Conference wahoo::fishing-v2

    Startling images there - and some questions too.  Thanks for entering
    it, John - I'd understand a bit more of it if you could offer a bit of
    glossary - some of those life forms are unknown to me, terms too
    scientific.
    
    I do see how the little abuses accumulate.  Sulphurous bottom is
    sci-fi like.
    
    Jack

    I don't think it's jargon - just beyond my vocabulary.  Here they are:
    
    "oligotrophic freshwater habitat"
    "a rich, healthy band of nitella"
    "a few clumps of sparsely scattered quilwort"
    "a few healthy bryozoan colonies"
    "hydras"
    "cloudy with nymphs that we took to be phantom gnats"
    "decaying towers of chironymid nymphs"
    "sign of late-season anoxia"
    "towers of tubifex worms"
    "Excepting broth"
    "bass corpse bound to the silt by brilliant red laces"
    "tubifex worms had inclined their towers"
    
    Jack

    Jack,
    
    There's no real reason to actually understand these technical terms,
    they essentially did their job in making the article sound like
    a simple set scientific observations, instead of a commentary
    on the environmental consciousness of the anything-but-the-divers-
    of-the-world people who enjoy the outdoors.
    
    Gus
    
    

    Gus,
    	I would imagine that there are others, like myself, who enjoy
    reading of John's observations. If you don't enjoy them or find them
    enlightening then so be it but there's really no need to insult the man
    or the work that he is doing, is there???
    
    Barry
    

    Barry,
    
    	I really do like reading John's replies/observations, and I 
    appreciate his efforts for the environment (really!).  I would
    simply like to see them not automatically attribute everything that
    is wrong with our waterways to ALL fisherman/swimmer/boaters etc.
    
    	To me, it's rather offensive to have "large holes in the nitella
    apparently cause by boat anchors" attibuted to me (a boater) when John
    supplies absolutely no evidence that is the real cause.
    
    	If one is going to write a scientific observation, simply keep it
    that way, and don't bother with the editorials.   I don't want to start
    a rathole about this, so I'll let it go.  But I felt somewhat unjustly
    attacked by certain comments in the article.
    
    Gus
     
    	    

 I have been silent here for a while but must add
my humble opinion. Traveling the commuter rail for
4 months this year to Boston everyday, I passed by
Walden twice a day. 
 From the quick passing it's a beatiful sight in the 
morning. After reading John's tale it brought back
some memories.
 John is always blaming fisherman for something in almost
everthing I've read of his. I, being an avid fisherman,
do take offense to most of his remarks because he is
stereo-typing me with the generality fisherman.
 As for the entertainment fish in Walden, one must remember
how they got there. The State. Unlike New Hampshire,
every fishing license in Mass goes to the stalking
of trout and lately salmon. No moneys are spent on
any other fish. So you might say all of us help contribute
to the entertainment fish in Walden.
 My point is, to me there is very little entertainment fishing for
trout. Trout fishing is very simple, you catch it, you keep
it, you eat it. Bass Fishing to me is much more entertaining,
you set the hook, hang on for dear life and 90 % of the time
most people in this state return ole bucket mouth to the
water. 
 I personaly am happy the trout are still stocked there. They
do entertain my frying pan rather nicely!

 Happy New Year, and I'll put another trout on the skillet
for ya just for entertainment purposes only!!

 - Dave Sullivan 
 

    attached are the definitions John wrote up.  Thanks!  You certainly
    don't take questions lightly ;^) - but then I should have known that.
    
    I follow this conference because I love to fish & I love to contemplate
    fishing.  I don't find or feel anything offensive in your contributions
     here...well, I guess I busted you once for what seemed to me sanctimony.
    
    Yes, I do occasionally return from fishing carrying other people's trash 
    & dispose of it.  I don't expect that makes me exceptional among fishermen.
    My daughter and I helped John & his crew with a cleanup last spring at
    White Pond.  The amount and nature of the stuff they pulled out of that
    pond was incredible.  
    
    Thanks, John - for your work, your passion, your patience, your 
    explanations.  I hope we'll keep hearing from you.  I believe many of
    us share a love of things natural and an interest in understanding &
    preserving/restoring them.  I learn from your contributions and I 
    believe you are among friends here.
    
    Jack
    
                            -< Terms>-
______________________________________________________________________

>>    "oligotrophic freshwater habitat"

From the EPA's _The Lake and Reservoir Restoration Guidance Manual_:

"Oligotrophic: `Poorly nourished,' from the Greek. Describes a lake of 
low plant productivity and high transparency."

Although there are many different levels of the "nutritional state" of 
a body of water, the three most commonly used (and therefore used by 
me) classifications are:
	Oligotrophic
	Mesotrophic
	Eutrophic

From the same source:

"Eutrophic: From the Greek for `well nourished,' describes a lake of 
high photosynthetic activity and low transparency."

Mesotrophy is the state between eutrophy and oligotrophy.


