Lake Associations

Corey Mueller

2/12/12

               If you are a fisherman then there is a good chance that you have fished on a lake that has a fish association. It is my opinion that Lake associations are great benefit to our water resources. Lake associations have many good qualities that can be used to keep our lakes ecosystems healthy. A lake association is a group of people that live on a lake, which forms a community that votes on important events that affect the lake.  Matters that affect lakes can range from new buildings to environmental dangers like overfishing and invasive species. One of the things lake associations tend to have in common is that they have catch and release programs. I believe this is one of the greatest advantages to having a lake association. The creation of more restrictive regulations, are one of the great benefits that they have. Lake Forest is a Lake that one of some of our friends lives on and it has had amazing effects. For one it had Eurasian Milfoil introduced into there lake a long time ago and it took over 99% of the lake. While this wasn’t bad for predators in the lake, it did take its toll on swimming, boating, and other recreations. It looked terrible to have masses of weeds floating and inches from the surface no matter where you looked. So how did a Lake Association help? They all met and pooled their money in and got a specialist that used poisons to kill just the Eurasian milfoil and take it out of the lake. Instead of a giant bill, the amount was spread out and broken up into manageable amounts by the landowners. In addition, they created a catch and release lake to help protect the fish population. This decision has had outstanding effects!! Some of the biggest fish I have ever caught are from that lake and it is easy to go out and catch fish because there are so many of them. Because there is no more Eurasian milfoil, you can swim and be surrounded by schools of fish and healthy native vegetation.

               Now I know there are a lot of people who like to fish and keep their catch, so I am not advocating that all lake associations should have catch and release. I believe it is a good thing to have, but is not right for all lakes. More importantly, lake associations are important because they are organizations that bring neighbors together and are used to protect the lake. For instance, at the lake we have property on up north, there was one landowner that wanted to build a campground on our lake. This campground would hold up to 250 people, but our lake was only 50 acres. This was a problem because it would turn our quiet lake into a tourist area and it is way to small of a lake for that. We have great fishing and have a healthy ecosystem. We have sensitive creatures like loons and otters. What would thousands of tourists do to a small lake like ours? What would happen to the lakes ecosystem? They wanted to create a sewage dump area and a beach. These were things that would completely ruin the peaceful serenity of the lake. To stop this plan all the landowners of the lake had to get together and decide what to do about this problem. We decided that the best way to deal with the situation was hire a lawyer and fight it in court. Due to our actions, we won and kept our lake the way it is. This was only made possible because of group we created to deal with matters like this. Because of our lake association we were able to hire a lawyer, and it was cheap when split between all the landowners.

In conclusion, lake associations are a benefit to all lakes and should be created on each lake in Wisconsin. They have great effects on lake ecosystems and landowners property. It brings the lake community closer together and builds relationships. It is up to the lake associations to decide what they change or fix, but I encourage you to try and start a lake association if you can. I believe you will be happy with the results.