Above still waters

Bullet grass, coastal bermuda grass, creeping panic, dogtooth grass, panic rampant, wainaku grass are all alternative names for torpedo grass. Dogtooth grass is fairly descriptive because torpedo grass is impossible to pull out by hand, it locks into the ground like my chesapeake on a frisbee. The only difference is the torpedo grass doesn’t growl back. I have waded into a lake and tried to pull torpedo grass out by hand, reaching down into the mud feeling and grabbing it by the root as I keep my eyes locked on the alligator about 80 feet in front of me. I know he is not going to bother me but I keep re-playing the attack seen in my head like a bad B-Movie anyway. After about forty minutes I gave up, hands raw from digging and cramped from pulling, come back tomorrow and spray it when the wind is down.

Creeping panic is also a good name for it. During the longest days of the summer I have seen torpedo grass throw a five foot band around a lake in as little as 3 months, its growth rate is incredible.

Torpedo grass was brought to the United States from Australia and used for cattle feed in the 1920’s. In some states it is still used as a ground cover for preventing soil erosion. In Florida, torpedo grass is an exotic invasive plant that the state spends millions to control. Just around Lake Okeechobee over 10,000 acres of torpedo grass was treated by SFWMD to aid in improving the ecology of the Lake in 2007.

Torpedo grass is vicious. It chokes out native species and limits water movement in canals and drainage ditches. Torpedo grass is not all bad though, it does provide habitat for fish, waterfowl, songbirds and mammals.

I have walked along lakes where the torpedo grass was so thick that rabbits had little tunnels running through it. Bass fishing can be good around the outer edge of the torpedo grass, but once hooked they will make a break for the underneath of the grass making it harder to land them.

The use of grass carp to control torpedo grass is a form of biological control that can be less expensive but can also alter your lakes’ balance. You will need a permit and the area must be secure so the carp cannot escape. That is one of the problems that often occurs when trying to restore a natural area. A change to one part of an environment will have an impact on another. You often have to weigh the overall benefit and hope its not too skewed for our consumptive benefit. Last year I fished a 20 acre lake that was loaded with grass carp. After a few minutes of fishing the lake, I noticed there were no aquatic plants. Without the aquatic plants bass and other fish have less of a chance to increase in population and are harder to locate. This also affects our feathered winged co-habitants because they are less likely to frequent the lake looking for a meal.