Is your favorite lake being clogged by weed growth, and you're hoping fishing can be given a boost by killing most of the plants?
Such a quick fix can really be one of the worst things you can do to "improve" the fishing. That is not just a theory, but has been shown to be true on some of our Michigan lakes.
Houghton Lake is now being viewed as a horrible example of what can happen when too much weed growth is killed off too fast. Several years ago, the lake's weeds were getting so heavy that massive amounts of weed killer were used each year.
They've done such a thorough job that small panfish and others no longer have places to hide and grow into ones that a fisherman really wants to catch. Panfish catches are now so slim that many of the most enthusiastic anglers have given up on the lake entirely.
At the same time, a bumper crop of northern pike have now become a common catch for fishermen still trying to catch some of the panfish they hope remain. The vast majority of them are well under the legal length of 24 inches, although an occasional big one shows up.
Complaints to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) leave little hope the situation will be solved any time soon. Quite a number of other Michigan lakes have mostly undersized pike and they're listed in the current fishing guide.
DNR fisheries biologists generally agree that removing the size limit on pike would be a good idea, as anglers would be able to catch and keep their daily limits of them. It has worked out on other lakes, so why not on H o u g h t o n Lake, too?
Suggestions that this should be done, however, immediately run into an i m p o r t a n t DNR has now printed up a fishing guide covering a two-year period. Even though it might be a good idea to include big Houghton Lake in the new regulations, it can't be done until at least the 2008 fishing season.
The way things stand now, if a fisherman catches one of the undersized pike and kills it while trying to unhook it, the only course of legal action is to return the dead fish to the lake. What an utter waste!
Nobody is sure right now that there can be any solution to this problem. It's a sure bet, though, that the next time somebody suggests a total weed kill in Houghton Lake, or any other one, through chemical treatment the howls of protest are apt to be heard all over Michigan.
Left alone, the weeds will eventually come back, giving the lake its natural balance, and making a lot of fishermen very happy. It can, and will, happen.