>>    "a rich, healthy band of nitella"

Nitella is a complex, differentiating colonial alga. It looks like a 
vascular plant with apparent roots, stem, branches, leaves, and 
reproductive nutlets. In fact, it is a colony of simple-celled plants 
that assume the form of a vascular  plant. In some places where the 
water is clean enough and calm enough for the nitella to grow close 
enough to shore to by picked by hand, it is known as "musk grass" 
because of the musky odor the crushed stems produce.

Nitella is characteristic of oligotrophic freshwater because it is 
"rooted" in the bottom, and the water has to be clear enough to allow 
light to reach the bottom so the plant can photosynthesize. The nitella 
helps maintain the clarity of the water by keeping the silt on which 
is stands from scattering.

In calm water, nitella will occupy the bottom from 3 feet to as deep 
as 50 feet, which is the deepest I've ever seen it. If wave action or 
anything else (e.g., swimmers wading) disturbs the bottom near shore, 
the nitella cannot survive because it is not really a rooted plant and 
because the silt settles on it and prevents light from reaching the 
alga cells, which kills them. The colony can also be killed by crushing it, 
which I suspect thoroughly disrupts the colony's careful organization. 
As a result of its delicate nature, nitella is often found in a 
narrow range in recreational water: below the level disturbed by 
swimmers and boat wakes and above the level where light ceases to 
penetrate. In Walden Pond this band was 20 feet of the water column 
from 20 feet to 40 feet. The width of the band depended on the slope 
of the bottom.

A healthy band of nitella is a short (6 - 18 inches) dense jungle of 
green vegetation. In shallow, relatively undisturbed water, nitella is 
found as individual plants and small patches. The further away from 
the vagaries of wave action, the denser this jungle gets. It forms an 
excellent nursery for young-of-the-year fish if it is well established 
in relatively shallow water (<15 feet, approximately.


>>    "a few clumps of sparsely scattered quilwort"

Quilwort is another plant that characterizes an oligotrophic body of 
freshwater. The book _Pond Life_ published by Golden Press ($5 at a 
bookstore near you <g>) describes quilworts this way: "Quilworts are fern 
allies common in shallow waters, wet meadows, and occasionally in 
clear lakes. The fleshy base of the plant is eaten by waterfowl." 
Quilwort typically looks like an anemic clump of wild onion. In my 
experience, where there is one clump of quilwort, there are many many 
many more in the same area. Quilwort does a good job of keeping the 
silt in place. The bottom has to be pretty severely disturbed to 
disrupt the quilwort distribution. The quilwort was noted in the report 
because we were looking for it. There is a suspicion among some 
aquatic biologists that the quilwort in Walden Pond is a unique, 
possibly endangered plant species. If it is indeed a unique species, 
it is indeed endangered. There is not much of it.


>>    "a few healthy bryozoan colonies"

Freshwater bryozoans are the freshwater approximate equivalent of soft 
coral. Bryozoans are colonial creatures that extend tentacles out into 
the water to trap plankton and zooplankton. A bryozoan colony can set 
itself up on almost any solid surface. Some colonies are bigger than a 
grapefruit, and some are smaller than a pecan. They are most often 
found on waterlogged tree branches in still water. In the Concord 
river, they also set themselves up on bare exposed rock surfaces on 
the bottom. In Walden Pond, we found one colony that had completely 
covered the top and side of a sneaker that was upright in the bottom; 
we found another that had set itself up on a tennis ball that had been 
ripped in half. If you touch the bryozoan colony, the animals you 
touch and those around them will withdraw, leaving a brown quiltwork 
in the area where your finger landed. If you disturb the water over 
the whole colony, they will all shrink so that what looked like a 
fluffy white/gold grapefruit a second ago becomes a shriveled brown orange. 
Bryozoans are usually found oligotrophic and mesotrophic waters.


>>    "hydras"

Hydras are simple animals that have a stalk and tentacles. The base of 
the stalk attaches to a relatively solid surface, and the tentacles 
float freely in the water. The tentacles of a hydra serve the same 
purpose as the tentacles of a jellyfish. In fact, the freshwater 
jellyfish spends the first year(s) of its life as a hydra. These 
creatures seem to embody delicacy. Their bodies and their tentacles move 
in whatever direction the water moves, regardless of how gentle the water 
movement is. One particular kind of hydra (seen thus far only in Lake 
Winnipesaukee) has a stalk about half an inch long but tentacles about 10 
inches long. A colony of these hydras make whatever they are on look as if it 
is covered in a huge tattered spider web.


>>    "cloudy with nymphs that we took to be phantom gnats"

In their adult form, phantom gnats resemble mosquitoes except that 
they do not bite. After a metamorphosis from nymph to adult, you will 
see swarming clouds of them a few feet above the water. You've probably 
paddled into a cloud of them in your canoe before and marveled that 
these mosquitoes didn't bite. In their nymph stage, they are a nearly 
transparent white, and they feed on plankton and microscopic 
zooplankton. During the day, they congregate in enormous numbers near 
the bottom below the young-of-the-year fish that feed on them by 
sight. In the evening and night, they disperse near the surface, feeding 
on algae and the zooplankton that rise from the silt floor, also to feed 
on the algae.


