thanks for the response.  Its sounds like Mother Nature takes care of it over time which is good.  At least you guys don't have to worry about some chemical being dumped in there to clean the stuff up.

[Mike Cork]

Mike thanks for the response.  Its sounds like Mother Nature takes care of it over time which is good.  At least you guys don't have to worry about some chemical being dumped in there to clean the stuff up.

They have sprayed the crap out of it, enough that I wouldn't eat the prettiest sac-a-lait out of BIsteneau..... The spray, from my uneducated view point, is about 30% effective. The problem is it can double it's self in a day during peak conditions, so even at best we are still falling behind by 20% a day....

It grows best is still water and can't handle a freeze. The cypress tree groves provide the still water and protect against the freezes as our freezes or normally no more than a frost.

A good hard winter with lots of cold and lots of rain can really make a big difference

[Paul Keith]

Well....with the east and southeast winds yesterday and today its packed back in the basin but is still making progress. The river is still clean and can be run on plane. A lot of loose salvinia covering the tx side big lake between tuckers and the hill.
Being we are just now getting into winter and have a few months of (hopeully) cold wet weather with more prevailing north winds it should begin opening up and clearing out.
We need a freeze like back in the early 80's when the lake froze over a couple feet thick for a few weeks.
Oh, and if anyone cares to know what the tall brown grass growing on top of the salvinia is...its nut grass. If you thought spanish moss and cypress limbs were tough stuff to get loose from... throw your line across the giant stickers of the nut grass and give it a pull...

Here is a link that shows some good news about the salvinia eating weevil program on Caddo.
http://caddosalvinia.blogspot.co.uk/

[Mike Cork]

Thanks for the update and link Paul I don't know if I'm personally ready for a freeze like that but I'll take it if it knowing it will greatly improve our chances at beating this stuff.

[Elwood]

It was 84 or 85 that it was cold enough for the parts of the river to freeze over......We need that again...I can suffer through it if the lakes would get back to normal