Getting rid of cattails

[CajunRider]

My edge of my pond is overtaken by the cattails. I've search the internet and here for a solution that doesn't involve chemicals and haven't found anything I like. I don't like the pond shear where you toss it in and drag out a little bit at a time. I don't have a back hoe with reasonable reach either.

I'm thinking about attaching a 10 ft long piece of 1 1/2" pipe each to each side of the bottom of my FEL bucket, connect them with an angle iron. Then I'll run cables from the top of my FEL bucket to the end of the pipe to hold the thing in place. Then I'll drive my tractor to the edge, lift the frame over the cattails, drop it down, and drag the cattails out of the pond edge.

Would that work? Any suggestion from experience guys and gals?

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Salt.

 

[rekees4300]

Would that work? Any suggestion from experience guys and gals?

After 15 years of trying unsuccessful mechanical control, Sterile Grass Carp worked for me. Specs say they wont eat cattails but they do. 10 per acre should do the trick. Will take a couple years to be effective.

 

[CajunRider]

After 15 years of trying unsuccessful mechanical control, Sterile Grass Carp worked for me. Specs say they wont eat cattails but they do. 10 per acre should do they trick. Will take a couple years to be effective.

I'll need a permit from the state of Louisiana and I'll have to stock big ones. Standard 10" size stock grass carps will be eaten by the red fish currently in the pond.

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

The pond down the road had white aimers, he only had a small section of cat tails in his pond.

 

[oosik]

The only permanent way to eliminate cattails is to eliminate the pond. Chemical methods will poison the pond to the extent that everything in the water will be poisoned also. You can mechanically remove the cattails but they will start back up the following season.

Grass carp will do a job also but they are "water hogs" and will keep the shoreline sediments continually stirred up.

If you can find an effective mechanical method - it will probably require use every second or third year to keep them reasonably down.

 

[Egon]

Muskrat's?

 

[Industrial Toys]

I was going to send in my cleaning lady with hip waders!

That, or an excavator, but I don't fancy the destruction of various habitat.

 

[flyerdan]

Any mechanical removal will just result in them coming back unless you can deepen the area that they're in. I think they need fairly shallow (<14") water to grow in.

 

[oosik]

View attachment 506676Ha,ha.......lets see. My cattails stop when the water gets over about eight feet deep. And the only thing my little "tribe" of muskrats do is "the ramble". They have used cattails to make a fairly large lodge down at the far end of my little lake. The far end of the little lake is about four acres of cattails. This end is five acres of open water.