 |
| Dense vegetation in Page's Slough |
Page’s Slough is a backwater of the
Wolf River, just upstream on
Lake Poygan, but at first glance it looks like it drains directly into the lake. Like most things on the Winnebago System, Page’s Slough is big, about 139 acres. Essentially it is a shallow water lake. This big backwater is managed for fish and wildlife habitat. In the past the slough has had an abundant population of curly-leaf pond weed, an invasive species, and early this summer it was observed to be abundant. It was feared native plants would be hurt.
Curly-leaf pondweed is different than our native vegetation in that it begins to grow in fall, comes on strong in the spring and early summer, and begins to die back in late June, or early July. If it came on strong then it might have strangled the native vegetation.
 |
| The Demented Gardener |
On a nice day in late August I’m there with Art Techlow, DNR, and my wife and note taker Rebecca. I stand at the bow with a modified garden rake in hand, looking like some kind of demented gardener. The rake is metal, with two sets of teeth back to back, and has an eight foot metal pole. Art pilots the boat from one predetermined GPS point to another, and I drop the rake down, spin it around and 93% of the time I pull up a green spaghetti of aquatic plants in muck sauce. Most of the plants are
coontail and
Canadian waterweed (Elodea); these aren't particularly good plants for waterfowl in themselves, but they feed and hide millions of insects, crustaceans, and small fish relished by the birds. Page’s Slough is packed with vegetation, the vast majority of it native. Since this is only an observational study and not an experiment I can’t say much for sure. All I know is that this year’s abundant curly-leaf pondweed seems to have had little negative impact, no impact, or an undetermined positive impact on the abundance of native vegetation. In any case it is good for this lake…I mean slough.
