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General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: BrisBassMan on January 29, 2015, 09:03:59 PM

Title: Water Lettuce
Post by: BrisBassMan on January 29, 2015, 09:03:59 PM
Been a long time since I have been on here so hi to everyone again.

I went down from Cashes Crossing a little while back and was absolutely shocked and devastated when I saw the amount of weed totally covering the entire waterway down there.  Reading another article here I see that it is Water Lettuce and maybe salvinia or something like it.

I tried to paddle through it but it just went on and on.  Anyone else seen this and know what its like now ??

Cheers
Title: Water Lettuce
Post by: beetleyak on January 30, 2015, 12:00:57 PM
Was upstream from Fernvale last weekend and there was plenty there too. I have been led to believe it has been washed out of Lockyer creek during the last lot of rain. Whether it is slowing down now I don't know. I'll probably take another trip up that way this weekend. I guess it will take a while to clear out of the river. Does it tolerate the salinity much? I'm hoping it will cark it once it gets much further down from Colleges.
Title: Re: Water Lettuce
Post by: elops on January 30, 2015, 12:27:15 PM
Did that last rain flush it out ? Lower reaches get blocked by weed then purged then blocked in cycles. Was like that for years at one stage.
Title: Water Lettuce
Post by: beetleyak on January 30, 2015, 08:57:50 PM
It seems like an initial bunch got washed down with the first bit on rain, then it looked like it had mostly found its way down stream. Then we had a bit more rain which has sent this current lot out of the Lockyer.
Title: Re: Water Lettuce
Post by: Sweetwater on January 30, 2015, 10:10:40 PM
Think BrisBassMan was talking about on the Pine River (Cash's ? Crossing)

Haven't been over there for a look lately so don't know if its water lettuce or hyacinth.
Only management plan appears to be nature in the form of floods.

On the Brisbane River... We sat at the Lowood Rocks the other day fishing out all the water lettuce that floated down. Got a huge pile of it and made no impact. Must be hundreds of tons of it through the system....  :OMG
Title: Re: Water Lettuce
Post by: BrisBassMan on January 30, 2015, 11:33:17 PM
Think BrisBassMan was talking about on the Pine River (Cash's ? Crossing)

Yeah the SP.

Definately water lettuce based on the photo i saw in another post here.  It was so thick. Haven't been back for a while and there has been some rain since so hopefully it cleared it out a bit.

On the subect of weeds, The combomba in Kurwongbah was thick last time I was there.  Makes it a little hard to extract the bass sometimes  :P

Cheers
Title: Re: Water Lettuce
Post by: beetleyak on January 31, 2015, 06:27:22 AM
Sorry guys, my bad  :Oops)

With the amount of water lettuce in the Brissie I thought you were talking about it and mis-read the initial post as "Colleges Crossing". Derrrr.

I now wonder how many other systems this stuff is rampant in at the moment? Any reports apart from the Brissie and South Pine?
Title: Re: Water Lettuce
Post by: BrisBassMan on March 08, 2015, 10:39:01 PM
Had a look the river again the last couple of Saturdays and found that that cyclone did the trick.  Well at least mostly.  There were a couple of bits here  which I picked up and disposed of at home in the compost but the others I missed/didn't see  I assume will just pickup again and if not checked and cover the place again.  Oh well, did ok on he bite too so thanks to the cyclone things looking much better.
Title: Re: Water Lettuce
Post by: aussiebasser on March 09, 2015, 06:48:31 AM

There is plenty to be seen at Jindalee as you cross the bridge
Title: Water Lettuce
Post by: beetleyak on March 09, 2015, 05:08:35 PM
Does the salinity kill it off as it moves downstream?
Title: Re: Water Lettuce
Post by: aussiebasser on March 09, 2015, 05:30:31 PM
It's not moving downstream, it's been there for a couple of weeks drifting in and out with the tide.
Title: Re: Water Lettuce
Post by: BrisBassMan on March 10, 2015, 07:56:36 PM
Seems to be pretty prolific kind of weed. I was amazed at just how thick it got in the SP.  The kayak would not even glide at all. It was like being sick in quick sand. 

I'm guessing it would die off in the salt but what about cold?  Does it die off in the winter?? Here's hoping  :o