Hey All
I found a quick and easy way of removing FA...

Take a look at my Pond Help Page

Thanks
Gene

hmmm..... I wonder if that would work to remove 4 acres of FA?

4 aceres might be a little much but it sure beats the heck out of a rake. Im trying to come up with something that sits on the shore that you could leave there for a couple days and wrap up the FA then pull it out with a truck or atv. You could also use a boat and pull the snakes into the boat after you wrap them up.

Repeat 50 times and you've cleared 4 acres!

But that's a really cool and imaginative way to remove FA! You may be able to join a couple of fiberglass pruning saw poles and hook them to an ATV or tractor PTO. I bet a good rough rope would also spin and entangle the FA. Maybe mount the rope on a swivel on 1 bank, and somehow spin the rope on the other end. Thanks for the nice film Gene!

Probably not! Most of that FA is anchored to the tops of either milfoil or coontail that reached the surface before the FA kicked in. The good news is that the FA should be killing the weeds underneath due to a lack of sunlight reaching them. The FA is also providing the dragon flys a place to lay their eggs, which is free BG food.

Gene - where did you get the "whip antenna" at? I might have to try your method out one of these days.

I used an old fiberglass atv antenna, but broke it too much torque. Id recommend find a stainless steel whip antenna or anything that will fit in a drill. It dont have to be that long, just anything that will get the moss to turn into a rope.

Gene

I'll see if I have an old fiberglass horse whip with a bad rope end on it. It looks like your method works well! There are ceratin times of the year something like that would come in handy out in front of the house at our pond.

Thanks Gene

I wonder if you could use say a section of 1" pvc or 2 sections with a swimming noodles sectioned evenly along pipe to keep it floating, then just walk the edge winding up the FA, could that be possible or would that require too much effort?

Shorty, automotive wrecking yard radio arial(sp?). Actually, I guess just about any long piece of stout wire or wood dowel would be worth experimenting with.

thanks for the input guys if you watch the video there are bubbles on the left that is the fa that is being yanked from the bottom. so you kinda want somthing a little flexable. I was going to try using 1/2 pvc pipe one or two 10 foot sections. the fiberglass whip antenna will splinter and break when you get to much fa wrapped on it. Like dave says a long cb antenna would be perfect its stainless and strong. I used a short piece of 1/2 pvc 3 foot, and it worked but a longer pieace would be better.
If you try this I promise you will never use a rake again.
thanks again guys

does it have to sink or can it stay afloat wrapping up the FA because now I invision a 20' pvc pipe out in the pond floating with a paddle wheel on the end to travel evenly as I walked the edge all the while wrapping up the FA. I dont have FA yet but its a matter of time I figure

Trialsguy I dont think it has to sink but I noticed that the fa would pull the antenna down and wrap up the roots and all. I invisioned putting a rod out on the left side of the pond and just letting it go until it reached the other side but it would probably just crawl out of the pond and end up in a field wrapped around a fence or something HA HA thats if I could figure out how to mount a slow motor on the shore.
Just experiement a little and youll figure something out maybe a coat hanger in a drill who knows.
thanks

what about a piece of 5/16" galvanized threaded rod. You can get them in 5 or 6 ft. sections. Get threaded couplings to put 2 together. The threads would help grab and hold the FA. Very neat concept!

Dang, I wanted to see that...video link seems broken to me...

Matt - It worked for me. You must have active X allowed for the website in your browser. Then you must have quicktime from Apple installed and set to allow browser plug-ins. This is one heck of an invention. It even looks like fun (except for thr poor duck decoy)!

Sorry guys for the apple stuff but thats what our camera uses and I dont have the best software on the computer anymore. and just so you all know this contraption is 500 times funner then using a rake and it dont take very much time
thanks for the kind words PondsForFun.
and the decoy is fine I just wanted to show that it could wrap up anything it gets close to.