Two-pronged Approach to patrol zone 7

Gitch and I were able to take advantage of the calm conditions and bright sun on Sept 3. We coordinated our tracks to cover as much area as we could and realized we could have zigzagged a bit more in the open areas. Our maps are below. We could see that we tended to stick closer to the shores as far out as we could see the lake’s floor but the littoral plane is wider than that, more times than not.

Overall, we did not see any new plant growths of significant measure along our routes other than in Dean’s Cove where, tucked in the same grid as before -#196, we found a larger cluster of Native Elodea, more Water Marigold and the assortment of Bladderworts, all weighed down by the Filamentous algae.  We did discover an area of Aquatic moss, previously missed, that was very thick in grid 196 and tucked in the SW corner by the water lilies. It resembled the same thick mat of this plant in the cove behind Ship Island.  Wiley Cove was quite thick with native Milfoil, Spiral pondweed and the lovely Common water-primrose.  The Coontail eluded us this year.

Maria's route

Gitch's route