Today I want to blog about a little project some of our fisheries staffed did at Victoria Springs State Recreation Area (SRA), recently. To give you a little background, I have to tell you about duckweed, a small aquatic plant.
The pond at Victoria Springs SRA has had an abundance of duckweed for as long as I can remember. As a kid, my family would occasionally meet my Gramps Roth at Victoria Springs for a picnic and some fishing, and even back in those days the pond was usually covered with duckweed. I discovered that it did not make any difference, a popper could be fished right in the duckweed and bass and bluegills would suck it right off the duckweed-covered surface.
Recently, the Victoria Springs pond looked something like this, and we hoped to clean that up a bit.
That was accomplished by simply pumping water from the surface, skimming and pumping the duckweed off. Something like this:
Here is what one section of the pond looked like before,
and after.
Now duckweed can quickly re-grow and re-populate, so I suspect pumping/skimming projects might need to be repeated on occasion. However, there is no doubt that the pumping was successful and the pond looked better. I also am betting it might be easier to catch some fish with less duckweed being present.
If you have never had a chance to take a little detour to Victoria Springs SRA, you have to some time! It is a beautiful spot in the middle of the state; take your fishing pole, you just might dry a couple off while you are there.
The post The Big Suck appeared first on NEBRASKALand Magazine.
