Discovery Bay Weeds

[webefishn23]

Anybody live in Discovery Bay and have a weed problem? If so what are you doing to maintain around your docks?

[senkoskipper]

You can buy stuff you pour into the water around your dock area to help with the weeds. But I'm not sure how much it would help if your neighbors didn't do the same thing with the weeds around their dock. IMO its not worth it. I'm from minnesota where every dock has weeds. It just makes for better fishing

[Long Nguyen]

Anybody live in Discovery Bay and have a weed problem? If so what are you doing to maintain around your docks?

Around our dock, I've noticed a tremendous amount of weed growth where there used to be none. So far, it's mostly subsurface except during low tide. Doesn't bother us too bad.

[clearlakeoutdoors]

Unless you do a lot of swimming around your dock why would you want to remove the best bass habitat out there. Personally I think the unregulated spraying has hurt the fishing here at clearlake and the delta. Franks tract fished a lot better when it was full of weeds.They have been spraying up here for a couple weeks and the bass fry dont have a chance (DFG HELP!!!)
Dave

[L Dub]

If you let me launch off your dock I'll be more than happy to pull a few of those weeds out (after I check them for bass)

[Cooch]

Anybody live in Discovery Bay and have a weed problem? If so what are you doing to maintain around your docks?

Although I don't live in Disco, I do live on the water here on Sandmound. Using any type of chemical management with out a Permitted or Licensed Proffessional, is not recommended here. Weed management is very simple with the proper tool. I have built a custom Aqua Weed rake that I use to control the weeds around my dock. I took a 24" angle bar and welded ten 7" steel teeth and a 1" diameter steel tube to hold the handle. Then inserted and attached a 6' heavy wood dowl to it. To the top of the handle I drilled a hole and attached 20' of rope. This thing is heavy and weighs about 7-10 lbs which is needed to reach the bottom in the thick stuff or when the decaying angel snot appears on the elodia like we're seeing right now. See photo below.


I rake my water yard around the dock at least twice a year. The first time is typically in early March when the Elodia( and this year the Hydrilla as well) is growing at a fast pace and is thick. I jump in my bass boat, tie one end of the rope to a cleat and chuck that rake up along the dock, grab the rope slack and use the trolling motor to drag the grass out to the middle of the channel, far enough away to not expose all my neighbor's docks to my trimmings. I really wish some of my neighbors here had the same courtesy, as they will just pull up or use that damn sissors rake and let the grass fall where it lies, which typically ends up floating and snagging around someone else's dock!

I then repeat the process, over and over until I'm happy with what's left. I can also do the same from my dock itself to reach areas I can't from the boat. When doing this from my dock, I'll pile the weeds on the dock and let em dry out before sending em to the wind and currents of the river if my mulch bin is too full.

Most folks waited too long to do their first rake here on Sandmound and by early April, have been inundated with very thick growth and the typical Delta cheese all around their docks. My dock has been clear all spring. I then just this past Friday, had to rake again due to all the decaying weedy snot growth was getting too thick(Kinda looks like the elodia is covered by a web or cacoon like growth) yet was still below the surface.

I've enjoyed a nice clear space all year for both swimming and boat in/out access. My dock has also had much more fish activity than others around here(It ain't due to my stocking program, for I have caught fewer fish too versus years past! HAR!), and not just with bass. Bluegills, shad and shiners are thick here as well as the area around my dock has afforded a little better cat fishing than many of the neighbors are experiencing.

As much as the aquatic growth can be benificial to the various fish species here, too much growth, like what we're seeing now in the shallows, can indeed have a negative impact of the fish activity in given areas. The vast, thick decaying snot cacoons you see all through out the River, are NOT a type of aquatic vegitation cover the fish here want to be around. It's overkill and indeed can choke off the life in a given area. Yet there is good weed growth all over this River, that indeed is harboring many fish.

PS. On a side note, it really makes me laugh the most, when folks start talking about the weeds here on the River, especially this year. For a couple of years a vast number of anglers were pissin-n-moanin that the spraying here was killing all the weeds, and they couldn't catch fish. Now everyone is pissin-n-moaning that there are too many weeds, and they still can't catch fish! HAR! HAR! HAR!