Sorry I have been absent. Actually, I have been having a lot of problems with the speed of getting into the Forum, so I had given up completely. It may be due to our server here.

At any rate, I will try this again!

Regarding Klineline Pond, the stocking change should be temporary. In the past we used to have the water as seasonal. For the couple of months that fishing was not allowed, the pond was able to 'turn over' a natural occurring functions for many bodies of water.

It was thought by Vancouver Parks and Recreation, that because we went to year-round, the pond was not allowed enough of a break. It was suggested to me that the overabundance of fish was more than partially to blame.

Well that is pretty much a pile of pooey. The fact is that the pond suffers from over abundance of garbage, unfortunately from the users of the pond and a certain amount of run-off from the houses above.

This pond has such an enormous 'put and take' fishery that the fish are never in there long enough to cause a problem.

I would recommend that anglers contact Vancouver Parks and Recreation with their concerns about the pond. I have done my part as far as cutting the stocking of the pond by 70%+. There is still algae and slime... which can't be coming from too many fish because there hasn't been hardly any there for months now.

I understand your frustrations as anglers. It is a great little pond, especially for kids.

I will go down and take a look and see what its current condition is and start figuring out a way to get the fishery back.

I will be checking in here often, so if there is anything you need, please let me know.

For those of you who do not know me, I work for Washington State Fish and Wildlife out of the Vancouver Regional Office. I cover the six counties in southwest Washington along with my supervisor John Weinheimer in the Inland Fish Program.

I work with all species of trout, warmwater fish and grass carp.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you!

stace

Welcome back Stace! Thanks for the info on Klineline.
Where'd you put the excess fish (that would normally have been headed for klineline - were it not for that 70% cut-back)??

-Chad

They went into Battle Ground Lake and Lacamas.

The silly thing is that all these fish are in Battle Ground and no one is targeting them. I think there is still concerns about the e.coli mess. Even though it never involved the fish.

stace

Wow, I was just about to email you! Never got a chance to over the weekend and figured I'd do it on Monday because you wouldn't get it over the weekend anyway. Thanks for the response. Too bad about the slow connection.

Klineline certainly used to be a great pond. Not equivalent to a high mountain lake in terms of scenery, but a nice place to go and have some fun and maybe bring home a few trout for dinner. Good place for kids too like you mention. Too bad that there has to be a littering crowd. And too bad about those houses (that sure was a heck of a place to put them, right on the edge of the cliff and all). As far as the birds go, I guess that's a natural thing. I think you folks (WDFW) tried relocating them at one time, but they ended up coming right back. Or maybe that was the Sand Island relocation I'm thinking of? But with the algae, would it be possibe, as RipDatLip from this forum suggested, to plant a few hundred grass carp (or how ever many you think would be suitable) in there to keep the algal population down?

Thanks again for your time and comments.

We did plant grass carp and the birds ate them!

Then we planted bigger ones and they seemed to do pretty good.

Grass carp are not big on algae, they will eat that last. They did a great job cleaning out the excess submergent weeds.

The algae is a different beast altogether. Too much phosphorus and I am not sure why that is. Parks will try and say it is the fish and it isn't.

I will be really focusing on Klineline over the next couple of months and will keep you updated.

We did just plant 2000 fish in last week. So they will last a little while!

stace

Sounds great! Hope you come up with a workable solution and yes, please keep us updated. About the larger grass carp that were planted-I wonder if they're still in there? I thought if they were caught it was mandatory to release them, but it seems those underwater weeds are popping up like crazy especially around the shore. So maybe they've died or been taken out of there by anglers? Anyway, thanks again for your time and concern. By the way, do you know if the triploid program is going to be done again this year? Sure did enjoy those big ones last year at a particular place that opens the last Saturday in April. Also, will the numbers of stocked fish be about the same as last year? Thanks.