# Cattail removal



## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

Started the removal of cat tails this weekend. What a mess!!

What i couldn't get to with the equipment will now have to be taken care of by hand and with chemicals. I have a bunch around the island that I will need to remove by hand.

Before I started Sunday morning, nice clear water



















The aftermath, muddy water! The bass sure were feeding heavy as I was digging. They were just outside the scoop eating stuff as it avoided the bucket.



















The island mess of cattails


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## Fishman (Apr 5, 2004)

WATCH OUT LUNDY THERE'S A COYOTE ON THE ISLAND!!! 

Looking good!!


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## wildcurt (Apr 14, 2009)

Quick question, do you know of any good chemical that works well for cat tails. I have a pond I fish in frequently and it has a huge section of cat tails. I guess I could pull them if it's not to deep. Just looking for an easy solution. Thanks


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## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

I can tell you after digging the cattails in my pond that there is no way I would ever want to try and remove by hand any appreciable numbers of mature established cattails. Their root systems are pretty amazing.

There are a couple of chemicals that will cattails, check the banner for ATAC at the top of this forum


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## bountyhunter (Apr 28, 2004)

spray them with a chemical called reward , spray the green shoots that come above the water it;ll kill the hole plant down to the roots , cattails are tuff ,will take a couple of times to fully kill them off . p/s did you know cattail roots are a muskrats favorite food .


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## Fishman (Apr 5, 2004)

bountyhunter said:


> spray them with a chemical called reward , spray the green shoots that come above the water it;ll kill the hole plant down to the roots , cattails are tuff ,will take a couple of times to fully kill them off . p/s did you know cattail roots are a muskrats favorite food .


lol.. dont do this. Why? It's expensive as hell. Use Aqua Pro and Cide Kick at 2 oz of each per 1 gallon of water in your sprayer. There's a lot of threads in here that deal with killing good ole' cattails.


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## wildcurt (Apr 14, 2009)

Thanks, I will try Aqua Pro on the pond with a sprayer. Thanks for everyone's input.


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## night (Sep 29, 2008)

Geese will do it they took all the cattails out of the pond we had .


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## Fishman (Apr 5, 2004)

Wildcurt, make sure you use Cide Kick II in conjunction with the Aqua Pro.


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## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

night said:


> Geese will do it they took all the cattails out of the pond we had .


My geese were planting more cattails just to pizz me off!!!


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## Lundy (Apr 5, 2004)

Well, a lot of work later we are getter closer to getting the pond in better shape. There is still quite a bit to do but it is rewarding to see progress.

At least 99% of the cattails are gone. I have some remaining that I will need to manually remove or chemically kill.

The dormant watermeal was stirred up with all of the digging and started to green up and grow (multiply) this past weekend. Just waiting on the spring rains to stop to add the Sonar to fix that problem. 

On a positive note we had very little algae this year as compared to last year. I don't know if the aerators added last year effected this or not but I'm glad it is better.

Another couple of weeks and I can complete the island bridge and stone work and have some of the grass growing back in. I hope.

The island last year









The island now

















The upper end before









After










Looking better


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

Looking good Lundy, pretty dramatic before and after photos. I noticed less algae after adding aeration too.


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