By Fred Bonner

Columnist

Lake Mattamuskeet used to be called “The Gem of the East” when it came to waterfowl hunters, bird watchers, bass fishermen and crabbers. Today, the lake is a known as being the integral part of the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge and, to quote one Hyde County resident, “The old lake…it ain’t what it used to be.”

 

The River Forest Manor in Belhaven used to be one of the best places to dine in Beaufort County. Today, it’s up for sale and the marina that’s associated with the old hotel and restaurant is about the only thing that keeps it going. The rooms at the River Forest Manor were once booked years in advance by hunters who knew this facility as the prime hunting spot for Canadian geese that over-wintered at Lake Mattamuskeet. They knew this section of Eastern North Carolina as the “Canadian Geese Capitol of the World.”

 

So what’s going on at our Lake Mattamuskeet that’s causing such controversy between local farmers, waterfowl hunters, bird watchers, fishermen and crabbers? It boils down to the fact that Lake Mattamuskeet isn’t being managed in a way that satisfies a lot of people, especially freshwater fishermen.

 

While technically the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have control of the lake, these two organizations don’t often see eye-to-eye.

 

Originally the USFWS managed the lake intensively for a waterfowl refuge. The lake’s water was predominately fresh; the waterfowl enjoyed having a shallow body of water that produced a resting place and lots of aquatic vegetation that acted as food for the millions of birds that wintered there. The birds contributed to the economy of Eastern North Carolina and helped to fertilize the lake’s aquatic plants with their droppings.

Fishermen found that Lake Mattamuskeet was a spring and summer paradise for largemouth bass, bluegills, crappie and catfish. Curiously, saltwater fish—such as striped bass, flounder, red drum and even our famous blue crabs—found this predominately freshwater lake to their liking. At times, it seemed that the USFWS paid little attention to how the NCWRC managed the fishery resources of Lake Mattamuskeet.

 

Former President Bill Clinton once issued one of his famous executive orders to the USFWS, saying they were to pay equal attention to the fishery resources of the lake as they did waterfowl resources. For a number of years, Lake Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge actually worked hard to supply anglers with good launching ramps on the lake. Fishermen, local farmer, fishing guide and motel and campground operator Mark Carawan had a good business with outdoorsmen who found Carawan’s facilities at the lake to be the perfect place to spend their vacations.

 

All these good things about Lake Mattamuskeet seem to have ended in the past few years, as the lake has fell victim to the dry weather and is evaporating. The USFWS has been trying to manage the water control structures that should maintain the desirable water levels to the satisfaction of all concerned.

 

If the lake’s water levels were too high, local farmer’s fields were flooded. If the levels were too low, the fish in the lake suffered and, when the normally fresh water of the lake was too low, the salt water from the nearby Pamlico Sound flooded into the lake from water control structures that some describe as “inadequate.”

 

Because of the dry weather, or the salt-water intrusion or a combination of the two, the once abundant aquatic vegetation of the lake has nearly disappeared. Where bass and bream once thrived and fishermen visited the lake, there’s now nothing left. Carawan describes the fishing on the main part of Lake Mattamuskeet as being “gone.” The aquatic vegetation that once produced food for the waterfowl is also described as being “about gone.”

 

As low water levels prevailed over past few years, a large percentage of the lake has been literally taken over by an invasive plant called Phragmites (European common reed). Most state and federal resource management groups have worked diligently to control this very invasive plant, but North Carolina has done very little to control Phragmites. There are major concerns that, if nothing is done to control this plant, Lake Mattamuskeet may literally be taken over by this plant. Even the nutria, another invasive species sent to us from South America, doesn’t like the Phragmites.

 

Attempts at mitigating the management of the lake for fishing and waterfowl management seem to be going nowhere, and the concerned residents of eastern North Carolina have formed the Save Lake Mattamuskeet Organization  (http://www.savemattamuskeetlake.net) to help the NCWRC and the USFWS solve the problems at Lake Mattamuskeet, so that people can once again visit this largest natural lake in North Carolina.