The Decatur Heritage Christian Academy (DHCA) Eagles high school bass fishing team, Decatur, AL, decided to give something back to Wheeler Lake. The team thought that adding fish habitats was a good idea for the lake that had given them so many hours of bass fishing good times. Thus the “Eagles Wheeler Lake Fish Habitat Project” was born.
The project had several phases. First, what type of habitat to use had to be decided. Used Christmas trees were selected for their ecological friendliness and availability. Next, a way to secure the tree habitat(s) had to be devised. Original plans were to deploy the trees from roughly the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant east to the I-65 Bridge. Those of you that fish this area are familiar with the current in this section of Wheeler Lake so securing any fish habitat was important. The DHCA volunteers decided to secure the trees by concreting each tree in a plastic five gallon bucket giving them enough weight to stay where they were placed. DHCA Eagle Team members Luke Bolan, Taylor Bolan, Jonathan Cimino and Noah Holladay took on the major task of doing the concrete work for an estimated 75 trees.
After concreting, the trees were ready for loading aboard the pontoon boat that was going to take the trees to their spot on the lake and another utility trailer also loaded to the gills for a second ramp loading and run. Jeff Selby volunteered the use of his pontoon boat for the deployment of the trees into the lake which took many trips. Volunteer Jimmy Bolan had made a similar habitat dropping run two weeks prior.
Jeff’s pontoon was so loaded with trees that the “tree crew” on board could not even see each other. Riding in the boat was like going down the lake on an island forest of Christmas trees planted 12” apart. Movement was very slow and deliberate. Other than the crew singing “Jingle Bells” on the way out everything seemed pretty much OK with the tree and concrete laden craft. However, I did question the benefit of adding ornaments to some trees for “color and flash value”…
Don Gowen, who has fished Wheeler Lake since 1960, acted as “habitat drop zone master” getting depth reading from the boat driver and then giving “drop orders” to the tree handlers on the front of the boat. The tree handlers the day I was with the group were Blake and Mitchell Gowen. Now these were not dinky Christmas trees we had there. Don and Eagle member Mitchell Gowen rode the streets of Decatur starting the day after Christmas collecting trees that were six to twelve feet high. And remember, there’s five gallons of concrete stuck to the bottom of each tree..
Mitchell Gowen manhandles a tree to the front of the boat as his dad and Eagles coach, Blake Gowen, drops a tree into a designated position in Wheeler Lake. Don Gowen was responsible for identifying the “drop zones” for the tree habitats.
Don was looking for areas that would give the habitats the best opportunity of being used by the fish. He seldom needed a map or GPS to locate the contours, ledges and stump fields on the lake that would be the best locations for enhanced fish habitats. On one deployment trip Gowen did use a bass boat with sonar and a lake map in front of the “tree boat” and threw out markers for the crew to follow with the trees. On my trip, markers were dropped from the pontoon, then the boat would circle around and follow the markers back for the route to drop the concrete-laden trees. And in case you were wondering, the location of all the trees was digitally recorded by longitude and
latitude so the club can go back to check to if the habitats remain in place as planned and if they are being used by fish. Those digital locations are kept buried in a mason jar in one of the member’s back yard.
This was a major project and effort by the DHCA Eagles to give something back to the sport and lake they love. They are to be commended. None of the habitat trees were placed where they would be a hazard to navigation to any boat of any kind, well, except for one-man subs.
