By felling large trees into the waters of Wayne County’s East Lynn Lake, fisheries biologists hope to create the sort of fish-holding habitat the lake has long lacked. West Virginia’s large lakes might soon get something they don’t have — prime fish habitat. Chainsaw-wielding workers recently dropped several large trees
into the waters of Wayne County’s East Lynn Lake. State fisheries officials believe the trees will attract small fish, which in turn will attract the large predatory game fish that anglers value so highly.
“A lot of our reservoirs are habitat-limited,” said Nate Taylor, the Division of Natural Resources’ assistant fisheries biologist for the state’s southwestern counties. “Many of the impoundments were created in the 1960s and 1970s, and the flooded trees that attracted fish during the lakes’ early years have long since decomposed. The goal behind our program is to re-create some of that fish-attracting habitat.”
The technique itself is dead simple: Cut large, broad-canopied hardwood trees so they fall into the lake at water’s edge and secure them there so they can’t float away.
“For years now, we’ve created habitat by anchoring old Christmas trees to the lakes’ bottoms,” Taylor said.
Christmas trees attract fish, but not without a few problems. One, they’re small, usually only 3 or 4 feet across; two, they decompose within just a few years; three, anglers often have trouble locating them; and four, they’re relatively expensive to collect, transport and anchor.
“As far as payout, [large hardwood] trees are the way for us to go,” Taylor said.
It’s easy to understand why.
The hardwoods’ widespread branches, usually more than 20 feet from across, create a much larger area of shelter. Since the larger trees can only partially be submerged, anglers in boats or on the shore can easily locate them. Also, hardwoods take far longer to decompose than softwoods, sometimes lasting up to 20 years before they need to be replaced.
“When you consider all those factors, what we’ve done at East Lynn appears to be a very cost-effective solution to our reservoirs’ lack of habitat,” Taylor added.
Aaron Yeager, the DNR’ fisheries biologist for the state’s central counties, first tested the technique at Stonecoal Lake on the Lewis-Upshur county line. Yeager recruited Jamie Quick, a friend and veteran forester, to help him locate and cut a couple of likely looking trees.
“After we saw how well it worked, we decided to go ahead with a full-scale pilot project, and we chose East Lynn as the place for it,” Taylor said.
Before any chainsaw work could be done, DNR officials had to obtain permission from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, owners of the land that surrounds the 1,005-acre impoundment.
“We marked 25 trees and submitted them for [corps officials’] approval,” Taylor said. “They gave us the go-ahead on 17 of the 25. The main goals were to create habitat in areas where people were most likely to fish, and to avoid creating navigation hazards for boaters.”
To maximize the trees’ potential to attract bass, muskellunge and other high-value game fish, Taylor and his colleagues dropped them in places where the water measured at least 10 to 20 feet deep.
“We tried to make sure the water would cover the trees’ canopies,” he explained.
After the trees were cut, workers tied the fallen portions to their stumps with short lengths of steel cable. The cables, Taylor said, should prevent the semi-submerged trees from floating away during periods of high water.
Workers attached a sign to each deadfall that identified it as a “WVDNR Fish Habitat Project.” Taylor said the signs’ purpose was mainly to prevent well-intentioned anglers from risking life and limb to create more fish attractors.
“We wanted people to know that each tree was part of an official government project,” he added. “We had a trained forester felling these trees, employing all the proper safety equipment. We don’t want anyone else trying this and getting hurt or killed in the process.”
If the East Lynn pilot project proves successful, Taylor said DNR officials would like to expand the initiative to other Corps of Engineers lakes.
“We’ll have to discuss where we’re going to go from here, but within our [southwestern] district I’d like to see it done at Beech Fork Lake,” he said. “That may be the next one we try to tackle.” Source Charleston Gazette.