Turtle Lake Fish Habitat

The River City Anglers and Friends of Stone Park had a volunteer work day on June 29th to improve habitat for fish and improve angler's success.  This time of year, aquatic vegetation can make it more difficult to fish from shore at Turtle Lake.  In fact, most ponds in Iowa have an abundance of vegetation in mid-summer.

The pond is stocked with Grass Carp which help with some of the problem.  However, the Anglers wanted to do more.  The two groups worked together to install some landscape fabric in 3 places along the shoreline.  The fabric was topped with small rocks.

The fabric will keep down rooted vegetation along shore.  The pea gravel will attract spawning panfish.  Young anglers will be able to see the panfish from shore and have a greater chance of catching fish!

Funding for this project came from a Toyota Every Day Event Grant.  Future plans call for volunteers to install benches, a fishing information kiosk, and underwater fish structure.  The fish seem appreciative and are using the area already!

Volunteers add rock to the top of fabric one bucket at a time.