Underwater Photography is Window into Fish Habitat

 From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Lookout below: Underwater photography is window into fish habitat

Fish photos are arresting – and are windows into habitat. 

By C.B. Bylander

           

                                                                                                   

A depth to his work Eric Engbretson and his photographers make stunning underwater photos. Top, a northern pike moves amid pondweed and pencil reeds. (Paul Vecsei/Engbretson Underwater Photo)                                                         

 

Eric Engbretson clearly remembers the day he first donned mask, snorkel and fins to view fish underwater.

It was 1993. He was standing beside the 40-acre lake that ran into the woods behind his newly bought home. On this day, unlike all others, he decided to look into the lake rather than across it.

“So on a whim I went to town and purchased the best snorkeling equipment Kmart had to offer,” Engbretson recalled. “I got home. Geared up. Put my head under water and was astounded. I knew my next purchase would be an underwater camera.”

Today, Engbretson Underwater Photography of Florence, Wis., is the nation’s top supplier of photos of fish taken in their natural habitats. His photos appear in national fishing magazines, many government websites and publications and at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium.

During the past 22 years, Engbretson also has evolved into an articulate spokesman and blogger for fish habitat conservation. He has shared his photos and underwater observations with stakeholders attending the annual Minnesota Department of Natural Resources roundtable. He has done the same with biologists attending the Midwest Fish and Wildlife Association annual conference.

            

“Most of my images are taken in water 15 feet deep or less,” said Engbretson. “Coincidentally, natural resource managers are intensely interested in this same depth because virtually every species of fish uses near shore areas during some portion of their life cycle.”

Paul Radomski, a DNR fisheries and aquatic vegetation biologist, focuses on Minnesota’s shorelines. His research from a decade ago suggests that between 1939 and 2003 about 25 percent of the lily pads, bulrush and other emergent plants disappeared from the state’s north-central lakes.

“No one was intentionally trying to destroy fish habitat,” Radomski said. “It simply became open space for boat channels, swimming areas and other recreational activities.” He said Engbretson’s images illustrate how fish use vegetation and other natural features for spawning sites, nursery areas, protective cover and more.

Engbretson sees the correlation of natural habitat and fish. In fact, when he arrives at a lake he has never photographed he looks for trees that have fallen in the water. “I can’t think of a fish that doesn’t like wood,” he said. “Unfortunately, all too often when a tree lands in a lake it soon becomes chain saw dust.”

 

What can anglers and others learn from Engbretson’s underwater photography? Said he:

Bulrush beds: They are buffet lines for fish. Insects inhabit the stems. Small fish feed on the emerging insects. Big fish feed on the small fish. Frogs are thickest in the near shore areas, where bass often lurk in exceptionally shallow water. “What’s cool about bulrush is that underwater insects use the stems as a ladder to climb up to the surface, and as they climb they get picked off.”

Lily pad beds: They provide shade and cover for bluegills, bass and other species. However, they often do not hold as many fish as many anglers imagine. That’s because lily pads have thin, stringy stems that don’t provide a lot of protective cover between the surface and bottom of the lake. Bulrush beds look like underwater forests; pure lily pad beds don’t. “However, bass do zero in on lily pad beds before the pads grow to the surface. These are good areas to target during the early season.”

Woody cover: The gnarly, old pine that tips into a lake is colonized immediately. The space between the branches provides excellent cover for fish. Wood that rises up to the surface is best because it provides a vertical element. “The neat thing about vertical wood is that you see fish stage at various heights based on water temperature. The difference may be only a degree or two but it makes a difference as to where the fish suspend in the water column.”

Aquatic plants in general: Fish relate to vegetation. Few are in the barrens, and those that are tend to be on the move because they know they are vulnerable to aerial predators. “Plants hold fish, keep soil in place, absorb the nutrients that would otherwise turn water green and they provide habitat for ducks and many other species. That’s why they are so valuable.”

Despite Engbretson’s advocacy for habitat, he chooses his words carefully. He is not a biologist. He knows his subjective observations are limited to the small number of lakes clear enough for his photography. “I am hesitant to make sweeping statements that are better left for biologists,” he said.

 

Martin Jennings, DNR aquatic habitat manager, is such a biologist. He concurred with Engbretson that habitat conservation in the littoral zone — water 15 feet deep or less — is important but stresses that conservation efforts above the water line are critical, too.

“Good fishing starts with good water quality,” said Jennings. “And good water quality starts with keeping soils and nutrients on the land rather than entering our lakes and flowing waters.” In central and northern Minnesota, he said sound forest management “at a scale that is meaningful” will be increasingly important for providing fish with the clear, well-oxygenated water they need.

