CANDLEWOOD LAKE AUTHORITY AWARDED CT DEEP GRANT

Saw this today on the CLA web site. Not sure what it will mean to fishing for bass and other gamefish in Candlewood in the long run.

CANDLEWOOD LAKE AUTHORITY AWARDED CT DEEP GRANT

“Grant application for sterile grass carp to combat annual milfoil growth in Candlewood is approved.”

The Candlewood Lake Authority is very pleased to announce that their $50,000 grant application for the stocking of Candlewood Lake with sterile triploid grass carp has been approved in full by the CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. This marks the first step in a new lake wide initiative to combat milfoil growth using the sterile grass carp to integrate with the work already being done by the winter draw downs and other localized efforts.

The CLA’s proposed project includes the planned stocking of triploid grass carp in 2015, monitoring of the water quality and Eurasian watermilfoil coverage in 2015 & 2016 and determining changes to either over the two year period. The project also includes starting a fund for supplemental stocking of grass carp in the future.

While the CLA was awarded $50,000 from the CT DEEP to offset the costs of the initial carp stocking, the grant also requires a 50% match, raising the total value of the project to over $100,000. The Towns of Brookfield, New Fairfield, New Milford and Sherman, as well as the City of Danbury have agreed toward contributing to the match. In addition the CLA will contribute to the match through water monitoring efforts. The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station’s annual weed mapping, funded by FirstLight Power Resources, will also be used toward raising the funds to meet the 50% match.

The grant allows recipients one year, from the date a contract is signed with the CT DEEP, to utilize their grant funding. The plan is to have sterile grass carp stocked in Candlewood Lake in 2015. Receiving the grant was the first step. The CLA and others have already been working with the State of CT to revise an older regulation regarding the stocking of sterile triploid grass carp that would otherwise be a barrier to the successful implementation of a stocking program here. Once the regulation is changed and the contract is signed with the CT DEEP, the CLA will then be able apply to the CT DEEP for a permit to stock the carp, the approval of which would then allow the CLA to order the fish, with a goal of stocking in Candlewood Lake in 2015.

The CLA is planning to keep residents and citizens updated on the progress and developments of this exciting project, both through electronic communications like this, as well as through planned public meetings and in the newspapers.

I saw this, thanks for posting!

Well all I can use as an example is Ball Pond. A friend of ours has a house on it. They did the same thing and the fishery seems fine for LMB. The growth of the Milfoil is at it's worst. Swim areas are being over taken, even after removing it with divers. There is just so much of it I can't see the Carp having a huge impact but I guess you never know. I guess the jury will be out. I would be curious to here other examples of lakes that did, or doing, the same thing.

I did some more searching about these grass carp and found this. Notice one of the lesser preferred weeds that they eat is milfoil. They also don't like to feed around swimming areas, and can promote algae blooms in some cases.

Grass carp:
Are only distantly related to the undesirable European carp, and share few of its habits.
Live for at least ten years and probably much longer in Washington waters.
Will grow rapidly and reach at least ten pounds. They have been known to reach 40 pounds in the southern United States.
Feed only on plants at the age they are stocked into Washington waters.
Will not eat fish eggs, young fish or invertebrates, although baby grass carp are omnivorous.
Feed from the top of the plant down so that mud is not stirred up. However, in ponds and lakes where grass carp have eliminated all submersed vegetation the water becomes turbid. Hungry fish will eat the organic material out of the sediments.
Have definite taste preferences. Plants like Eurasian milfoil and coontail are not preferred. American waterweed and thin leaved pondweeds are preferred. Water lilies are rarely consumed in Washington waters.
Are dormant during the winter. Intensive feeding starts when water temperatures reach 68o F.
Are a river fish and have the desire to move from still waters into flowing waters.
Are difficult to recapture if a waterbody has been overstocked.
They may not feed in swimming areas, docks, boating areas, or other sites where there is heavy human activity.

Advantages
Grass carp are inexpensive compared to some other control methods and offer long-term control, but fish need to be restocked at intervals.
Grass carp offer a biological alternative to aquatic plant control.

