Winnipesaukee Forum - View Single Post

Orion · 09-21-2013, 03:51 PM

Has anyone else noticed the bumper crop of weeds this year? I'm not talking about invasive species. We've owned on Cow Island for 13 years now and when we first bought, there were NO weeds in our area at all. Over the past 10 years, there has been a proliferation of pipewort (spaghetti strings to surface) that has steadily increased over that period.

Another weed I really saw a lot of this year and very rarely before is pondweed (pickerel weed?), the curly-leaved plant that grows in about 6-8 feet of water and sometimes ends in a floater leaf or two on the surface.

I've close-in-cruised the shores of Long Island, Cow Island, Little Bear, Sandy, and Tuftonboro Neck and have seen an abundance of both of these along all those shores. Not sure about the rest of the lake. Does anyone know if this is cyclical and might diminish over a period or is it a one-way ever-increasing nuisance?

I believe if we had a drawdown like we had at the end of 2001, it might mitigate some of the pipewort, but not the pondweed, which is deeper.

09-21-2013, 03:51 PM	#1
Orion Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Cow Island Posts: 914 Thanks: 602 Thanked 193 Times in 91 Posts	aquatic weeds Has anyone else noticed the bumper crop of weeds this year? I'm not talking about invasive species. We've owned on Cow Island for 13 years now and when we first bought, there were NO weeds in our area at all. Over the past 10 years, there has been a proliferation of pipewort (spaghetti strings to surface) that has steadily increased over that period. Another weed I really saw a lot of this year and very rarely before is pondweed (pickerel weed?), the curly-leaved plant that grows in about 6-8 feet of water and sometimes ends in a floater leaf or two on the surface. I've close-in-cruised the shores of Long Island, Cow Island, Little Bear, Sandy, and Tuftonboro Neck and have seen an abundance of both of these along all those shores. Not sure about the rest of the lake. Does anyone know if this is cyclical and might diminish over a period or is it a one-way ever-increasing nuisance? I believe if we had a drawdown like we had at the end of 2001, it might mitigate some of the pipewort, but not the pondweed, which is deeper.