Killing Cattails!!!!!!!

A friend of the family and nursery producer has this pond completely choked full of Cattails, Phragmites, and Cabomba. Now I realize this is not going to be an easy task but I took it on because I could hunt all of his land if I help him out. What was I to do but say yes. Been spraying aquatic approved glyphosate on these plants for a few weeks now and still cant get to the middle. Its like a jungle and will be injecting the cottonwoods and willows with herbicide soon as most need to go. I'll post more pics as the plants start to die and next spring they will hopefully not come back. Here is the beginning stages before application.

The cottonwoods will attract woodies when they are flooded. I'd keep them, they will eventually drown.

Are you sure there's a pond in there?????

I may keep some of the big cottonwoods but there are around 50-100 baby cottonwoods that need to go. This poor guy can't even enjoy the pond with as much weeds as it has. I told him we should plant a buffer of native plants as a way to keep these invasive plants from re-establishing themselves. Probably two years out.

Ain't that the truth.

Its the patches of 10' - 15' that the woodies like best.

How much water do you believe is in the middle of the pond from a depth standpoint? Just curious because with the amount of weeds, it almost appears that the max depth is pretty shallow. Now, even shallow water will attrach some ducks but I was just curious.

There is only a small opening maybe 30x30 in the middle. It definetly needs to be dug out once I get the plants under control. This guys really just wants a fishing pond again. I would say its max depth is 8-10 feet.

That's a whloe different thang than a duck hole.

So how's it looking? Maybe you could burn it off next spring?

I got to take some pics. Most of the cattails are burnt up from the glyphosate. I was in there on Saturday hitting the last green patches in the middle of the pond and the bluegills were so hungry they would wait until my fingers or spray wand hit the water and they would strike it. The cabomba is plentiful and need to get rid of it somehow next year.

Keep posting some pictures if you can! I'd love to see your progress on this!

Here's the update I took after hunting this morning. This is a few pics from the other side of the pond. Cattails are all but a few dead and don't intend on them coming back. Next year I will treat the Cabomba with Renovate and will hopefully have this guy come in and dredge out the pond and/or drill a well.

Heres some updated pics from last weekend. Looks like a good kill. Always know when treating cattails and Phragmites that you should get some regrowth.

I'd burn them in the late summer. Ice will retard regrowth.