Disadvantages
Depending on plant densities and types, it may take several years to achieve plant control using grass carp and in many cases control may not occur or all submersed plants may be eliminated.
The type of plants grass carp prefer may also be those most important for habitat and for waterfowl food.
If the waterbody is overstocked, all submersed aquatic plants may be eliminated. Removing excess fish is difficult and expensive.
If not enough fish are stocked, less-favored plants, such as Eurasian milfoil, may take over the lake.
Stocking grass carp may lead to algae blooms.
All inlets and outlets to the lake or pond must be screened to prevent grass carp from escaping into streams, rivers, or other lakes.

Not a lot of positives, that's for sure!

It has worked in Ball Pond and enough scientific data has been collected that the Candlewood stocking is now feasible. As there is very little native vegetation left in Candlewood, the grass carp will be forced to eat the milfoil. As long a they are stocked at the right density, it should be a success.

I have seen smaller bodies of water turn into a muddy green looking color from the grass carp. I know we are talking 9,000 acres vs 10 acres but it is a mess. I will try to take a small video. The weeds that the carp are eating are the kind you find in Silver Lake in Berlin.

wait, so has it worked in ball pond (weeds are gone) or hasnt it (still too much milfoil) ?!?!?

I hope if they're going to be dumping $100k worth of public funding into Candlewood to try and kill some weeds they'll at least have the foresight to restrict the taking of all carp by any means. Last thing we need is my hill-billie buddies shooting up $100K worth of fish.


In all seriousness, it doesn't sound like these things are the golden bullet answer, and if they're going to have an impact on the lake I would imagine they'd have to reach adulthood in large numbers. I doubt a bow fisherman who's never encountered one of these fish can distinguish it from the common carp already in the lake. Unfortunately the bow-fishing guys I know make fertilizer out of what they shoot - so their consumption limits don't factor into how many fish they shoot.

Bow fishing is illegal on Trout stocked waters so Candlewood is off limits.
As far as the weeds go, these fish eat them from the top down so hopefully like Ball Pond there will still be plenty of weeds for the fish to do their thing and the weeds won't be too far up to the surface to fowl up props and tangle up swimmers etc. A least that's their plan.

You know they are going to do something for weed control so Carp are better than chemicals, they will take much longer though and are actually much cheaper.

I guess it's going to be a wait and see.

If they're keen on eating pond weed perhaps the stocking truck should pay a visit to Hatch Pond on it's way to Candlewood.

The Grass Carp in Ball Pond has been a huge success. From what I have seen there the Grass Carp love milfoil. The weed that is there now is a form of Coon tail and it is pretty nasty stuff. But the Grass Carp is making a huge dent in that stuff also. I was there Thurs and hardly any weed at all left. George Buck is the man to tell you about it more then I can. I only know what I can see.

I don't suppose they'll be able to eat all the weed in Candlewood. But how much effect will they have on the weedlines we currently fish relative to providing cover for forage and ambush points for bass?

Ball Pond is the closest thing we have to a success story with Grass Carp in the NE, and that's primarily because of George Buck, who has been there every step of the way, making sure that everything is done on the up-and-up, and the fishery is protected.

The opposite side of the coin is a few miles to the west, and Lake Mahopac in NY. They very quickly eliminated virtually all the milfoil in the lake there. Observers with a vested interest in the fishery find it difficult to believe that they could possibly have put in enough grass carp to destroy the vegetation (and one of the best LMB fisheries in the Northeast) that quickly. Luckily, the smallies have thrived as the largemouth there have diminished. But C'wood is already smallmouth dominated. It will be interesting to see how that shakes out.

this is a big mistake

Can you clarify, Paul? In my mind it could take away a lot of shoreline cover. I don't see how that won't do anything but harm the fishery.

Agreed, I'm with Cwood only time will tell.......if its bad it will be very bad. Seems to me, in typical fashion.....they are taking the cheapest way possible to fix the problem regardless of the ramifications. Hope it works!

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on the subject Paul.

