Lakeshore owners - dead trees, etc.

[BoxMN]

The other post about dead trees on some acreage made me think - what do you do with trees that hit the water?

I know lakeshore owners get a ton of carp about how they deal with their lot, but not everybody is the same. Many people will mow to the lake, and landscape to look like a subrban sub-division, but many more don't, and I think many more are going the way with natural lakeshores.

On that note, I have what I call the "fish sanctuary" off to the side of my dock. An oak tree fell from the shore into the lake, and I left it there. I actually add to it with any branches or limbs or any woody substance that I find around the area. Note that I don't cut anything down, I don't pull it from the shore, but I do "re-direct" any that is in the water to a concentrated area, and with the branches it all pretty much stays in place until it sinks. Great for fish habitat, and thus fishing opportunity for the kids and big kids too

The water is very clear, and I have counted pike, LMS, SMB, rock bass, sunnies and crappies all in it at the same time. It is pretty cool.

It also is not at all out of "natural balance" as right down the shoreline we have state land that will never be developed, and that shore has the same type of blowdown all along it. It is just nice to have something like this in between some docks as well. I know some people has asked when I am going to remove it, haha! and I just tell them "Mother Nature made the mess, she can clean it up"

I also let trees that fall on our hill in front of the cabin just lay there, rather than remove them. Makes for a more natural appearance from the lake. We don't mow/alter anything from shore to 50-75 feet back, except the stairs we put in. But I am trying to find a suitable plant to put in the sandy soil where some previous owner tried to dig out the hill a bit, and now it is just a sandy cutout. I don't want to put retaining block in, I like the look of grasses etc.

I also have about 30-40 or so pines and spruce planted on the shoreline hill, and many more planted around the 3/4 acre lot, hopefully I will live long enough to see them grow up

[B. Amish]

i like your attitude Box.

what's always puzzled me about a lot of lakeshore owners is that most are obviously drawn to the lake for the natural beauty and wildlife, but when they build a house or cabin, the first thing they do is remove all of that natural beauty.

[SkunkedAgain]

The more trees along my shoreline that fall the better. Every morning that I'm at my cabin, my first order business after taking care of business is to toss my top-water spinner in all directions off of my dock. There are downed trees, rocks, lily pads, and more. I catch northerns, musky, LMB, SMB, and the panfishing is outstanding. I've even got a walleye hole in the spring. My opinion has always been that I have a lawn in the city, why would I want to mow a second one at the cabin! Trees in the lake are natural and I can't think of a reason to pull them out. Nature wants them there and so do the fish.

[LABS4ME]

One of the greatest threats to water quality in a lake is fertilizer run-off. All the lawns mowed to the edge of the water really accelerate the greening. lakes weren't meant to have a green mowed lawn to waters edge... personally I think a cabin looks better with a natrual break between the water and the home, be it cattails, canary grass or trees...

Good Luck!

Ken

[LABS4ME]

and I agree with the whole 'why mow 2 yards' concept. I barely want to mow one! I owned 3 1/2 acres in the city for 15 years and only put in a little over a half acre of lawn, while my neighbors religiously mowed their entire 2-3 acre lots. I put in native grasses and wildflowers and it looked great. When asked by my neighbor when I was putting in the rest of my lawn, said I was done. I told him I wanted a little urban wildlife retreat. I had pheasant, occassional deer, occassional turkeys and more songbirds and blue birds than you could shake a stick at. Mowing took me 45 minutes and them 3-4 hours... Eventually they both increased the amount of set a side on their property... to about an acre each. they let it revert back from lawn to whatever grew... but still better than another swath of bluegrass.

Good Luck!

Ken

[Tom7227]

One of the greatest threats to water quality in a lake is fertilizer run-off. All the lawns mowed to the edge of the water really accelerate the greening. lakes weren't meant to have a green mowed lawn to waters edge... personally I think a cabin looks better with a natrual break between the water and the home, be it cattails, canary grass or trees...

I live on Bald Eagle and the Rice Creek Watershed District is close to finishing a detailed study on where the phosphorus comes from that is causing problems. You can find the study at http://www.pca.state.mn.us/index.php/view-document.html?gid=15575 44% of the phos in Bald Eagle comes from the lake iteself. Die off of curly leaf pondweed and release from the sediment in late summer when the lake gets 'anoxic' - low/no oxygen in the lower levels. Another 25% of the phos comes from two ditches coming into the lake. 6% comes from direct run off from the lakeshore. Go to the MPCA HSOforum and see if that isn’t the case with most other lakes.

Box – consider taking some pictures and going up to Scandia and talking to the folks at Prairie Restorations. They’re very knowledgeable and have a lot of different material on hand that you can consider planting in the area you’re concerned with.

[BoxMN]

Box – consider taking some pictures and going up to Scandia and talking to the folks at Prairie Restorations. They’re very knowledgeable and have a lot of different material on hand that you can consider planting in the area you’re concerned with.

