Harvesting Updates - 2024

Updates provided by Bob Fohey, Supervisor. Questions and comments are appreciated.

Buffalo Lake Harvesting Hotline Contacts

Call Bob Fohey

Weekly Update for June 21st, 2024

Harvesting update

East Side of the causeway:

The crew continues to progress down the lake. They finished up in segment 3 on Wednesday morning and headed down to segment 2. By looking over segment 3 you will see they spent a good amount of time making sure all the laterals to the channel were opened up and wide enough to navigate to the channel. They will be doing the same in segment 2. We expect to be done with segment 2 early next week and then they will be heading downtown.
The harvester at the district yard continues to keep segment 4 looking good.

FYI: A reminder that all segment maps can be found on the district website under “harvesting”.

West side of the causeway:

The harvester finished up in segment 6 Wednesday morning and headed down to the campground. We expect to finish that area up next Monday. We will then make a trip back to segment 6 for a short time to pick up floaters before moving back to Freedom launch and segment 5. Decent water levels have helped our cause, allowing us to get into areas we couldn’t last year.

The crew is doing a fine job, and the new employees are really catching on quickly. Kudos to the crew for their hard work and efforts.

The district purchased a 2022 Ford F-350 last week to replace the white 2008 F-250. We needed something with a little more guts and heavier suspension and will be used to pull the trailer conveyor on the East side of the lake. That F-250 will be available for purchase. Watch Facebook marketplace for the new ad. It will be listed early next week. If you know someone that may be looking for a truck have them contact Bob or Darrel for the details.

We’ve had some folks call us repeatedly during the day. We are not always available to answer calls. If you have any questions, concerns or comments and we don’t answer, please leave us a message. We will return your call ASAP.

Special reminder: Our crew is not allowed to accept gratuities, so please don’t put them in an uncomfortable situation by offering them something. If you’d like to donate water or soda to the crew, you can drop it off at the yard. Thank you for understanding.

Regards,
Bob Fohey & Darrel Unsinn

Weekly Update for June 14th, 2024

East Side of the causeway:

The crew finished up with segment 2 and segment 1 this week doing 2 passes through the shorelines and the laterals. On Wednesday they moved back to segment 3 and began doing a thorough cutting now that we have been through all the segments once. Barring any unexpected problems, we expect to be done with segment 3 mid-week of next week. Back at the yard we continued to work on segment 4 and still have more work to do on the north shore.

West side of the causeway:

We moved on to segment 6 and were greeted with a ton of weeds. We have been there all week and should finish up there on Tuesday. We will be moving down to the campground as soon as possible. The weather has been okay, and the lake level has helped us to get into some areas that we could not reach last season. We certainly hope that timely rain continues. If anyone runs into mother nature be sure to tell her late day and evening showers are the best!

We are experiencing some truck issues with our Ford F-250 that cause us some concerns. We’re doing what we can to address them. Hopefully this will be addressed at the special board meeting on Monday.

Special Notes:

We’d like to remind all of you that we are not allowed to cut between piers. We are only allowed to cut in the areas identified on the maps that are part of our harvesting permit that was approved by the DNR. Those maps can be found on the district website. We have had some people ask us to go into areas that we are not permitted to do. We can’t make exceptions and hope that everyone understands.
We ask that if you have your boat tied to the end of your pier that you please keep it on a tight line. The harvesters try to get as close to piers as safely as possible and we tend to suck the watercraft out as we go by. We don’t want to damage anyone’s boat. Your help on this is greatly appreciated.
We have made some alternate plans to deal with the shutdown of the causeway on Monday. Getting around to fuel up rigs will be a little tricky.
Friendly reminder: We have quite a few fawns running around and crossing roads. Please be aware and give them some time to smarten up.
A special thanks to Phil Hoffman for helping us out and taking deliveries of weeds. We needed someone close to the lodge and Phil stepped up for us.

