Hopefully I can explain the process a little better.
This is ideal with a 5 man team but a 3 man will work and anything less is very difficult.
In the picture below, 2 men stand at each "red diaganol" on each side of the pond. While the 5th man (In this case my Dad) canoes the rope (not the rake) back and forth across. You pull the rope, in this scenario 230 feet across collecting a massive amount of top floating weeds and algae. Then the other man begins to pitchfork it out, swapping jobs every other pull for obvious reasons of fatigue from the heavy lifting. Then you hand the end of the rope back to the canoe and reposition the rake to make the trip back across. You continue this until your help (my brothers and my Dad) say screw you and your weeds and go drink your beer. We worked for about 2 hours and cleared about 30% of the surface. It is a 2 Acre pond measuring 430' x 230' at its widest and longest points. You cannot carry the rope around the shore due to trees along the way preventing you from doing so.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve this process, please chime in. I'm always looking for a better or more efficient way. I even entertained the idea of shooting the rope across the pond with my bow. The rope being tied to the end of an arrow of course. I just haven't done it yet, nor will I. Also, please read above as I am using the pictured rake WITH floats for top floating weeds and algae.
I would really like to find a better way to remove the harvested weeds from the water without the pitchforking as I explained above with the trash pump idea. Maybe a bigger pump with a bigger intake. The one I rented only had a 3" intake.
By the way, that is an old Google Maps image and I wish I only had that much weed coverage. I was at nearly 90% when we started and down to about 25% now.
