Pond Boss
Posted By: trialsguy weed dragging contraptions? - 05/28/06 01:25 AM
Weird question I know, What kinda tools have everbody made to help drag or scoop or filter their pond for when you have to manually remove weeds. I have been dragging out slender pond weed all day using a 25' pole attach to a asphalt rake,3 foot wide, not the greatest but I felt like I was doing something positive. I also cut the bottom out of a plastic trash barrel leaving a center about 3 inches wide for support on the bottom and attached a screen from a window on the bottom,drag it around on one side of the boat half way in the water, works ok but will not filter the WM and when you get enough DW in turns my little 12' flat bottom side ways, very difficult process so I thought I would as what others are doing.
Posted By: dave in el dorado ca Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/28/06 01:43 AM
only thing i use is a "pond rake" a friend gave me. came from a golf coarse. probably a little expensive to buy, but mine was a gift. works good, but is a lot of work.

basically its a heavy duty aluminum 3 foot rake attached and braced to about a 6 foot handle. it has an aluminum box mounted above the rake that you can put sand in to give it weight for bottom raking, or leave empty for dragging surface or shallow water. it has ropes that can attach at end of handle and at either end of rake. you throw it out and drag back with ropes. i usually just use rope at end of handle. could be attached to boat handles, but havent done that yet.

happy dredging.
Posted By: george Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/28/06 10:33 AM
A common garden rake will do a good job for removing aquatic vegetation such as water primrose and pondweed.

Tie a rope around the tine end with a couple of half hitches around the handle secured by duct tape – toss it out tine side down and drag it in.

A man killer tho – unless you have a couple of teenagers with an appetite for pizza...

Grass carp is the way to go for pondweed, but picky appetite for primrose.
Posted By: trialsguy Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/28/06 01:55 PM
I tried the carp, put 10 of the littel buggers in there and they went belly up!. Too hostile of a enviroment for them just yet. Dealing with the WM and DW and about 20 yrs. of muck on the bottom, I have a full coverage of the floating plants from hell, but I dont give in easily. \:\) I hadnt consider a rope to my rake, which would get out about as far as I needed to be. Boy no kidding about the man killer I raked all day yesterday and I need the extra strength advil today!
Posted By: sgillum71 Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/28/06 06:09 PM
This is a very good question, and I have yet to see a miracle answer that I have wanted to hear lol.

SOme back muscle and a rake has done some good for my pond. This is only good for the edges of the pond though. I, like many others, need a solution for weeds out in the middle of my pond. The rake on a rope ordeal didn't pan out for me. The rake takes forever to sink, doesn't sink right, can't get weights on it to do any good and dig in anyway... lol. (Home-made jobby of course, I am sure a pond rake built for this works 100x better)

I have yet to do this, but something I have been looking for is some old bed springs. I have heard these work pretty good if you have a tractor or winch or something to pull them across the pond bottom. This may turn out to be more work than its worth, but it is something I am going to try eventually.

Good luck!
Posted By: trialsguy Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/29/06 05:07 AM
Has anyone made a clever drag behind a boat type contraption that would filter WM and duck weed or what type of screen are you using for WM ?regular window screen is too big.
Posted By: tecman Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/29/06 04:12 PM
For duckweed I made a 6' wide frame out of 4" light weight plastic drain pipe, four 90* elbows, and two end caps. Put 3/4" PVC across the front for stability then I wrapped shadecloth around the bottom and held it together with bungee cords.

When the wind pushes the duckweed into to shallow areas, we wade out and scoop it up. In the deeper areas we drag it behind a small boat. Works great!
Posted By: trialsguy Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/29/06 04:54 PM
What is shadecloth? Is it a fabric type material? My problem is that the wind doesnt get to my pond it is blocked by trees \:\( plus I really dont want to wade in the 18 inches of muck and tar like mud on the bottom . But the frame is what I am looking for, for ideas to build something I can pull around, Thanks
Posted By: Cary Martin Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/30/06 01:13 PM
We use this tool in combination with the rake described above.



We add a 2 lb. dive weight to the head of this cutter and as you pull it back to shore with the supplied line, it cuts the weeds at the soil level. The weeds then float to the surface and the rake with a styrofoam float wire tied to the rake is used to bring the weeds to shore.

