Diddymo found in New Hampshire and Vermont

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
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o The invasive algae Didymosphenia geminate (Didymo) was discovered on the upper Connecticut River in New Hampshire on June 25, 2007 and now it has been confirmed there is a “major” infestation in the White River in Vermont. This algae resembles cardboard colored toilet paper, and clings to rocks where it can cover the rocky streambed of rivers and streams and choke off all life on which fish feed eliminating any chance of survival of the fish. It hangs up on your nymphs, and spin anglers can get clumps of it on almost every cast. We have to clean our gear after we fish ANY body of water.

CHECK: Before you leave a river or lake, check items and leave debris at site. If you find any later, treat and put in rubbish. Do not wash down drains.

CLEAN: There are several ways to kill Didymo. Choose the most practical treatment for your situation which will not adversely affect your gear.

  • Non-absorbent items
    o Detergent: soak or spray all surfaces for at least one minute in 5% dishwashing detergent or nappy cleaner (two large cups or 500 mls with water added to make 10 liters); OR
    o Bleach: soak or spray all surfaces for at least one minute in 2% household bleach (one small cup or 200 mls with water added to make 10 liters); OR
    o Hot water: soak for at least one minute in very hot water kept above 60 ?C (hotter than most tap water) or for at least 20 minutes in hot water kept above 45 ?C (uncomfortable to touch).

  • Absorbent items require longer soaking times to allow thorough saturation.
    For example, felt-soled waders require:
    o Hot water: soak for at least 40 minutes in hot water kept above 45 ?C; OR
    o Hot water plus detergent: soak for 30 minutes in hot water kept above 45 ?C containing 5% dishwashing detergent or nappy cleaner; OR

  • Freezing any item until solid will also kill Didymo.

DRY: Drying will kill Didymo, but slightly moist Didymo can survive for months. To ensure Didymo cells are dead by drying, the item must be completely dry to the touch, inside and out, then left dry for at least another 48 hours before use.

If you are moving items between waterways, you must Check, Clean, Dry.

If cleaning or drying is not practical, restrict equipment to a single waterway.

Please do not be complacent on this, CHECK, CLEAN, DRY your gear after fishing.

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A serious concern for sure.

I’ve asked this question before, but still haven’t received a decent answer. Is there a way to disinfect gear in the field without dumping bleach or detergent all over the ground? Is it acceptable to dump those chemicals if you’re far enough away from the water?

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Considering most fishermen I know don’t even clean their gear PERIOD; I expect there isn’t a whole lot that will prevent this from spreading like wildfire. I’ve been cleaning my wading shoes for ever just because I feel they are worth taking care of. Most of my friends think I’m nuts for doing so. I can’t imagine a change of heart just because of Didymo knowing how lazy people are about ANY maintenance of fishing gear.

It isn’t just wading shoes either if you want to be positive you aren’t spreading it. It’s also the bottoms of your waders; or wading pants if you wet wade. I also wonder about leaders, flies, blood knots, etc.

How about those wading DOGS I complained about!

People don’t clean up their litter; I doubt you will ever see more than 2% compliance with check, clean and dry; Rock Snot will be as common as discarded empty waiter bottles on our waterways.

Sorry for the apathy but that’s how I see it.

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I would have to agree with Bamboozle having seen the spread of Eurasian MIlfoil in Minnesota from sportsman I feel most do not take the time to clean their equipment. HOwever I do hope that with Didymo that more will take the time to clean after fishing … would hate to see this spread as milfoil has . Just my 2 cents
Tom

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We put cleaning stations on the river here. Visiting anglers can (should) spray down, rince and wash gear. The soapy water mix is furnished by the river association, as is the sprayer, “kiddy pool” to wash stuff in and the fresh water source to rince clean.

Some info:
http://www.mddep.gouv.qc.ca/biodiversit … tru-en.pdf
http://www.mddep.gouv.qc.ca/biodiversit … tsheet.pdf

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DO NOT USE THE SPRAY METHOD USING THIS MIX!!! THIS IS INCORRECT AND WILL NOT KILL DIDYMO CELLS!!!

This is where we in new zealand went wrong. Biosecurity nz mistakenly put out info saying that these mixed water / detergent solutions wil kill didymo on contact, hense a spray application. Unfortunatly this is not the case, and only a specialised didymo killing disenfectant such as www.unclejacks.co.nz has been proven to kill didymo cells on contact.

you MUST soak your gear for at least one minute in the above solutions or you wil not kill the didymo cells!

Unfortunatly here in nz we all went around spraying our gear with a 2% bleach solution or 5% detergent solution thinking we were doing our part, but in reality this wasnt acheiving anything. The clean check dry campeign has been regarded as outdated as many of the reccomended methods have been proven to be less than suficient in killing didymo.

