On Tuesday, May 26th, I joined the dive crew for a thorough survey of the lake. We spent about two hours circumnavigating the lake on the pontoon boat, occasionally with a diver in the water for closer inspection.
This year, even though the ice went out mid April as usual, we had a week or two of unusually warm weather in early May. Consequently the milfoil seems to have gotten an early start. During the winter it “lies down” and goes dormant. In the spring when the sunlight reaches it on the bottom it begins to grow.
A patch of milfoil
It is hard to get a good photo of milfoil from above the surface. For that matter it is not easy underwater either. In a future post I will try to include some underwater shots.
As usual the milfoil has some surprises for us. In some locations where we have wiped out whole patches using bottom bottom barriers or suction harvesting the milfoil has not returned, and the local pondweed and other species are returning. In others the milfoil has taken root again. The purpose if today’s tour is to gather information so that we can plan this summer’s activities intelligently.
