Lake Bottom Blanket

What is a Lake Bottom Blanket? A real quick picture would be setting up a tent on the lawn and forgetting about it for a month or two. When the tent is removed you end up with nice dead patch of lawn.

The Lake Bottom Blanket works in the same way but out in the water killing the unwanted plants and aquatic weeds where you want open water. Plus there are no chemicals to deal with. Picture a dock surrounded by weeds, beach areas, or and uncontrolled section of shoreline where you once you had a view but now grown in. These are the areas to use the Lake Bottom Blanket to kill and keep these areas weed free.

Since the blanket is light it needs weighted down to stay on the bottom and do its job and the good part is in between the re-bar pockets the blanket aloud to float up and move with the water movement allowing gasses to be pushed out and provide little creatures a safe haven and not totally smothering out the bottom sediments.

The blanket come in various lengths and all are 10 3/4 feet wide making it easier when getting re-bar at 20′ it will need cut in half to be inserted into the per-sewn pockets which weighs down the blanket. There is a black side and white side of the blanket which makes laying them down side by side, say for a beach area, easier to see the other blanket and get them lined up.

The lake bottom blankets will work great for fish habitat too, by laying one blanket out them skip a 10′ section of weeds, then place another blanket and continue as desired. This creates some hard lines of open water and hiding places for the small fish to hide and the predator fish to ambush their prey. Too many weeds can simply stunt fish growth.

Installing the blanket in spring is the best time of year, since the weeds are not full grown and get the blanket down to the bottom quicker. On the other hand if you are installing the blanket once the weeds are to the surface it may take sometime for the blanket to sink, or this may be where the 1/2″ re-bar could be added for more weight. Start in May and pull out end of June.

The blanket comes with great instructions, you will need to purchase your own re-bar. 3/8″ diameter is the best choice for ponds and lake where there is no heavy boat traffic and cheaper than the 1/2″ re-bar. 1/2″ re-bar is used when we do have boat traffic but would only use on the ends of the blanket.

The last quick note for blanket maintenance is if you opt to leave in the pond year round it should be pulled out once a year and washed off. Sediment and debris can collect on the surface, over time could build up to the point of growing weeds again from on top of the Lake Bottom Blanket.