The Aquatic Plant Management Society (APMS) produces their own scientific journal entitled "Journal of Aquatic Plant Management". It has the most up-to-date research available on all aspects of aquatic plants, most of which is documented on their website. While you can keep in tune with studies being released and published in their journal via contents listing on their site, unless you are a member you can't access the full articles except on time delay. There is an approx. 3 year delay between publishing date and full public access. They just released their 2006 archive and there are two papers which should be of interest to anglers.
A Review of Grass Carp Use for Aquatic Weed Control and its Impact on Water Bodies is a thorough review of most all studies to date involving the effects of grass carp on various water bodies, as well as the biology of the fish itself.
Management of Hydrilla in the Santee Cooper Reservoirs, South Carolina: Experiences from 1982 to 2004 looks at the history of hydrilla treatments of lakes Marion and Moultrie, and the positive and negative effects on the various user groups and entities associated with the reservoirs. No surprise that the bass anglers in general were very dissatisfied with the elimination of the hydrilla, though there were some benefits documented from both a shore anglers perspective as well as an interesting habitat modification (anoxic dead zones). Also interesting is that waterfowlers were unhappy with the resulting elimination of hydrilla.
From the report:
Hydrilla beds may have improved habitat for certain species such as largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides). The benefit of hydrilla to largemouth bass and the role of aquatic vegetation in largemouth bass production is somewhat conflicting (see articles in this journal by Maceina (1996) and Hoyer and Canfield (1996). However, fisheries managers generally agree—aside from impoundments managed for balance (Swingle 1950)—that an intermediate level of aquatic vegetation is optimal for largemouth bass (Durocher et al.1984, Maceina and Reeves 1996).
In summary, hydrilla had both positive and negative impacts upon angling. Despite large areas of anoxic water during summer months and difficulty in boating access, all categories of anglers agreed that hydrilla had been beneficial to fishing effort (Henderson et al. 2003).
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