I was going to put this under the other outlet thread, but I just had my best dive there in the past TWO years!
With the cold snap we had this past week they must had have that thing running overtime- like I remember it from years past. Last winter it was shut down more often than not as they overhauled it. This winter has been good, but nothing like it was a few years ago- not so today.
First, the water coming out of the pipe was an honest 65F degrees! I bet if we could still swim up the pipe it might have climbed to 70F. As a result the ice was melted out past the wooden barriers and the fish were in- and there were a lot of them.
I didn't see any one-eyed musky this week, but I did see a couple of dozen other ones. There were more panfish than I could count when I first got in- but that changed once I started shooting them. There were some big carp, but not as many as in years past- still, it was more than I had seen all winter.
The water was so nice, and the ice was melted out so far,t hat I even got a chance to dive the Inlet. She sits out a ways in about 23' of water. Vis was so good I could just swim over it and spot I from the surface. Water temps out there were only 36F, but with 65f water only a hundred yards away it was easy enough to warm up.
I tried something different today in my winter long quest to get the musky to eat out of my hands. In the past I tried to feed them by hand and they would spook when I got to close. this week I speared a bluegill and tried to feed them that way- think that a thin spear shaft would be less imposing than my arm. Still no luck on that front- not sure if they are just not hungry or if I need to spear something smaller?
Since the musky wouldn't take my fish I decided to keep it. As a matter of fact, I shot a few more to make a meal out of it for whole family. I had been a little bit leery of eating fish from Lake Monona in the past, but last week i got to sit down with a lady doing here Post-Doc research at the university in fish toxicology. She told me that all panfish were safe to eat, but that I should stay far away from game fish- especially walleye. I guess the walleye around here are so contaminated with Mercury that they use the as a readily digestible source of mercury for all of their experiments- yuck!:yack Not to worry, as all of those fish are illegal to spear and I'm way too hyperactive to sit in a boat and try and catch them- unless I had a LOT of beer.
I didn't use my gun today and opted to try the first generation of sling that I made- complete with TAG line. This thing isn't great, except for the line, and hasn't much power or accuracy- since it's made out of PVC pipe instead of wood. I have a couple others int he works, but didn't have them ready in time to use today. They worked pretty well on the bluegill- which have built in bulls eye's on the side of them for easier aiming. I ended up with a half dozen and could have shot more if i worked at it. I wanted to try it on carp today and had a much harder time with that- the spear kept bouncing off of them with hardly a nick! I did manage to get one carp, but I had to be almost right on top of it and once I shot i had to swim up and shove the spear in the rest of the way by hand. I could have done a lot better with my polespear, but this is a work in progress. Stronger bands would have helped a lot- as well as a much longer shaft.
Just so you don't think it was too easy today to shoot fish, let me tell you about one small change the city made. They lifted the left gate up about 8" off the bottom. As soon as I shot the first bluegill the rest dove under it and swam up the pipe for protection. They were all just sitting on the other side of the fence staring at me knowing that I could see them, but couldn't touch them- tricky bastards.
Here's some shots from today:
Jon
With the cold snap we had this past week they must had have that thing running overtime- like I remember it from years past. Last winter it was shut down more often than not as they overhauled it. This winter has been good, but nothing like it was a few years ago- not so today.
First, the water coming out of the pipe was an honest 65F degrees! I bet if we could still swim up the pipe it might have climbed to 70F. As a result the ice was melted out past the wooden barriers and the fish were in- and there were a lot of them.
I didn't see any one-eyed musky this week, but I did see a couple of dozen other ones. There were more panfish than I could count when I first got in- but that changed once I started shooting them. There were some big carp, but not as many as in years past- still, it was more than I had seen all winter.
The water was so nice, and the ice was melted out so far,t hat I even got a chance to dive the Inlet. She sits out a ways in about 23' of water. Vis was so good I could just swim over it and spot I from the surface. Water temps out there were only 36F, but with 65f water only a hundred yards away it was easy enough to warm up.
I tried something different today in my winter long quest to get the musky to eat out of my hands. In the past I tried to feed them by hand and they would spook when I got to close. this week I speared a bluegill and tried to feed them that way- think that a thin spear shaft would be less imposing than my arm. Still no luck on that front- not sure if they are just not hungry or if I need to spear something smaller?
Since the musky wouldn't take my fish I decided to keep it. As a matter of fact, I shot a few more to make a meal out of it for whole family. I had been a little bit leery of eating fish from Lake Monona in the past, but last week i got to sit down with a lady doing here Post-Doc research at the university in fish toxicology. She told me that all panfish were safe to eat, but that I should stay far away from game fish- especially walleye. I guess the walleye around here are so contaminated with Mercury that they use the as a readily digestible source of mercury for all of their experiments- yuck!:yack Not to worry, as all of those fish are illegal to spear and I'm way too hyperactive to sit in a boat and try and catch them- unless I had a LOT of beer.
I didn't use my gun today and opted to try the first generation of sling that I made- complete with TAG line. This thing isn't great, except for the line, and hasn't much power or accuracy- since it's made out of PVC pipe instead of wood. I have a couple others int he works, but didn't have them ready in time to use today. They worked pretty well on the bluegill- which have built in bulls eye's on the side of them for easier aiming. I ended up with a half dozen and could have shot more if i worked at it. I wanted to try it on carp today and had a much harder time with that- the spear kept bouncing off of them with hardly a nick! I did manage to get one carp, but I had to be almost right on top of it and once I shot i had to swim up and shove the spear in the rest of the way by hand. I could have done a lot better with my polespear, but this is a work in progress. Stronger bands would have helped a lot- as well as a much longer shaft.
Just so you don't think it was too easy today to shoot fish, let me tell you about one small change the city made. They lifted the left gate up about 8" off the bottom. As soon as I shot the first bluegill the rest dove under it and swam up the pipe for protection. They were all just sitting on the other side of the fence staring at me knowing that I could see them, but couldn't touch them- tricky bastards.
Here's some shots from today:
Jon