These weeks consisted of a lot of rapid response due to Guy's coverage. The most significant find was the patch south of Eagle Island on the rock shoal (shown as "occassional" on the map). The crew swam Little Square, Big Square and the "divot" heading South from Big Square. All other harvest locations were rapid responses. The map is now designed to match up in terms of color representation with the maps made by Dan Kelting of Paul Smiths College. The colors represent plant density from rare to abundant.
The two diver crew began its full-lake management in earnest over the past two weeks. The dive team responded to any plant findings from Guy Middleton first, and then proceeded to swim concern areas second. Areas worth noting would include; the southern approach to Square Bay where the team removed some 2,481 small (young) plants, Little Square Bay with 1,450 plants and the North end of Buck Island with 855 plants removed. Almost all harvested plants were young single stems indicating the effectiveness of our first full swim of the lake. With the removal of these plants at a young age we can be assured that their re-growth potential will be drastically lower since the divers are more able to remove the entirety of the young plant's root system. Larger, more mature plants will have more intricate root systems that break easily during harvesting. Those remaining root fragments will often then produce new, young plants. With our team now removing those young plants, they are effectively eliminating any trace of the original milfoil, or as we call it "cleaning up". Fish Creek Pond received a second swim through with a little over 100 plants found. The team will return for a three week harvest on August 2nd.
The 8 diver crew invested week four into Little Square, Square and Pork Bays for some thorough coverage of the lake's most affected bays. Little Square has a large and complex littoral zone with high milfoil productivity throughout, therefore requiring more time. Pork Bay showed some late emerging growth among the bassweed along the littoral zone drop-off. Square Bay, despite once being one of the lake's worst areas for milfoil density, is amazingly clear, with the vast majority of growth actually occurring just south of the mouth of the Bay in what we refer to as the Square Bay "Divot". The base-map has been established and we are now shifting strategy to a 2 diver crew for full lake management. This team will respond to any milfoil located by shore-owners or the USL Lake Manager, Guy Middleton, while also using the map to target specific affected areas.
Week three saw the completion of our full lap of the lake's littoral zones. Little Square Bay, the largest and most productive area for milfoil, was found to have a significant amount of growth in a few key areas. The two diver team covered the last of its assigned areas and began re-hitting areas with significant growth as shown on the map. A dense patch was found and harvested in Gilpin Bay near a rock shoal well out from shore towards the southern side of the bay. In week four the eight diver crew will re-swim large areas and areas of concern, specifically the dense patch, Little Square, Square and Pork Bays. We managed to complete our first full lap well under schedule and are now focused on re-targeting concern areas using our maps.
Week 2 consisted of predominantly southern end territory with a moderate amount of milfoil found all around. The 2 diver crew completed Fish Creek Pond with very little milfoil found. Quite an improvement from years ago. In week 3 the existing map will be used by the two diver crew to target priority areas (areas with significant clusters of red dots, indicating patch-like growth). The only remaining hurdles are Little Square Bay, Fish Creek Bay, Gilpin Bay, the North Basin and the southern side of Markham Point. We will likely take on Little Square multiple times to really suppress emergent growth as that bay has consistently produced milfoil in quantity.
All in all, the lake appears to be in excellent shape and our strategy is working exactly as planned.
So far, we are finding mild amounts of Milfoil. The pockets of growth are typically short plants (due to earliness of our harvest) and in areas where we expect them. The 8 diver crew was located in Big Square and down the Eastern shore towards Buck Island. The 2 diver crew knocked out a major chunk of their swims just this week.
The new, underwater communications are proving to be a big improvement, as expected.
These weeks consisted of a lot of rapid response due to Guy's coverage. The most significant find was the patch south of Eagle Island on the rock shoal (shown as "occassional" on the map). The crew swam Little Square, Big Square and the "divot" heading South from Big Square. All other harvest locations were rapid responses. The map is now designed to match up in terms of color representation with the maps made by Dan Kelting of Paul Smiths College. The colors represent plant density from rare to abundant.
