Duck Pond Prob

[dee mac 579]

i ve been asked to get a small flight pond back into a bit of shape now its fenced right round and the feeders are still in position and in good nick plus a storage bin to store there grub so far so good but its totally grown over now i got into it tonight with the chest waders and dicovered that theres like a thick raft two foot below the water that everything has sprouted up from with about two foot of clear water below it now i was thinking of a bill hook and cutting small bits and dragging them to the side but very time consuming and hard graft especially after doing a days graft someone mentioned spraying it but im dubious of that as it may just leave the place completly lifeless and some one else mentioned pulling polythene over the whole thing and weighing it down to submerge everything with the hope of the growth dying off just wondered had any of you guys had this prob and how you s got round it a machine is out of the question due to access ps it will be fed to attract wild duck will not be putting reared duck unto it thanks in advance dee mac

[fat man 4,741]

Well Dee,a mate of mine that used to run a smallish shoot on bogland,pheasant,partridge and duck used to have the same prob with his pools.As you are aware growth in bogland is very fast so when not been used after the shooting season the pools became over grown very quickly.What he used to do was cut back as much as possible that was above the water level then he used to get a chain with hooks coming of it in different places and throw it out in the pool,let it sink and then attach to the quad and drag it to the side,much the same idea as dragging a river for weeds,but it worked very well and made easy work of the underwater growth.