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Spearing/clarity report 2010

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Hey...Calm down everyone...I am coming back in a month and the water will be clean..I know it..I am a lucky guy....Or I hope so.....Cold would make the magic
 
I took the kids up to Devil's Lake today. Water was 78F and pretty murky. My daughter did have a pretty fun time going for rides on my dive scooter, but the vis was so limited we had to make sure we didn't run into anything. I didn't see many fish or find any treasure, but we did build a pretty mean sand castle.

Jon
 
nagawicka was in the 70's the other day with about 10ft of visibility. it was a great dive. i saw a bunch of bass and schools of small perch. a couple of smaller carp swam by, unfortunately i was on scuba and didn't have my speargun.

i would recommend nagawicka to anyone, as its had the best conditions ive seen in the past couple months.
 
My wife & I took a drive to Black Hawk lake today to check it out. The Visibility was at best 1 or 2 feet so I didn't bother to get wet. Then we went to Governor Dodge State PArk to check out to clarity there & found it to be even worse. Heading back to Madison we stopped at Salmo Pound ( between Black Earth & Cross Plains on highway 14) & found the visibilty to be much better. So I decided to jump in & was in for about an hour & I would guess the visibility to be about 6 feet (maybe 8 in some places). The depth at Salmo was about 12 to 15 feet, at least where I swam, but found it to be fairly enjoyable & had a chance to finally try out one of the 5ml wet suits I made a bit ago. Before we left, I jumped into Black Earth Creek ( a trout stream) just to see what I could find & did have an interesting time with a fairly strong current. Also, I didn't bring my spear gun with me. But at least I found a fairly suitable place to go diving this time of the year.
 
I biked from Madison to Milwaukee yesterday and road across Rock Lake on the way. The lake looked to have a bit of a brown tinge to it, but was fairly clear other than that. I took a few pictures from the bridge so you can judge for yourself.

When I got to Milwaukee my father-in-law had just gotten back in with his scuba charter. He said the lake was much calmer, and a bit clearer, than Saturday. Vis was at least 30' and the surface temperature was 45F with a bottom temp of 42F. They were out diving on the wrecks so had no idea if the perch were in. They did say that the salmon fisherman were all swarming thought he inner harbor so the temps might have been a little bit better there.

I also found a lake on the Lakesat.org site that was right off the bike trail and looked pretty clear, but on further examination it doesn't appear to have a public access point. Anyone ever been in Utica Lake?

Jon
 

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Any info on lakes around madison and south. I am coming from davenport IA so drive time is an issue for a saturday trip. From what i have been reading does not sound encouraging so hoping someone's got a secret they will share with me.
 
I went for a ride this morning and checked out some of my favorite spots along the way. Everything is green and somewhat stirred up from the wind. even biking around to the leeward shore of some of the lakes didn't seem to improve visibility any. Clearest lake I found was Wingra- and that's not saying much! You certainly don't want to spear in there right now.

Not sure how Blackhawk or Devil's lake is right now, but they may be better than the Madison Lakes. Rock lake looked passable a couple weeks ago, but the water had a strange brownish stain to it.

Jon
 
Reactions: slimsteve
Hey Steve Lake Geneva still not bad. I was there a week ago. Viz around 10-12 ft.
 

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Madison lakes are all green than my front lawn right now.:head Ted (unirdna) says that they just had a massive algae bloom, but things might start to clear up in the next two weeks. It's pretty depressing to look at for a diver, but not a bad site if you're just biking around the lake.

The good news is that Rock Lake is crystal clear right now! I didn't get out this weekend, but I might be able to get out there this week. If I do I'll make sure to take a couple of pics.

Jon
 
Just got off the phone with my in-laws and they said that lake Michigan was 54F degrees this past weekend from top to bottom- 125' at the bottom of one of the local wrecks. Vis wasn't the best, but certainly better than in our inland lakes- probably 20'-30' or so.

Jon
 
I just got back from Rock Lake and it sucked.:head

Water was 60F and the vis was about 4'- maybe 5'. It looks clear enough off the end of the boat launch, but that must be because the water is so shallow. It gets a nice layer of green wherever you go and when you drop down it stays that way. It makes it hard to see the end of your gun and it doesn't seem to clear up at depth.

I did see one large gar fish, but couldn't get my camera out in time to get a shot of him. I saw two huge bass, which we can't shoot, and possibly the tail of a single crappie. 2 hours in the water and I didn't even come away with an anchor- and I always find anchors when I dive.

There was only one boat on the whole lake, and the guy was on my ass the whole time. You would think if you had a boat you would move around the lake and not just follow the one diver in the place as he swam his ass off to get from place to place. :martial

Hopefully things will get better in the next couple of weeks. I may have some pictures to post later on, but they are all pretty green and need to be touched up quite a bit before I post anything.

Jon
 
Here's a couple of shots from today.
 

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I had to drive to Milwaukee to teach a scuba class today so I thought I'd come in early and take a quick dip in Lake Michigan.

Water was 57F degrees- which was only 3F degrees colder than Rock Lake was on Thursday. The vis was pretty murky close to shore (less than 2'), but cleared up to at least 15' out be the break wall. If I'd had more time I would have entered further down the beach so i could have swum out past the wall to see what the rest of the lake looked like. I imagine that the vis out there was over 20'.

I didn't see much in the way of fish to shoot; however, I did see the biggest goldfish of my life!rofl I don;t know how he got in there, but I doubt he'll survive the winter. I recall seeing something similar in Lannon Quarry years ago, but he didn't last long. This thing was as big as a Garibaldi, but too skittish for me to be able to get a picture of it.

Here's a couple of quick shots from today.

Jon
 

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Today is my free day so I decided to hit up a few of the local lakes.

I started with Rock Lake since it had the best hope of being clear. Since I was in it last week the wind seems to have stirred things up a bit and the vis seemed worse than last week. It was some what clear in the shallows, but there were no fish there. When I went deeper the vis turned to crap and i only saw the tail end of a single crappie. There were some small schools of perch swimming around, but they were very small- think "bait" sized.

After a couple of hours of Rock Lake I decided to head on over to Lake Ripley. It's only a few miles away and I decided it couldn't hurt to at least jump in and take a look. I should have known better after all the time I spent in that lake a couple of years ago doing a boat salvage. The bottom of the lake (below 18') is black as night and smells like rotten eggs. We had to rinse the smell out of our drysuits after the job was over because they all stunk so bad. Anyway, the vis sucked and I didn't see any fish on the north end of the lake. The south end of the lake was a total washout because of the wind/wave situation.

Last, I decided to jump in Lake Monona since it was on the way home. The water by the beach looked OK from shore, but it would turn out to be the worst lake of all- with vis around 2'-3'. :head Lake temps were all in the 56F-60F range, but there just isn't any vis right now unless you drive to Lake Michigan- which I don't have time to do right now.

Anyone else having better luck than me????

Jon
 
I've pretty much stayed out of the water until I read a report saying the water is worth diving.
 
Hmmm..I am back..and want to shoot some carp..Why the viz is so bad???
I want to check Lake Geneva or Golden Lake..Vladas???
 
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