"Negodki" > wrote in message >...
> But before doing all that construction, if your "stirrer" has something
> which you can hook, why not try a (long) piece of wire, with the end bent
> into a "v". That may work.

That's about what I did. I took a 3' piece of wood and attached a
straightened piece of trellis wire near the end of the wood. Then I
made a little hook at the end and blindly fished around for awhile.
Everytime I would make contact and start to bring up the stirrer from
the murky depths, it would fall back down. Then about 15 minutes
later, I was bringing it up... it tugged, I pulled hard, it put up a
good fight, but finally I'm pleased to announce that that I snagged
one of the four 1/2" holes on the head of the stirrer and brought it
in - 6.5 oz! I'm having it mounted.

Thanks to everyone for the engineering advice.