I have been involved with grass carp and weed control since the mid-80s before grass carp were even controlled here in Ct. using them in my own pond and since 1997 being on the Ball Pond Advisory Committee for the Town of New Fairfield where we chose grass carp over chemicals and harvestors to control eurasian water milfoil in conjunction with the DEP's Inland Fisheries unit. Peter Aarrestad, the current Director of Inland Fisheries, was the biologist on the project.
RichZ, Jimfish, Jon Pski and other bass fishermen on the site have been involved in a lot of the discussions and situations that influenced what we did at Ball Pond. All of the people involved with the CLA project have been involved from the beginning with Ball Pond and if there had not been success with the Ball Pond project this would not be a viable proposal for Candlewood.
Some history:
--Ball Pond was 95% milfoil in 1997 with milfoil biomass over all of its less than 20 foot depths growing to the surface. Now it is less than 10% of the biomass found in the very shallow areas with native coontail replacing it in the deeper waters along with an increase in a half dozen other native water plants. So there is much better bio-diversity in the pond now.
--Over all biomass reduction is about 50% of the base biomass of 1997. The intent is never to eat all of the weeds or destroy any weed beds at the root level. Grass carp feed at the soft tips and eat down the stalk until it gets woody and then they snap off the stalk at the mid point and go on to the next plant. With coontail they feed from both the top and on the tips of the side branches.
--Much of the grass carp data on the internet is still quoted from 1970s documentation. For instance, in the 1970s stocking rates were 60 carp per surface acre of water. Now it is 15 carp per VEGETATED surface acre of water with all water over 20 feet deep not counted. Over stocking should not happen any more. The Candlewood plan is simply to have the carp feed on the top of the milfoil beds so that they don't grow to the surface and interfer with boating, swimming, and other activities. There will still be an inside and outside weed edge and a weed free shoreline area depending upon the winter drawdown depth plus sun light will penetrate the milfoil beds better allowing low growing native plants like Najas, Elodea and the pond weeds better opportunity. Hopefully, there will be enough grass carp to keep the weeds cropped down and off the surface.
--Ball Pond electro-shocking data which is taken at least every other year shows an increase in Largemouth Bass populations in all year class categories and has helped in reducing stock piling of stunted blue gill. Forage for bass in Ball Pond is primarily blue gill and alewife herring, the same as in Candlewood. Ball Pond is rated one of the top large mouth bass lakes for both quality and quantity in the state.
--Stocking grass carp is both a science and an artform. It is not like chemicals that simply kill everything. You control your weed biomass by the number of carp stocked and monitor this every year. There will be underwater transects that will be harvested and weighed every year to measure the effectiveness of the program. If biomass reduction is not enough or it starts to come back then more carp are added. If everything is going fine then no carp are added for a year or two or just enough to offset attrition rates which run between 10 - 15 percent a year depending upon the water body.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on what I thought were the biggest concerns. There is a lot more that could be written but Ball Pond was also given a grant to prepare a document on the entire multi year carp project and we have hired a PHD Limnologist to write the document with Inland Fisheries participation so next year it will be available to the public.

Thanks Buck, some interesting info there.

Thank you, Buck, for that information. Appreciate the clarification.

And there you have it! Thanks Buck.......is there a downside? Everything you posted sounds pretty positive.

Thank you Buck for helping us understand this stocking
a little better now.

Sounds like a move in the right direction to me.

The downsides are:

--Stocking rates: Too many by overstocking and you eat too many weeds. The goal is to just crop down the tops of the weed beds so they are no longer unsightly, impede boating and become a danger to swimmers. No one wants to eliminate weeds like you do with chemicals. Weeds are mandatory to optimize fisheries biomass. A study in NY by their DEC at Walton Lake showed the impact of overstocking. By using an attrition rate of 22% the yearly restocking resulted in overstocking since the grass carp were not dying off at a 22% rate and with no weeds in the lake the fisheries biomass of all species in all year classes after three years had dropped about 30% as verified by yearly electro shocking.
Understocking creates bitching by the instant gratification groups since it takes longer to get the desired results. Our DEEP will tend to understock and then re-assess. It took Ball Pond five years to get DEEP approval to restock after the initial 1997 stocking. Things do work much better today but it is always a negotiation. My calculation of vegetated acres in Candlewood is larger than the calculation by the consulting company that used satellite imaging so if I am right then we will understock but I used contour maps and their work was more sophisticated so we are going with the consultants.