“It would be a mistake to believe that simply dropping trees in a lake will sustain or improve fish numbers and quality,” he said. “However, combined shoreline and watershed conservation will get us a long way down that road.”

 

C.B. Bylander is a freelance writer from Baxter, Minn.

Fish Sticks-The Habitat Management Tool That's Giving Wisconsin Lakes A Make-Over

 

Fish Sticks are assembled on lake ice over the winter. (DNR Photo)

In pre-settlement times, the near shore areas of all of Wisconsin’s lakes were filled with vast amounts of fallen trees.  Due to natural decay and storms that toppled large trees into lakes, our waters contained impressive amounts of timber that provided important habitat for fish and other species.  Today, those natural shorelines and their abundance of downed trees can only be found in a few places.  Lakes like those in Michigan’s undisturbed Sylvania Wilderness Area for example, give us a glimpse of the way all our lakes looked at one time.

As Wisconsin was settled and lakes were developed, shoreline trees were removed to make swimming beaches or to create an “uncluttered” look.  Large trees still growing along the shores were cut down to provide vistas of the lake for home owners to gaze at from their cottage windows.  In a short period of time, most of the wood on Wisconsin’s lakes was gone, eliminating a critical habitat element important to a wide variety of animals who made their homes in or near the lakes.

Today, we recognize the damage we’ve done by removing trees and interrupting the eons old process that replenished our lakes with a constant source of wood.  While it may take hundreds of years to restore our lakes to begin to resemble their original state, one innovative idea is jump-starting the process.  Referred to as “Fish Sticks”, it’s a way to move wood back to our lakes that’s been lost.  Fish sticks were made popular in Wisconsin by Bayfield County Fisheries Biologist Scott Toshner.  He’s worked on more than twenty fish sticks projects in the past four years.  "People tend to clean up their shorelines and remove fallen trees," said Toshner. "Sometimes the trees never get the chance to naturally fall into the water because lawns have taken over eliminating trees, shrubs, and ground cover. Fortunately, some northern Wisconsin communities are taking action to turn back the clock and restore the habitat on which fish, frogs, turtles, bugs, songbirds, ducks, and other critters thrive. Not only that, but they're good for water quality and shoreline protection, too."

Last year, a similar project, called “tree-drops” began on Florence County’s Lake Emily.  Tree drops are helpful but differ in that they usually involve single trees.  While their impact is important, a single tree can’t do the same job as multiple fish sticks.  Dr. Mike Bozek, formally of UW-Stevens Point, has studied this distinction.  “Submerged trees located closer to other submerged trees result in greater numbers and diversity of fish compared to individual trees. Larger numbers of submerged trees create a mosaic of habitats over greater shoreline areas than single trees do. This underscores the importance of riparian areas. We need to manage entire riparian areas and develop complex littoral zone habitats, not just individual trees.” 

As science has begun to better understand the importance of woody habitat in lakes, one type of habitat enhancement that’s been used on Wisconsin’s lakes for generations is on the way out.  In recent years, Fish cribs, have fallen out of favor with fish managers.  New studies show it’s a poor substitute for more natural and legitimate types of fish habitat like fish sticks.   "With the fish cribs, the one thing you kind of miss with them is the link between the near shore area where a lot of these fish spawn and spend their lives as juveniles ... [With fish sticks] the wood in this near shore area may be a missing link in terms of habitat in some of these lakes," Toshner said. 

To further illustrate the difference between single tree drops and fish sticks complexes, we can look to Bony Lake in Bayfield County.  This 191 acre lake was one of the first to employ fish sticks.  To date, more than 400 trees have been added to the lake, and they’re not done yet.  This may seem like a whole lot of wood, but in truth, it’s only a fraction of what the lake would have contained had shoreline property not been radically altered by development. Toshner hopes that as users of lakes, we’ll redefine our idea of what beauty is and discard our desire to create white sandy beaches and instead embrace the wild, unorganized, and natural look of shorelines comprised of fallen trees.  “Fish sticks projects are paying off in northern Wisconsin lakes by providing critical habitat for fish and insects, birds, turtles and frogs," says Toshner. “Beaches are really ecological deserts which don’t support any habitat or sustain any life”. 

A new streamlined permit available from the state and an easy step-by-step guide for fish sticks is now available from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.  This will help lake associations or individuals get started with their own lake improvement projects that incorporate fish sticks.  Scott Toshner is excited about the changing landscapes of our lakes and is optimistic about how as stewards we’ll make better decisions in the future.  "If people can see that trees in the near shore area are a valuable resource, they're less likely to remove a tree that might fall in along their own shoreline."