It actually works very well.
Posted By: Bill Cody Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/30/06 03:02 PM
Cary, Is that weed cutter still sold? Due to its very sharp edges, it could be a liability problem for the manufacturer.
Posted By: trialsguy Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/30/06 04:53 PM
I am very interested in this cutter, can you give me some idea of size of this tool? where do you attach the pulling rope? in the middle there at the plate or at one of the ends? It is hard for me to tell in the picture. Are the cutting edges on the inside or on the outside of the v shaped cutter?
Posted By: Chip Rowland Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/30/06 08:20 PM
I use a boom I made from a piece of Stainless Steel pipe and attached a 30" wide "chain curtain" to that on bungee cords that drags the bottom around the edges of the ponds out to about 10 feet off the bank. I use a garden rake alot in the swimming areas to spread out gravel and groom the bottom.
Chip
Posted By: Cary Martin Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 05/30/06 09:37 PM
Bill,

Yes they are still sold. And, yes the edges are very sharp! I have cut my fingers a couple of times. They do come with covers for storage, They would cut your head off if it fell on your neck at the right place.

But, Boy do they work! Trials, the rope is placed at the end of the handle so when you throw the unit out the outside of the blade is cutting as you pull it back to shore. The handle alone is about 6' and the width of the "V" is 4-5'.

I will send you an email.
Posted By: diehard47 Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 07/02/06 11:48 AM
My son and I took a old boat trailer and welded somt spikes on rod in front of the axle. The spikes are angled towards the tongue of trailer. We use tractor of 4wheeler to pull trailer. We back trailer into pond,as we pull trailer forward the spikes grab the weeds and pull up onto banks. Then as we back up for next pull the weeds fall off spikes. Its the best we could come up with
Posted By: Rich777 Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 07/02/06 07:24 PM
I built a drag using a 4x8 panel of hog wire. We welded 1" angle iron around the edges, attached light guage chain on the corners and connected the chains with a quick connect hasp. Bungee inner tubes on the top, attach a pull back rope on the bottom. I have only used it for FA, but it works real well.
We attach a rope to the quick connect, take the drag by boat past the infested area and use a four wheeler{tractor anything} to pull the drag to the bank. Then using the pull back rope, pull the drag back out to the boat and make another pass. It sounds crazy,but it works!
Posted By: vkstudy Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 07/08/06 11:55 AM
Rich,
Can you include a picture of what you created? I
would appreciate it.

Vance
Posted By: Waterloo Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 07/20/06 04:25 PM
I use an set of metal box springs. I tied a tow strap to it to form a "V", then tied a long enough nylon braided rope that would stretch across my pond (150ft). I drop the box springs in on one side of the pond and with a boat I take the rope to the other side of the pond. Attach other end to tractor, ATV, pickup, etc and pull! The results are amazing. All of the weeds are gathered at the leading edge of the frame. This is also nice because I can cover 5ft with each pass. It makes for an easy, low cost method.
Posted By: david lee Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 07/23/06 10:09 PM
it is really good to know other people are trying to come up with something other than that 3 ft weed rake, i bought one from northen tool about 4 years ago, works well but 3 ft at time is slow and very hard work for a 68 yr old. i have a 8ft dog pen panel that i have been thinking about cutting in half and dragging behind my tractor, but i have 80% coon tail and it floats , i may try the plastic pipe and some rake teeth attached, some good ideas to work on !
dlee5@netzero.net
Posted By: jeffhasapond Re: weed dragging contraptions? - 07/28/06 09:51 PM
I bought a 6 foot galvanized fence post and drilled holes in it every 4 inches at 90 degree angles. I put bolts through the holes and essentially created an enormous rake. I had visions of pulling it with my 16 foot boat (10hp Nissan 4 stoke motor) through the water and pulling up weeds. I met with very limited success. What I found was that the big rake became so heavy the boat was no longer controlable.

I then chained a pulley to a large tree, fed a rope though the pulley and tied the rope to the rake. I had someone put the "rake" into the boat and drop in in the water where we wanted it. Then using the pulley/rope arrangement we pulled the weeds to shore. One end of the rope was tied to the "rake" the other we tied to a Polaris Ranger and used the Ranger for the pulling power. It worked pretty well for the weeds that were relatively close to shore.
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