Great idea Tom, thanks! I did not know they were so close. That is now on my list, possibly even before this fall planting season would be over. I'll take some detailed pics this weekend. But have to deal with some evil attack ducks first

[kobear]

Bald Eagle is an Impaired lake and thereby makes a poor comparison. All that P in the lake came from the watershed so to say 44% comes from the lake is only partially true.

Now that it's in there it can't get out and just cycles around, true.

So a lake with no inlets in my work area, Otter Tail County:

25% comes as dust from the sky, really the earth is dirty

55% comes from the immediate watershed, nonpoint runoff over the land surface

10% comes from the distant watershed through groundwater

10% comes from septics

5% from internal cycling

but I have quite clean lakes

lake with inlets:

Say West Battle anyone?

20% dust from the sky

15% immediate watershed

40% distant watershed through surface water flow

15% distant watershed groundwater flow

5% septics

5% internal cycling

as a watershed grows so does the proportion of nutrients from distant sources

Once a lake has been pushed into a turbid state, impaired, so much of the lakes internal capacity has been taken up it can no longer process the pollution and is just green. This is when internal cycles have gone haywire and rule the roost. BUT this is because nutrient sources from the greater watershed were allowed to pollute the lake, those nutrients MOST OFTEN did not originate in the lake they washed in over time. This is why our cure the impairments push will fail, most of these lakes have been evaluated as un-restorable by DNR due to excess loading over time and landuse changes being just too extensive to remedy. And clean lakes no one cares about protecting those. If it's not green there must be no problem. We have quite the dichotomy either they are un-repairable or else we aren't concerned yet because the locals see no issue.

Lakes retain the majority of pollution that enters them forever

Little Pine Lake by Perham, small lake Otter Tail River runs through water changes every few months, it retains 40% of the Phosphorous that enters it.

West Battle Lake, larger lake, inlets but no river, water changes every 9 years, it retains around 75% of the nutrients that enter it.

Those are from PCA's lake assesment program.

[tom fellegy]

three years ago, my wife did a shoreland restoration project on 100ft of a creek that runs into lake mille lacs. the creek is our north property line. this was done to replace a railroad tie wall that was rotted and to control errosion in the future. she worked with the mille lacs county soil and water conservation district on this project. the projuct was a big success. there was a two page article in the mille lacs messenger, and she was named mille lacscounty conservationlist of the year. we were planning on doing the 110ft of our shoreline last year, but because the state shut down last summer, the project was postponed until this year. she got some paperwork last month and it said that it is a go for the spring of 2012.

[deerminator]

Box, I like your approach. We have a bluff on the lake that is mostly natural except for a narrow path down to the dock, which we got a permit to clear and build a staircase. I replanted alongside of the stairs because it's too steep and I don't want to mow anything there. We too have trees fall and I let them go into the water and manuever them around. When my son was 4, he caught a 5 pound largemouth near it with his Snoopy pole with sunfish hook and wax worm on the 4th of July. That is a memory we will always have. I thought his line was snagged at first when he asked for help.

The only clearing I've been doing is trimming the existing trees here and there for a better view and exterminating the patches of posion ivy and replanting with good ground cover plants over the bare patches that are left. That is grueling job as some of it is thick and viny. Being covered head to toe when its warm and sweating like no tomorrow while pulling and digging out of the ground and knowing you cant wipe the sweat from your brow!

The resort we go to up on the Whitefish Chain has done a good job of restoring their bluff and lakeshore. The owner told me he had a friend he visited way back, far up north, whose shoreline was covered with trees and obstructed his view of the lake. His friend told him, if I want to see the lake, I can walk down to the dock and see it from there. Good point. He also mentioned that everyone he's worked with from a shoreline restoration standpoint has agreed that a lot of little trees does just as good a job, if not better at protecting the soil from eriosion than a few big trees. So we've been planting smaller dwarf varieties of trees on our shoreline as well that will not obstruct our view.

[Tom7227]

This is a pretty decent resource to get info from: http://bluethumb.org/

[Pannyraid]

My family has a cabin in NW Wisconsin and recently the DNR began the Fish Stix program on our lake. The more wood in the water the better!

http://www.bayfieldcounty.org/assets/files/Conservation/Fish%20Sticks%20Brochure_Legal.pdf

[Tom7227]

My family has a cabin in NW Wisconsin and recently the DNR began the Fish Stix program on our lake. The more wood in the water the better!

http://www.bayfieldcounty.org/assets/files/Conservation/Fish%20Sticks%20Brochure_Legal.pdf

I'm pretty sure you can't legally do that in Minnesota. Maybe just drop a tree at the water's edge is Ok but I don't think you can build cribs. A friend wanted to do this and I had checked the statutes and regs pretty closely and there's something about depositing litter in a lake.