His fishing opportunities should improve this summer, thanks to a new attack on the exotic weed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Corps scientists are dripping tiny amounts of an herbicide into the Spring Creek area of the lake, hoping to reduce hydrilla by 20 to 40 percent. Watley is a regular at Lake Seminole, a 37,500-acre lake located at the confluence of Spring Creek and the Flint and Chattahoochee rivers in extreme southwest Georgia. It has 376 miles of shoreline. The lake is popular with largemouth bass anglers and with duck hunters.
Biologists say it attracts more ducks and other wintering waterfowl than any other Georgia lake.
Hydrilla recedes during the winter, but returns with a vengeance in the summer, leaving most of Lake Seminole covered with a thick layer of vegetation that snarls boat propellers. It can harm fish if it covers waters used for feeding and spawning. Hydrilla has infested more than 65,000 acres of Florida's lakes and more than 50,000 acres of South Carolina's lakes. The Corps' experiment with the herbicide Fluridone began last May in Lake Seminole. Florida also uses Fluridone drip systems in the St. Johns and Withlacoochee rivers.