Equipment Checklist

• Canoe (river trip), may be provided by Iron County or Neighbors
  • Life Jacket for each person
  • Paddle for each person
  • Small anchor, or painter line

• Boat or Pontoon, usually provided by Leader (lake trip)
  • Lifejacket for each person, plus one throwable
  • Tarp to protect deck

Personal

• Wear sunscreen
• Water
• Lunch
• Hat
• Polarized Sunglasses (optional)
• Sturdy water shoes
• Waders or wetsuit (early season)
• Dry bag or zip lock bag for paper forms, phones, dry cloths.

Equipment

• Long Handle Rake (lake trip)
• Regular handle garden rake (river trip)
• Mesh Bags and/or bin to store CLP onboard
• Fine mesh long handle net for capturing floaters
• Snorkel and Mask (optional, for lake trips)
• Personal collection method, when out of vessel
  • Small mesh bag, tied to belt
  • Or a pail, float, and line

Crew Leader Equipment

• First Aid Kit
• Flagging tape (river), Bobbers with line and sinker (lake)
• GPS App with previous hotspots recorded.  Kobocollect, HandyGps, Google Maps
• or, paper map with known hotspots.
• Ziploc bags for plants specimens
• Pencil for marking on map location of CLP
• Waterproof sharpie pen (to write on Ziploc bags or Flagging tape)
• Seine, to deploy to catch Floaters

Trip Guidelines

• Coordinate with the Team Leader before the day of the trip on time, location, transportation, boat and canoe provision, vehicle staging.
• SAFETY is extremely important…… make sure to tell a friend or family member before venturing out to do survey or hand pulling work.
• Use appropriate practices to minimize transmission of COVID and other communicable diseases.
• Do not take risks when traversing rapids or through obstacles. Disembark and walk with the canoe when appropriate. Allow the previous canoe to proceed entirely through before starting.
• Respect private property always.  We want to build partnerships. Upstream of the Arrowhead bridge, there is a No Trespassing sign. Our project has the owner’s permission to launch canoes there.

River Trip Techniques

• Paddle and float downstream.
• Scan shoreline and shallow water for CLP Patches.
• Different canoes scan both right and left shorelines.
• Use GPS to locate known hotspots.
• Use Rake to pull CLP from the canoe.
• Bow person rakes, stern person controls canoe and helps bag the CLP.
• At a large patch, deploy a seine downstream to catch floaters.
• Anchor, disembark, stand, and rake.
• Work upstream to minimize water cloudiness.
• Pull CLP plants gently by hand, follow runners, avoid breaking off roots.
• or, Rake, pulling up roots.
• Capture all floating dislodged stems with nets.
• Securely close collection bags while travelling.

Lake Trip Techniques

• Anchor near CLP patch.
• Use long handle rake from the boat.
• Or, Disembark to rake or hand pull.
• Snorkel systematically, parallel to shore, in shallow and deeper water. Usually, plants do not grow in deep water in which you cannot stand.

Monitoring

• Check regrowth and find unknown patches.
• Paddle in canoe, kayak or boat, near shore.
• Visually check for CLP in shallow water.
• Use long handle rake or throw a rake on a line, to check for CLP in deeper water.
• Mark patches with bobbers and/or GPS.

While Fishing and Boating

• Be able to recognize CLP and distinguish it from native plants.
• Keep a trash bag on the boat, collect any CLP found.
• Mark and report any any known CLP patches.