    "decaying towers of chironymid nymphs"

The "midges" form part of the family of creatures generically known as 
"chironymids." The nymphs are small worms that burrow into the bottom to
feed on the detritus accumulated over the years. Their excrement forms 
a tube that extends above the surface of the silt, creating a kind of 
tower. This tower also serves to protect the nymph from some predators. 
These nymphs do fairly well in moderately low-oxygen water, but as the 
season progresses and the oxygen below the surface gets consumed, the 
nymphs in deeper water die, and their towers -- no longer being maintained 
by ongoing feeding -- decay. Sulfur bacteria colonies tend to set up on 
the sediment from below the surface excreted by the nymph. A decaying 
chironymid tower tends to look like a castle turret with the top and 
part of the side caved in, with a small clump of cotton growing on one 
side or even over the whole tower. These towers are a quarter to half an 
inch tall. Early in the season, when the bottom water is still full of 
oxygen from the spring turnover, the silt is studded with these towers, 
sometimes with a tower every half inch: hundreds of thousands of them. 


>>    "sign of late-season anoxia"


If the explanation above didn't explain what was meant here, let me 
know, Ok?


>>    "towers of tubifex worms"

Tubifex worms (aka sludgeworms, sewage worms) are bright red worms, 
hair-thin, about an inch long. They bury their heads in the bottom and 
build a tube much like the chironymid nymphs. From this tube, they 
extend their tails. If the worms detect any disturbance in the water 
(and possibly in the diffusion of light), they retract. That is why 
divers usually see only the towers, which are a little shorter than 
chironymid towers and are tapered to fit the tapered tail of the worm. 
Tubifex worms are the lowest of the low-oxygen animals. When the 
Nashua River was at its worst, changing color every other day 
according to the dye being used in the upstream processing plants, the 
only creatures found still alive in it were tubifex worms.


>>    "Excepting broth"

I assume you're referring to this sentence:

"Excepting the filamentous sulfur bacteria suspended in the hydrogen-
sulfide broth, Walden Pond is lifeless below 85 feet, where even the 
tubifex worms can't survive."

Below 85 feet, the water in Walden Pond turned into a black hydrogen 
sulfide solution. See note 805.105 or thereabouts in GOOFOF::SCUBA for 
a description of this stuff. The sulfur bacteria able to live in this 
solution or "broth," which is deadly to humans, is indeed a life form. 
That's why I used the words "excepting..." rather than saying that it 
was completely lifeless.


>>    "bass corpse bound to the silt by brilliant red laces"
>>    "tubifex worms had inclined their towers"
 
The tubifex worms had not only extended themselves further out of 
their towers than I had ever seen, but they had leaned over to lay 
their tails over the bass corpse. This had caused their towers to 
incline as well. The tubifex towers were leaning over so much that 
they were lying against the bottom. The bass corpse was lying flat on 
the bottom, basically intact. (Decomposition at depth occurs by 
bacterial feeding rather than by consumption, normally, and takes 
forever.) Here was a case of tubifex worms actively consuming a 
corpse. We usually think of tubifex worms as passive, stationary 
feeders. At first glance, the bass reminded me of Gulliver tethered to 
the ground by Lilliputians. That was what made me curious enough to 
take a closer look. I guess the tubifex worms were completely intent 
on the nutrients in that body, because it was the only time I have 
ever seen tubifex worms for more than a fraction of a second before 
they withdrew into their tubes. They ignored me completely. A couple 
paragraphs earlier, I described the tubifex worms as being "about an 
inch long." The books tell me the tubifex worm is one inch long. The 
worms extended over that bass body were at least an inch and a quarter long.



John H-C


    it looks like it has happen
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At our club meeting last night it was rumored that
the first fall out of question #3 has happen,
    
Walden Pond has been closed to fishing! 
    
Next they want to close the Concord River to all 
boats except canoes, then then Nashua River.
    
    
               john
    

    
     I just got off the phone with Fisheries & Wildlife in Acton,
     and there is no truth to that John.
    
                                                    Kiv 

    Well, maybe, just maybe, they will stop stocking that poor pond with
    fertilizer on the fin and let the anglers catch and keep the rest of
    the exotic fish they've been putting in there for years. Then, once the
    fish population stabilizes, maybe there will be fewer anglers looking
    for the easy catch, which would reduce collateral damage to the
    habitat.
    
    From my perspective, though, the fertilizer on the fin they pour into
    that pond isn't any more damaging than the unwashed masses allowed to
    wade into it wherever they are able.
    
    The damage to that pond is not really caused by anglers, per se, IMHO,
    but by the periodic dumping of unsupportable biomasses into that pond.
    
    John H-C