I've written about the vine-like emergent vegetation that now dominates the immediate shoreline of my favorite pond.

This stuff is actually shrinking the pond by creating new land that was once part of the pond.

It grows in clumps of canes or stems which increase in size and numer of stems every year. Eventually, these clumps completely cover the bottom.

They trap leaves which become compost. Increasing numbers of animals such as muskrats, mink, otters, and birds leave their droppings on them. Sun turtles also crawl onto this mat in large numbers, rather than using rocks or logs for their sunbathing.

Combined this results in compost. Muskrats build their winter condos on them from mud and grasses, which also contributes to the conversion from pond to dry land.

Among things the otter feed on are clams/mussels. They pull them from the bottom, then take them onto this "mass" to eat them, leaving piles of shells, which also contribute to the conversion of the pond shallows to dry land.

Another bad feature of this vegetation is that it provides cover for prey fish that predators cannot enter, resulting in an overpopulation of those species, and a shortage of forage for the game fish.

In places on the pond there are now wide swatches of orchard grass growing where it was once water.

There was none of this stuff on the pond when I had last fished it in the late 60s. I searched the web and found out what it is.

It is Purple Loosestrife.

Notice how it has crowded out the natural vegetation, and is shrinking the canal in the right photo in this article.

In just ten years!

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/plants/loosstrf/index.htm

Man sorry to hear that.

Here in the Southeast/South we get overrun with Kudzu which is almost as invasive as Purple Loosestrife.

http://www-aes.tamu.edu/mary/kudzu/kudzu.htm

sounds like ya need some grass carp and the pond needs to be dragged a few times

Unless grass carp have a mouth like a beaver, they ain't gonna touch this stuff, believe me.

Dragging might be great, but for the rocks and boulders.  It would take a D9 Caterpillar to be able to scrape this bottom, and there are some rocks that would have to be dynamited.

Neither is likely to happen anyway, since the pond is surrounded by private property with no public access.

But, should the folks who own property decide to take action, they'd still need approval from all the environmental bodies, town, state and federal.

Since the pond also is home to an endangered species, the Plymouth Red Bellied sun turtle, not likely approval would be granted.

It's things like this that make me glad I'm not twenty years old again.  It would be difficult to watch the demise of this great pond.

Man sorry to hear that.

Here in the Southeast/South we get overrun with Kudzu which is almost as invasive as Purple Loosestrife.

http://www-aes.tamu.edu/mary/kudzu/kudzu.htm

I'm familiar with Kudzu.  My dad was from Georgia, and our younger daughter lives in Georgia.

I've seen where it has completely taken over fields and pastures as well as killed off stands of trees.

I did not realize it would invade ponds as well.

That being the case, the Kudzu may be worse than this stuff, since it definitely spreads faster.

Man sorry to hear that.

Here in the Southeast/South we get overrun with Kudzu which is almost as invasive as Purple Loosestrife.

http://www-aes.tamu.edu/mary/kudzu/kudzu.htm

I'm familiar with Kudzu. My dad was from Georgia, and our younger daughter lives in Georgia.

I've seen where it has completely taken over fields and pastures as well as killed off stands of trees.

I did not realize it would invade ponds as well.

That being the case, the Kudzu may be worse than this stuff, since it definitely spreads faster.

    I hate Kudzu, the stuff is every where.  It literally grows 3' in one day.