As the title says, We Did! But should we have.
I was out in December sizing up the project, It is a 20+ acre lake down to 5 acres, and the Owner guesses its less than 6 foot deep. The day i make it out there the wind it howling!!, No excuse I know, and I run around with the auger, and there is 20 inches of ice and probably only 3 acres with water under it. I dulled my blades
, but found ample areas where my auger could not hit mud, Greater than 33".
Its a thick white ice and our thought on putting the system in now is hoping to prevent a total winter kill and understanding that with or with out doing anything the mature fish are probably all done for (LMB only pond with strong 3 pound plus population). But hopefully save some of the younger generations and something to catch this summer.
And we make it out today, still windy but a lot more warm, and we cant find a place deeper than 24" and the ice is 18.
. We put some tip ups out and lost two minnows
*side note - super windy all day, and had a polar magnetic tipup, the only time the flag went up is when we lost the minnow.
So maybe there is some life!! And well we came here to install an aeration system. From the distant shore line to the deepest part was not bad to put down with the weighted cable, and we have an ice saw for cutting, which is fun. but we Ran 600ish foot of black poly pipe from the electricity/pump to the junction box, that was a lot of work but we lucked out with it being a warm wind.
So other than talking to TJ about what might be fiesable to stop some leaking, what do you guys think? did we make the wrong descion to go through with installing the aeration system today? should we have just waited till spring when its thawed and has some runoff in it? Will we just supper cool the 3 acres and kill it off or will something pull threw??
