Any biologist in the house?

2 strange things I noticed about my lease this year: 1) the pond has stayed full for months now, and not that much rain in the area and 2) I have not seen many gadwalls on my lease, this time of year normally full of gaddies.

Well come to find out there is a city water leak my land owner discovered, and been keeping the pond full. The pond gets full of milfoil, and the gaddies love eating on the invertebrates in the milfoil, which their seems to be plenty of that. I was just wondering, you think city/drinking water (which I think has chemicals in it) is killing the invertebrates in the pond?

I havent been swamped w Greys at either place this year. Bet it's weather related. I have gobs of coontail and pondweed which they typically devour

Yeah I have not seen many grey ducks even on public. 95% of the birds I shoot on my lease are grey ducks.

I'm not seeing the numbers of birds either, not even the pigeons of the waterfowl world (aka teal). Hopefully it will change when we there's some persistent cold weather.

Then again, it might be all the illegals coming across the border that's scaring them off. Can't say I blame them, Canada is definately on my radar. If it's good enough for ducks and geese to raise a family it's good enough for me.

Guy, I was talking about private

Not as many teal lately north of Greenville- seeing big groups south of 20.

I saw lots of migrating grey ducks early in the week

I know, that's all you shoot is private.

Today saw lots of Grey ducks on a lake that you cannot hunt on, since you cannot hunt it will say I30 runs across it.

As to the city water killing the invertebrates in the pond, when you pull out some of the milfoil or wade into it and lift some, you can usually see some of them in the milfoil if there is a healthy population. It might have cut the numbers some but doubt it took them all out.

City water would be chlorinated. For example, if you fill a fish tank with city water and add fish without treating to remove chlorine beforehand, it will kill the fish or other marine life. It's the same for your backyard ornamental fish pond so I'm guessing it could certainly have an impact on that particular pond you asked about.

Right, you said exactly what I was thinking, I just good not say it right.

Would it be to late to put chlorine killer in? I know fish tank just need a couple drops. A gallon of the stuff would go a long ways.

I thought about that and if it was running into the tank directly then very well could have killed them but if seeping in through soil it will filter out a lot of the chemicals. Also if the City Water was from the line going from water source to the treatment plant then no problem.

Is there a funny smell?

Not if city water keeps coming in. The chlorine would dissipate in a few weeks.

You can take a bucket or barrel of city water, leave it open, and the chlorine will basically gas off in about a week or so, a glass of water in about a day or two.

That is true but only for awhile and would depend on the soil type. Think of it like a porous filter. As soon as the filter reaches 100% holding capacity for such chemicals, then the porous soil allows everything to pass through. The soil, or filter, can only hold so much, unless it is some specialty soil that has the capacity to destroy or engulf matter.




Certainly. However, there is a big problem. No telling what the water authority may do if they know. I understand they are supposed to correct and put it back as was before. Might be a good time to plan some changes for the pond so they could incorporate them into the redevelopment.

Definitely a big leak, looks like about a gallon a second?



No dead fish yet, so maybe ok? Flooding the place nicely..



We did better than expected today...



That greenhead must have been lost..

Where do you hunt North of Greenville? I am in Celeste and we have had quite a bit of teal and gadwalls lately.

looks like a great problem to have!

There you go, patience is a virtue

That is a lot of water though

Maybe they like city water

R E L A X

Invite me they will be there, I promise.

Long story short. According to the biologists I know and the recent counts in LA, that Alaskan storm that hit us early nov pushed a large percentage of the central flyway gadwalls over to LA. One recent count showed 1.2 million gads in Sw la. My friends over there are living it. Shooting 5-7 man limits by sunrise.

I figured they went to central texas..

seems just like yesterday..at least last season anyway...the centex staple duck is living it up across the Sabine. I promise to them I'll never get tired of seeing swarms of them again if they just come back