--Invasive species status: Though the grass carp are sterile and can't reproduce this issue is always brought up. I believe Ct. is the only New England state that allows the use of grass carp anywhere including small private ponds.

--Time lines: As I already mentioned, it takes three years of constant monitoring and stocking adjustments to get things where you want them to be.

--Size of the lake: There will be some distribution issues. The stocking sites will be similar to those used for trout stocking so all areas will get fish except possibly down at the end of the New Milford arm. The grass carp are kept in the lake at the penstocks at the end of the power canal by the trash racks that surround the intakes. The trashracks use 2" square hole heavy wire caging and our grating guidelines call for a size smaller than 2"s. The fish will be 12 to 14 inches long and will not get through the trash rack but the DEEP wants to let them grow before they work their way to the canal so that end of the New Milford arm won't get fish directly but probably somewhere around Gerard's Marina.

--DEEP involvement: Chemical applications and the use of third party environmental companies are much easier on DEEP personnel than a grass carp project which requires a DEEP biologist to visit the water, create the data and sign off on the plan. This is why lake associations across the state use chemicals though they are much more expensive and require being used every year. The third party company handles the issues. This is really not a negative but a reason grass carp projects don't get a lot of advertising and support. This project on Candlewood will change a lot of that.

--Grass carp guidelines: Much more detailed than most DEEP applications. One requirement includes getting project approval from every lake front owner even though they do not own any land under the lake nor do they own the water. This makes no sense and I have argued against it since 1997. The DEEP regulation is being changed but as with all DEEP rules and regulations it has to be done by the state legislature. For Candlewood's project there are still about 100 parcels of flooded land under the surface of Candlewood Lake still owned by private individuals, their estates or heirs, who never sold out in 1929. With the regulation change it will not be necessary to get anyone's approval other than direct stakeholders such as First Light, the five towns, the CLA and most importantly, the DEEP.

--One last thought is the fact that at some point First Light through FERC, the government regulatory agency, may decommission Candlewood Lake as an active pumped storage hydro impoundment. If that happens and the penstocks and pumps are decommissioned and moth-balled there is no way to refill the lake in the spring so the fall draw-downs will be discontinued. When that happens the winter cold will no longer kill all of the weed beds out to the 8 foot depth line and we will now have weeds growing all the way to shore with no inside weed line. This puts an added burden on the resident grass carp requiring an additional stocking amount. Carp also are a spooky fish and don't like really shallow water less than two feet so there will be some shore line issues. In any case, decommissioning the lake puts a burden on all of us no matter what weed control we use but getting a grass carp project going now puts us out front of the issue and if the time comes to have to manage the inshore areas without a drawdown it won't require a whole new solution but simply adding more grass carp based upon the new vegetated acreage.

I bet they use the Echo Bay Launch as well.

If they're a spooky fish, I wonder how the insane summer boat traffic on the lake will effect them. I truly hope this works!

Yes, Echo Bay is a trout stocking location along with one other marina in your neighborhood, I forget the name but it is down in the other cove. The only trout stocking in the New Milford arm is at the boat launch at the New Milford beach but that is too close to the canal for the grass carp stocking.
Those three spots plus the Danbury town beach boat launch, the Squantz Pond launch on Candlewood and up in Sherman at the Holiday Point beach where we are allowed to drive across the beach into the water, are the six primary trout stocking locations.
In past years I took a stocking truck into Sail Harbor, the New Fairfield town beach boat launch, the causeway area to Candlewood Isle and I think we did the prison beach area once. Anyway, both trout and grass carp will wander to find areas they like so distribution should not be a problem after a month or so.