Regards,

Bob Fohey & Darrel Unsinn

Weekly Update for June 6th, 2024

East Side of the causeway:

The crew started in segment 3 this week. They made 2 passes in all laterals and the shorelines. They finished segment 3 at the end of the day on Wednesday. On Thursday morning they moved down to Segment 2 to start harvesting there and offloading at Buffalo Lake Lodge. If all goes well next week and the weather cooperates, we should compete segment 2 by Wednesday morning and will head down to segment 1. As I’m sure many of you know, the weeds are heavy in some areas of the lake. It doesn’t take long to get a full load. We’ve been averaging about 13 loads per day per harvester. For this time of the year that is a lot.

We also used harvester #7 to maintain segment 4 all week and except for the north shore the segment is almost complete.

West side of the causeway:

We started in segment 5 by the causeway and Freedom launch. Most of that segment will be completed by the end of the day today, Thursday, and we will be moving down to Hollenbeck landing and segment 6 on Monday to get started there. Bob checked out that area today and it is certainly in need of harvesting! The plan is to finish that segment by mid-week so we’re able to get to the campgrounds to work on segment 7.

Our new crew members are doing great. They are catching on much faster than anticipated. This makes things much easier to manage. Our kudos to the crew.

New members are:

Brian D.

Caiden H.

David P.

Mike T.

Our new Inland Harvester is performing well and is much easier on the operator. Inland Lake Harvesters is proving to be an outstanding company to work with, a great partner and knows how to treat their customers. We are looking forward to partnering with them on our next harvester project.

The equipment is performing well. Our most pressing issue is finding dry land to offload weeds. We are in need of an area of high ground that is close to Buffalo Lodge on county road C. If you know of anyone, please reach out to us.

Regards,

Bob Fohey & Darrel Unsinn

Weekly Update for June 3rd, 2024

We started the first day of the official harvesting season today. Unfortunately, mother nature had other plans for us. We cut as much as we could before the storms chased us off the water.

Maintenance was completed on the equipment in advance of our start date. Darrel would like to thank Bob, Mike and Mark C. for their hard work in getting the machines ready and Mark W. for getting the shoreline flags out in preparation of the start of the season.
The DNR approved our request to start cutting on May 20th in the main channel to train our new employees. 4 new employees started that day to become familiar with and learn how to operate the equipment. You may have noticed them out working in the channel.
Our new harvester was delivered on the 22nd and was launched on the west side of the causeway where it will be utilized going forward. We used this time to work the kinks out of the machine, tweak a few things and train a new employee on its operation.
We started cutting the navigational paths and laterals in segments 3,4 & 5 today, June 3rd. Our goal is to make 2 passes down each path and move on to the next segments so that we can hit each area quickly and get everyone cut once within the first two weeks of the season. We will circle back to do complete cuts once we’ve hit every area once. This should help open things up a little for everyone.
Please be patient as we get everyone up to speed with all the new employees and the new harvester. It takes a while to get comfortable with running these machines.
Reminder to all: We are not allowed to cut anywhere other than what is indicated on the harvesting plan that was submitted to the DNR. Those areas can be found on the district website.
If you have any questions about the weed harvesting operation, please contact Bob Fohey our crew supervisor or Darrel Unsinn Chairman of the harvesting committee. Our employees follow the instructions they are given and are told to refer anyone that may approach them and ask questions to contact Bob or Darrel. Bob and Darrel’s contact information can be found on the District Website.
Weed Drop off: There seems to be some confusion about weed drop off. We drop off weeds at locations that are the most convenient for our crew. Time is of the essence. We don’t have the luxury of dropping off a truck load here or there all over the lake. If you happen to be in a location that doesn’t work well for us and you would like to get weeds, we offload weeds at the district yard on county road D on the south shore of the lake down by the causeway. You are welcome to come by with a truck or trailer and your own shovel or pitchfork and take as many weeds as you like. We do not have the ability to load them for you. You can pick up weeds Monday-Thursday between 8AM-2PM. Please be careful. We’ve had a lot of rain this spring, the grounds are wet, we don’t want anyone to get their vehicle stuck.

Regards,

Darrel Unsinn

Harvesting Committee Chairman