Vilas County

Just got back from five days of camping/diving with the family. I hit some really nice lakes and all of them were connected by bike paths- no need to drive anywhere!

We stayed at Crystal lake campground which has campsites right on the beach. The entire lake is actually one giant beach and there are no motors allowed- so no need for any dive flags. From our campsite Crystal lake was only 100' away. Lake Muskellunge was only a 1/4 mile away, Firefly lake was 1/2 mile away and the campground on Trout lake was 3 miles away. Everything is connected by paved bike paths through the woods so no dangerous roads to worry about.

Crystal lake is 87 acres and 70' deep. There are practically NO fish in the place and it's white sand all the way around. There was plenty to search for on the bottom- mostly lost treasures from he swimmers around there. I hit a small thermocline at 15' and a severe one at 25'. Most of the swimmers couldn't make it past 10' so I put on a wet suit and cruised along at 30' finding all kinds of goodies- the best being some ice cold beer that had been on the bottom less than two weeks!:friday Yes, I drank it- and my wife did too. Surface temps were around 79F until you got over to the very shallow swimming beach where it creeped up to 81F.

Next we hit Firefly lake. This one is 1.3 miles around and only 46'. The difference is that it does have fish- lots of nice sized bass. It also has fish cribs surrounding it in 5'-10' of water. It took me a leisurely 20 minutes to walk around it and barely an hour to swim the thing- checking for lost gear along the way.

We did a bike ride up to Cathedral Point on trout lake for a picnic and diving another day. Along the way I ran into some scientists who were diving and they seemed to know Ted (unirdna). This is the largest lake in the area that goes down to about 120'. I saw a few fish in here but not too much to get excited about.

What I did get pretty excited about was my four year olds new love of snorkeling. We fitted her up with my wife's snorkel after she sucked in some water with one of my old hockey snorkels and she was set to go for hours chasing this goofy little diving stick I found. It was a simple enough game that really seemed to increase her comfort level- can a minispeargun be far behind????

We've got a week off before we head back up there for another week- staying on Presque Isle lake next time. I know for sure we'll take an 8 day camping trip back up to Crystal lake next summer- it's just too nice not to stay longer.

Here's a few shots that I took during the week.

Jon

A few more water shots:

Jon

Actually, the lake that Jason did his slashing, and where they did the filming, is only an hour to the southeast of there- near Rhinelander. Your the second person that's mentioned that to me this week.

Here's a few more camping shots:

BTW: the reason the beers are tied off to my float like that is that when i first found them I threw them up on the beach to come back for, but when I looked up I saw a bunch of high school kids trying to steal me beer!:martial I told them that I couldn't be caught contributing to the delinquency of minors and had to rig some way of tying them onto my float without breaking them- next time I remember the goody bag.:head


Jon

I didn't even bother diving in Muskellunge, but I remember teaching a discover Scuba class to a Boyscout troop there over 20 years ago and I remember it being very clear as well.

Firefly has a lot of nice bass- small mouth, largemouth, and rock. I didn't see anything else in the entire lake besides minnows- which is what the bass must live off of. Crystal lake was devoid of life except for the one fish crib I found in the middle of the swimming beach which had a bunch of catfish living in it.

For all the diving I've done in different lakes up there I've yet to see a musky bigger than about 2' long- and it's claim is the musky capitol. I've seen way more musky down in our local lakes- and not just by the power outlet.

Jon

Jon