search with google using pondboss forum and 'prickly rope' There was a thread about adding 'pricklies' to a rope to help grab floating leaves. There were several ideas, all good, and that idea I think still could be improved on if the pricklies were more stiff to snag the leaves. It isn't as good for partially submerged leaves or algae and anything stiff/stringy like algae is going to push through the prickles unless they are more stiff.
I was thinking of ways to make those fingers coming off the rope more stiff.
If you had a power boat, probably a canvas, or plastic dropcloth or tarp with enough 2" holes to let water through would catch sticks, leaves and big mats of algae when pulled like a parachute through the water.
Someday i was thinking of adding a little motor to a stable fiberglass boat hull say an old trihull runabout (the ones given away on CL all the time that can draft about 5 or 6" of water) and then rig up a snowplow up front or a V shaped boom made of PVC with some PVC mesh like comes on rolls used for building fish traps and then just do lanes back and forth 'plowing' leaves. My teen-ager would love to idle around the pond a few times every day or two plowing leaves up on shore. Well, he actually wouldn't ever idle but rather would be going full speed trying to create a big wake... but that is another story.
