Yesterday it seemed like a good idea to pull milfoil at a local lake.  I
swam to the swimming area with a dive flag.  At the swim area I surfaced to
cross the milfoil to begin work.  Holding the weight of the flag shaft in
one hand and the plastic line reel in the other I set forth over the
milfoil.  It wasn't long and the line between the flag shaft and reel became
tangled and the forward movement pulled my head down into the weeds.  My fin
straps loop and that point snagged milfoil stems tangling my legs in the
weeds.  Kicking forward and tearing milfoil apart I ran into a marker line
recently moved and all but impossible to spot with milfoil camouflage.  I've
got my head pushed down in the water, breathing like a horse, wrapped in
milfoil, and stuck on a rope.  The good thing is that work is real close by.

Milfoil sucks.  Here is some information.  Eurasian water milfoil is a
submersed aquatic plant native to Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. It is
the only non-native milfoil in Wisconsin. Like the native milfoils, the
Eurasian variety has slender stems whorled by submersed feathery leaves and
tiny flowers produced above the water surface. The flowers are located in
the axils of the floral bracts, and are either four-petaled or without
petals. The leaves are threadlike, typically uniform in diameter, and
aggregated into a submersed terminal spike. The stem thickens below the
inflorescence and doubles its width further down, often curving to lie
parallel with the water surface. The fruits are four-jointed nut-like
bodies. Without flowers or fruits, Eurasian water milfoil is nearly
impossible to distinguish from Northern water milfoil. Eurasian water
milfoil has 9-21 pairs of leaflets per leaf, while Northern milfoil
typically has 7-11 pairs of leaflets.

I started at one side of the swimming area and used a hand digger from China
made for gardening.  The water was clear.  The three-fingered digger worked
well to go into the sand or muck to get the roots out.  I washed dirt off
the roots and pushed the plants toward shore.  The plants float once the
dirt is removed.  This process caused silt out in the work area so it was
necessary to move forward to a new area to resume the process.  In maybe an
hour I'd moved from one side of the swim area to the other.

I then took off my gear and spent the next hour and 15 minutes getting the
plants out of the water.  This plant spreads itself by breaking into pieces.
Each new piece takes root and soon you have a new plant.  The local dive
club has worked in this area pulling weeds and the area appears to be worse
for the effort.  Maybe that's because of the number of small pieces left in
the lake.  The end result was a few piles of weeds on the sand shore.  It
would take a sharp eye to see any difference in the lake.  Three people
thanked me for my hard work.  I swam back to the point of entrance and 20
minutes later surfaced.

Points to remember:  Don't hold your flag in one hand and the reel in the
other when swimming thru weeds.  Your legs will more than likely be stronger
than milfoil no matter how thick it appears.  You really need to spend a
minute or two to untangle yourself from rope in the unlikely event that you
get tangled.  When your back-inflation bladder is empty it will not push you
face down.