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??

Soooo.... went back out today and Che ked on things. Plenty of open water around the aeration system, but couldn't see any fish. Deepest place I could find was 26" from the top of the ice to the mud. Did some fishing and walking around, at the inlet with the snow melting some water was coming in and spotted dead yoy lmb and white crappie. Maybe 20 and all above the current water/ice level.

Back at the holes I lost a lot of minnows ! I iced one 13" rbt that was very healthy and a 12" lmb that was thin. And had a fair amount of small hits.

So much for this pond being 5' deep and a lmb only pond. They owned up to stocking trout last year but thought they were dead.

It is amazing that these fish lived though only 6" of water under the ice, and now about 10" of water under the ice. Before the system was in all the water was a little milky but now it is clear every where! This has been an interesting project, and we are glad we did get the system in as soon as we could. All fish matter (in this lake)

Very interesting!! Any idea how long the lake had been totally iced over?

The lake capped around dec. 11 and the ice got thick by the first of the year. I'm amazed any of them lived.

Very cool project and thanks for sharing the info. If I have it right, the 20 acre lake is losing water rapidly and is down to 3 acres plus some totally solid water. Is that correct?

Yes, mostly correct. It's an old lake that does kill off or dry up every 15 years or so. It leaks and is fed mostly by run off. 4 years ago was the last full pool, and the last 2 years of drought have been hard on it, but it does look to be a wet spring.
This pond was Probly 8 acres this summer, I've been told. I would love to get a little of this on youtube, if I can get it figured out