Golden Alga on Possum Kingdom Lake as well as Lake Granbury

[Robert Rose]

Golden Alga returns to Lake Granbury in Texas

   I talked to Joan Glass of the Texas Parks & Wildlife KAST (Kills And Spills Team) Team today and there is a confirmed Golden Alga Fish Kill in progress on Lake Granbury at this time.  She told me that it is still early and that they don't yet know how severe it will be, but they are optimistic since it is scattered around the lake in specific localized areas. Dead and dying fish have been reported from the Highway 51 bridge all the way to the Dam but the highest toxicity levels are reported near the Dam and the level decreases as you go up river. The area around the Rough Creek Park Ramp is also showing toxic levels but not as severe as at the Dam. Since this is the ramp that most tournaments are held out of I asked if it would be advisable to transport fish to a safer area before releasing them after being weighed. She agreed that if released into water that had toxic levels of the alga would be sentencing them to death and that they should be carried out to keep them safe. The alga is only affecting the shallow water areas so the fish would only need to transported out to deep water areas near the channel. To tell if the alga is in the area watch for water that is brownish gold in color and the higher toxic areas will be a clear yellow and show signs of foaming where waves wash it onto shore. Joan also say that the Golden Alga can be transported to other bodies of water and asks that anyone that fishes an infected lake be sure of draining all water from their boats before traveling. Open you bilge and drain your livewells. It wouldn't be a bad idea to run by a car wash and wash down the hull of the boat and rinse out the bilge and livewells with hot soapy water. Be sure to wash the trailer down good too.
   Joan also told me that the fish are very aware when this starts and have a tendency to move away from areas where the alga is blooming. Since this bloom is scattered anglers should still be able to locate and catch fish. With the rains that we are experiencing right now the fish may move towards any moving water or just move out into deeper water. Anglers should also look at this as a boom or bust fishing event. Since the fish tend to move away from the alga bloom, this will have a tendency to bunch them up into smaller areas. Watch your electronics and if you enter an area devoid of fish just idle around until you locate an area where you are seeing fish on the screen. These are the areas that you will need to fish. She did ask that we not fish these areas so heavily that we remove all the fish. Save some for next month's tournament.
   For more information on Golden Alga and how to identify it in your lake visit the Texas Parks & Wildlife web site at: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/hab/ and http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/hab/ga/ you can also sign up for e-mail reports on algal blooms at this page.
To contact a fisheries biologist for your area you can get addresses and phone numbers from this link page. http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fish/infish/if_staff/fishregions.phtml
Joan Glass can be contacted at the Waco office located at 1601 East Crest Drive Waco, Texas 76705 and at (254) 867-7956

Robert Rose
Director District 84
West Central Texas
(254) 968-6340

[Mike Cork]

Robert,

Great post with great information in it. Thank you very much for sharing this info with us. Please keep us up to date on how the alga effects the lake. I would like to think with the dropping water temps and influx of rain that it would kill it and then wash it away. Again thanks for the info.

[Robert Rose]

It looks like the Golden Alga has struck another of our west Texas lakes. I just talked to a friend and he told me that from Rock Creek to the South D&D ramp area the lake is stained like tea and has the alga smell again. TP&W Biologists have been on the lake taking water samples since tuesday and if all was well they would have probably only taken samples one day.This makes 4 kills in 4 years.

Robert

[Mike Cork]

With repeated attacks like this, they should be able to learn how to stop it. If they don't get a handle on this it could get very dangerous for many lakes