Do not use felt soles. Even after the most rigorous of cleaning proceedures didymo can and will survive in felt.

Soak your gear in a 5% solution of detergent or a 2% solution of bleach for at LEAST one minute. A scrubbing brush will help clean boots / waders etc.

Soaking in hot water is tough, for its hard to keep water at a constant temperature for 40 minutes. Frezing felt also doesnt guaruntee didymo cells will be killed. you ned only a tiny pocket of moisture to harbor live cells.

please also note that the 48 hour ‘dry’ period only begins after your gear is completly dry.

Learn from our mistakes here in NZ, and prevent the spread of didymo.

Public awareness campeigns, whilst informative, do not make people clean gear. Ypou need to implement regulations making it imperitive to clean between waters. Yopu may be doing your part, as are all your mates, but it takes but one person to think they do not need to clean to spread this algae.

Here in the fiordland region we have a clean gear certificate. the day you wish to fish any river of the fiordland region you must clean your gear at an aproved cleaning station and be in possession of a current certificate stating you have done so.

Voluntary complience will not work. There are many people out there who will not bother to clean, NZ KNOWS FIRST HAND!

Use a biodegradeable detergent which will cause minimal harm in the field.

chris

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angler surveys showed that only 33% of anglers on nz waters cleaned their gear between waters. thats only 1 in 3 anglers… People just dont care, hense, you NEED legislation / regulations.

dont forgt to soak flies, nets, legings etc - ANYTHING WHICH COMES IN CONTACT WITH THE WATER.

Chris

ps - on a more positive note, we are not finding didymo is as bad as origonally thought. mant affected rivers are still very fishable, and in some, didymo is often hard to finis hardly noticeable, except in the longest periods of stable flows. the stable tailwaters are the hardest hit unfortunatly, but invertibrete counts and fish conditioon have thus far remained pretty much unchanged. tis early days though…

for some reason we have found that didymo cannot live or establish itself in spring water, and studies are underway to find out which mineral / nutrient is preventing this.

dairy run off also seems to keep didymo at bay. Maybe the nutrients again?

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thanks Chris, keep us posted please.

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No worries.
Even though many of my local rivers have suffered minimally if at all, Id still hate to see didymo sweep others neighborhoods like it has ours.

Will throw up some links which may help, but visiting the http://www.niwa.co.nz website will provide some great reports.

I have a couple of reports on my harddrive, including an organism impact assessment report and a very informative report compiled by cathy Kilroy which makes for interesting reading. If anyone wishes to have a read, feel free to fire me an email, and I’m hapy to forward them

Chris

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Thanks Chris _ you beat me to it.
For those of you who don’t know Chris is an NZ guide in the midst of the didymo outbreak there, so Ive been using his experiences to build our own guidelines here. Plus he has been one of the most vocal advocates raising the issue.
I’m on the White River so get to deal with didymo every day too, but I think we have been really slack in this country in research and advice to preventing the spread.

I was seriously disappointed when I saw a map, on another board, of how wide the spread of didymo is _ and funnily enough in all the best fisheries across this country. Even Alaska for goodness sake.

For all the pontificating you will read about how nice fly fishers are, how in tune with nature fly fishers are, thesimple fact is by our own neglect we are transferring this noxious pest across the places we love so much.

The measures really are simple, get a couple of plastic bins like Chris does, clean your boots, waders, flies, flyline net everything when you leave didymo water.
Cheers
Steve Dally

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Thanks Chris.

DO NOT USE THE SPRAY METHOD USING THIS MIX!!! THIS IS INCORRECT AND WILL NOT KILL DIDYMO CELLS!!!

The sprayer in our case is to spray down, then scrub down canoes which are arriving from other watersheds.

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How do you keep it off of wading birds and other animals which move from stream to stream?

Jeff

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This was on our front page of our paper last week its a huge threat i live about an hour a way from the conecticut river i am hoping it doesnt get into the otter creek watershed which i fish all the time and is across the street from where i live

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sure, birds etc can possibly spread didymo, and this has been the most vocal protest of those who do not bother to clean thir gear, but on the 56 rivers in the south island where didymo is present, EVERY SINGLE LISTED INCURSION POINT HAS BEEN AT A POPULAR ANGLER ACCESS POINT…

Now if birds can conciously stalk fish ans game anglers access signs, Id have more time for this threat, but its obvious anglers are responsible for all these incursions. Sure, one is near a kyak slalom course,but its also a popular evening rise pool.

Migrational patterns of birds etc we cannot control. Our own habits and movements we can.

Hey FCCH, cheers for that. Kyakers over here on the whole have been pretty good when it comes to cleaning etc too, and surveys have shown a higher compliance rate to cleaning equipment than the angling sector.

I believe the soak method is the safest way to ensure one is doing their bit in the fight against didymo.

