Higgins lake is a clear, deep and beautiful lake in MI. I found this video and was amazed at about the 2:10 mark where they SCUBA up to this underwater boat and see a raft of fish. THe bottom has very little natural features, just sand and zebra mussels and then you see BG and rockbass all in a group. Pretty cool to see!
My experience diving fresh water lakes (much less clear than this lake)is if you want to see any larger fish, you have to let them come to you.
Fish can see or sense your presence under water long before you can see them. The smaller fish you can sometimes see by swimming or if fish are on nests. Or in the case of the boat in the video where the fish felt comfortable that they could duck behind cover if they felt threatened. But the larger fish often are very wary and will stay just beyond the divers vision.
Went diving in Beaver Lake Arkansas. A buddy and I perched up in a tree to see what fish would come in. All of a sudden we saw a string of various fish pass by us. Though "hmmmmm, that's odd". Then two divers swam by us. The fish were avoiding the swimming divers. Back up on shore the two divers commented that there were not any fish in that lake. They did not see a single fish the whole dive.
A lifetime ago I did competetion spearfishing (legal to spear rough fish, not game fish). You would never ever spear a single fish (mostly carp, but buffalo, suckers, shad, etc. also) swimming around. To spear fish you layed on the bottom or in a tree motionless. Trying to not even move your eyes around. Kind of go into a transe. In murky water it usually only took 15 to 30 seconds for fish to start circling you. In very clear water it could take up to a couple minutes (much harder to shoot fish in clear water). First you would see only an outline of the fish. Then as they circled tighter you could make them out better.
Point is, if it looked like there were no big fish in that lake, the divers would never know till they stopped swimming and let the bigger fish come to them. If nothing comes in after a few minutes, you move to a new spot and try again.
Same thing in my pond. All I see is a few very small BG while I am swimmimg. If I lay still a while can see some larger BG and maybe a CC. Take some feed down and lay in front of me, and within a few minutes will have BG and CC practically eating out of my hand.
Fish know where you are long before you know where they are.
