One of the spots I get to hunt, a little spot out in central Texas sits in the hills of Erath county. It's a nice spot, good elevation changes, neighbors are nice, landowner is both a good friend and person.
In the middle of the tract is a tank, a standard farm pond like thousands of others across the country. It's a place where ducks gather, cows drink and the occasional opossum hangs out in trees near the bank. It appears to be spring fed, at least, I am told that no one has ever seen it completely dry.
However, the pond has no fish.
Several years ago a green bloom started to form on the tank and each year it would come back with a vengeance, growing progressively worse. At first, we weren't really sure what it was and to be honest, I am not sure it was a big concern. Ducks still came in, we assumed fish were there and every winter it went away.
Last year, we fished it, not even a bite. I started to think that the bloom must be bad enough that the tank is now depleted of oxygen, in which case, no wonder - we were wasting our time.
Because we are situated near a dairy (common in this area of Texas) we assumed it was some algae from the water (manure) runoff. However, that is not the case. The bloom in question is in fact watermeal. Technically, the smallest flower in the world. It's incredibly invasive and transported by waterfowl.
There are a ton of different methods to treat it, and we are going to try a few, starting with clearing some of the junk trees around the tank. From there, we will look at Talapia, possibly Sonar.. who knows.. There are a lot of considerations.
The important part is that we are complete novices to this type of thing, so we have our work cut out and will have to research. I thought it would be a good idea to blog about it and post the result. The goal? Well, it's obvious - to once again have a tank that sustains fish, which will be oh so nice!
Will keep you posted!