As mentioned above, spraying equipment with a 5% detergent solution or 2% bleach solution will not kil didymo. These measures are designed to kill didymo with at 1 minute emersion.

take a look at http://www.unclejacks.co.nz and read the niwa testing report. This is the only product tested and confirmed to kill didymo cels on contact, nd thus is suitable for application via a spray botle. Nonetheless, most people use uncle jacks in a 2% solution via the soak method.

Are their any similar products available in the US?

The nz fishery is a free access scheme, where with landowner permission one can access a river at prety much any point along its course. Fish and game have access signs at hundreds of access points around the country side where people can jump in and have a fish.

I undestand many US watersheds have onle selected access points? Hows about fishing clubs etc rally and place a 72l or similar barrell of detergent solution at these access points for anglers to use? Flyshops also should have a cleaning station for anglers to use.

I inspired our local quenstown club to put in a cleaning station here in town, see below, and it is now getting a huge amoubt of use. Many of these paople I have talked to say they dip their gear whenever passing whereas they may not have if they had to go through the set up process themselves.

100% complience with cleaning all equipment is esential guys - it takes onle one drop of water to transfer live didymo cells.
chris

our cleaning station - basic, yet efective

http://s138.photobucket.com/albums/q273 … stnpic.jpg

Chris

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sure, birds etc can possibly spread didymo, and this has been the most vocal protest of those who do not bother to clean thir gear, but on the 56 rivers in the south island where didymo is present, EVERY SINGLE LISTED INCURSION POINT HAS BEEN AT A POPULAR ANGLER ACCESS POINT…

I was honestly asking the question and not trying to say fishermen should be lazy and not clean their gear. I was not trying to be flip and sure do hope it did not come across that way. I am curious what is the best way to control this invasion, especially from natural spread on the feet of ducks, geese, turtles, and other critters who move from one stream or lake to another.

Jeff

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“An electric fishing survey was carried out by the Minist?re des Ressources Naturelles et de la Faune (MRNF), in the Matapedia river in Quebec, in early September 2006. Large D. geminata blooms had been observed in the river. The MRNF was not able to measure impacts on the abundance of juvenile salmons. The MDDEP-MRNF (2007) states that a similar observation had been made by fisheries experts and managers from France, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, Finland and Norway. No impacts had been recorded on either adults or juveniles of Atlantic salmon or any other salmonid species.” - ISSG.org, GISD page on Didymo, last updated May, 2007.

Everything else I find about deliterious effects is PURE SPECULATION couched in words like “might, may, or could.”

We have it here in our Ozarks tailwaters where I fish. It’s no worse than any other algae we’ve always dealt with except that it’s a bit uglier when the water drops.

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Im assuming you have fished with it at full bloom?

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I don’t fish during algae blooms. But I have certainly SEEN it. And I’ve fished when the rocks and shore weeds were covered with the dried up gray stuff afterwards.

It’s NATURE. Algae blooms are NATURAL. And there is algae in almost every body of water on Earth and it’s always been that way. There are things we can do to keep algae blooms in check and to not increase them. And those things we should be doing. ie. keep the nutrient loads down. But y’all have spent so much time/energy on trying to slow (you KNOW you can’t stop it) the spread of didymo over there in NZ that you have probably forgotten all about nutrient loads from farm and habitation runoff. You keep those down, and you don’t get many major algae blooms.

I’m not a big fan of this whole “invasive species” scare that the enviro-wackos are using these days to try and keep us from hunting and fishing. Things change. When enormous herds of buffalo and elk roamed the majority of what is the US, they carried spores and seeds and bacteria and germs from one place to another. As they crossed rivers and streams, they spread the algae and stuff from one watershed to another. This goes all the way back to the dinosaurs…or whatever. The romantic notion that everything should remain as it was at the beginning of recorded history (what the environmental sciences consider “native”) is just a self-loathing human fantasy. Man IS natural. Man IS a force of nature. When MANKIND moves from one place to another and inadvertently carries seeds, spores, and what have you with him as he goes, this is COMPLETELY NATURAL.

And from every single thing I have read from every single expert who has written on the subject, I have yet to see where didymo is any worse than any other algae EXCEPT FOR AESTHETICS.

It’s hype - sensationalism and romanticism. Science needs to be based on LOGIC and REASON and EVIDENCE…and proven by repeatable results of controlled experimentation. And public policy needs to be based on SCIENCE!

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… So I take it that you are not a big fan of having to clean your gear between rivers?

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That would be a BAD assumption. I clean BOTH my and my wife’s boots and waders between different watersheds. What I am opposed to is excessive regulation born of nonsensical hype instead of sound science and pseudo-scientific scare tactics distracting people from the REAL issues of water quality and wildlife conservation.