Muskies Inc. Provides Biodiversity on Pomme

While duck hunting last fall on Pomme de Terre Lake, just north of Bolivar, Missouri, we often happened upon wire cages anchored to fluorescent orange buoys that protected patches of what appeared to be lily pads. I assumed that the Conservation Department was conducting some sort of experiment or attempting to add terrestrial habitat for any number of reasons. At first I was a little miffed with their presence as they seemed to clutter a favorite duck hunting cove of mine, but surprisingly the ducks did not seem to mind the bulky and heavy gauged wire panels or the gaudy buoys, some mallards landed within a few feet of the contraptions.

Since that time I have learned, from a column in the News-Leader written by outdoor writer Steve Brigman, that the group behind the mass plantings of both spatterdock, basically a lily pad for the non-botanist, and smartweed is a small organization called Muskies Incorporated. The muskellunge population in Pomme de Terre is apparently evolving into a decent fishery, but the Pomme de Terre chapter spent the time and money in an attempt to further enhance the muskie's habitat. I can only assume that muskies will use the thatches of shallow vegetation as a clandestine cover from which to launch violent yet precise ambushes on bait fish who will undoubtedly be naturally drawn to the habitat that the growth of plants will offer. It is easy to foresee the benefits that will be reaped by the various piscine residents, Pomme will be a better fishery due to the efforts of Muskies Inc. However, I am more excited about the influence the smartweed & spatterdock patches will have on ducks and geese when they fly through the area during their annual fall pilgrimage south.

I have always proposed that if our lakes/reservoirs held more plant life they would in turn attract and hold more waterfowl in the fall. Essentially, a broader range of biodiversity could be found on our somewhat habitat-barren lakes with the introduction of beneficial plant species, like smartweed, that would not only serve as fuel for migrating birds in the form of ripened seeds themselves, but in turn establish their own micro-ecostystem for other species invaluable to waterfowl, such as mollusks & other invertebrates, and aquatic insects & larvae. If these plantings take off at Pomme I believe the waterfowling, especially for puddle ducks, will improve significantly; attracting & holding birds for an extended period of time is the key. Without timely & ample rains to flood ground cover and green timber around our reservoirs in western & southwestern Missouri, these bodies of water will often hold large numbers of resting waterfowl for only a day or two at a time. I have seen the morning sky filled with workable ducks one day and completely devoid of any waterfowl the next. When we are fortunate enough to receive a "10 year flood" the ducks can be found everywhere; in pockets of white oaks in the middle of a normally dry forest and in random fields buried under a foot of water, and of course the hunting ranges from good to excellent.

I know that the habitat provided in these small coves by introduced plantings of smartweed & spatterdock won't be as significant in attracting ducks as a blanketing flood, but even a skeptic would agree that it surely couldn't hurt. I suspect, since a cure for ignorance remains elusive in this era of medical marvels, that there will be those that will decry the efforts of Muskies Inc. and may even attempt to sabotage their hard work. I hope these groves of vegetation will remain unmolested however, if only in the name of experimentation. I would like to see, in the following years, a thriving growth of smartweed and spatterdock taking over the back end of an anonymous cove with a hundred or so ducks, with their tails & sprigs pointed skyward, feeding vigorously on the aquatic buffet laid out before them. Hopefully, the benefits of introduced biodiversity will be so obvious that such practices will spread to local chapters of Ducks Unlimited as well. It would be outstanding for chapters to keep some locally raised money exclusively earmarked for local habitat enrichment. I would like to see our reservoirs resemble more the lakes and potholes in the north and the maritime prairies of the south, that is, flats chocked full of lily pads, pondweed, smartweed, wild celery, and wild rice. I'm not talking about a total takeover, rather pockets of manageable areas of hardy, aquatic plant life, both terrestrial and submergent.

Think this is a good or bad idea? Please respond, I welcome all arguments or agreements.