Here's couple more shots of the Buffalo. They were pretty thick around there, but are a native species so I usually leave them alone- from that lake anyways since they would be too polluted to eat. I have taken them out of Lake Mendota and a freind smoked them for us to eat at the bar after hockey- hmmmm good.
Fonduset, that nasty weather was the reason the charter was cancelled- your just on the opposite shore from us so you get the brundt of everything.
Here's a couple of shots I took on a typical winter charter. There's normally solid ice out to the breakwall, which is why we need the steel hull boat to break through it, but then it clears out into those 'ice disks' that I mentioned before. When you get out a few miles they water is normally clear- this winter there's barely any ice at all out there. The one nice thing about the ice disks is that they dampen the effects of the waves quite a bit.
Everyone reported 70' vis two weeks ago on the last charter. I've taken a tape measure underwater and have measured out 85' of horizontal vis in the winter time at a depth of 90'. That was a few years back before the lake went really clear so I imagine it's even better now. 20 years ago we were lucky to have 10' of vis.
Next weekend is ice diving. They ran a bunch of police divers through last week and the side of the lake was open but once you got out a little ways there was at least 3"-4" of ice. It's barely an ice dive but next weekend should be good. For some reason that weekend always has ice no matter what the rest of the winter is like- been that way for the past 28 years.
I know what you mean about being a lonely voice who gets no respect from the DNR. I feel lucky to able to spear what we can right now- and am worried that the anglers might have that taken away from us in the future.
The other big problem is lake access. That's one area the DNR, in Wisconsin at least, in on our side. They really fight for public access to all bodies of water. Sometimes it's only a flight of stairs, on some of the fancy lakes, but at least you can launch a dive kayak there and get to spots that other divers, and most anglers, can't- or at least won't put in the effort to.
Hopefully I'll get some photos from my father-in-law to post in the next day or so. It's a pretty rare day when I get to have someone actually take a picture of me for a change.
Jon
