Late Season EWM Survey – September 2024

Minocqua Kawaguesaga Lakes – Preliminary Late Season EWM Report by Onterra

Over the course of two days in early-September, we had multiple crews conducting the late-season EWM mapping survey on the Minocqua-Kawaguesaga System. We had a pretty excellent stretch of weather during that time and the survey timing couldn’t have been better. Our crew systematically meandered the entire littoral zone of this large system, tracking our meanders in GPS to help us ensure as full of coverage of the lake surface area as possible. We had all the previous EWM locations loaded in our onboard computer system, as well as past management areas.

We conduct this survey towards the end of the growing season because EWM is typically at its peak growth stage and highest population level for the year. However on some lakes, complicated dynamics over the summer may result in EWM population declines compared to the beginning of the season. This survey documents the EWM population that the system has going into winter and will be emerging with in spring of next year. So these data are important for driving management decisions for next year. With this summer’s environmental conditions following an almost non-existent winter; many of our lakes had a banner year for EWM growth, while other lakes had strong algal presence that limited all aquatic plant growth including invasive watermilfoil. We had more EWM populations crash on lakes this year than I can remember in the past.

The attached 9-page map books shows the results of our survey. The first page shows an overview of the entire system, with the subsequent 8 maps showing a zoomed-in perspective of an area on the chain. Here is the link to the ArcGIS Online (AGOL) Web Map Application we built for Minocqua Kawaga Lakes Protection Association.