July and August are normally the top tourist months for Lake County and tourism is an important part of the local economy. This year, because of a lagging economy, just about everyone who deals with tourists says the number of visitors coming to county is down considerably. For example, the Lake County Sheriff”s Boat Patrol members tell me they haven”t seen this few boats on Clear Lake in a number of years.
Add the bad economy plus the algae and aquatic weeds now in the lake and it means even fewer people could be visiting Lake County and Clear Lake.
Even local fishermen are being impacted by the bad economy. I know of at least five bass boat owners who have sold their expensive bass boats and gone back to using small boats to fish out of. One individual sold his $30,000 bass boat and is now fishing out of a 12-foot aluminum boat with a 6hp outboard. Another sold his bass boat and is fishing out of a kayak and another is only using a float tube.
Typically a new bass boat will cost upwards of $60,000. Most of the buyers finance the boat for 15 or even 20 years. The minute that boat leaves the dealer its value drops by at least 20 percent. The average monthly boat payment is about $350, and that”s for 15 years. Most of the fishermen trade in their boat after owning it for five years and add what they owe to a new boat. If they”re lucky they can persuade someone to take over their payments, which gets them off the hook.
Twenty years ago most of the bass boats were 18 feet long and powered by a 150hp outboard. These boats sold for less than $20,000. That all changed when the economy boomed, and the average bass boat increased to 21 feet long and was powered by a 250 hp engine.
Along with the bigger boat came a bigger price tag and the boats sold for as much as $75,000. In today”s modern bass boat, just the electronics alone can cost as much as $5,000. Many of the buyers of these expensive boats used the equity in the homes to pay for them. When the home prices crashed and many were repossessed the boat went back to the bank along with the house. In fact in Sacramento several banks made an offer if you bought the house you would get the bass boat for free.
A few years ago many of the bass fishermen would visit Clear Lake to compete in tournaments and it wasn”t unusual for a team event to field 50 or even 80 boats. That has all changed.
Now if a team tournament fields 25 boats it”s considered a success. For example the WONBASS team event held on Sunday had only 10 boats and many of them were local fishermen. In other words, many of the out-of-county fishermen just can”t afford to make the drive to Clear Lake.
As for the algae and weeds in the lake, I have received several calls from resort owners who say the heavy algae mats around their docks are keeping visitors away. In past years, most of the algae blooms occurred in the south end of the lake, but this year the algae is blooming all around the lake. Lakeport has had heavy algae blooms every day for the past month. The same applies to Nice, Lucerne, Clearlake Oaks and Clearlake. The county has done a good job controlling the aquatic weeds around the docks and have created boat lanes so boaters can access the main body of the lake but there is little it can do to control the algae.
On Monday I took my underwater camera out on the lake to see how far down the algae was. I found heavy concentrations of algae from the surface down to a depth of 10 feet. This was especially true in North Lakeport. In fact, I found algae out more than a mile offshore.
Every summer there are dozens of ideas given by well meaning residents on how the county can get rid of the algae. The problem is that the county has very little scientific data on what is causing the excess amount of algae or how to deal with it. Until that data is available, the algae is just something we will all have to deal with.
