I figured I would follow Bill D's footsteps and create a thread to follow my progress as time goes by with my lake, so I don't spam this site with dozens of different threads.
A little history. It was named goose lake by the previous owners (sometime mid 20th century) my grandfather bought the land in the early 70s with an existing 2-3 acre lake and in 1994 they dug and dredged it to the 6.5 acre lake that is existing today. It was stocked with some type of minnow, YP, and unknown species of trout. The minnows and trout are long gone.
I just came home from a trip up there, I was there from Thursday to last night. While I was there I was able to build the crib I planned on, have the water quality tested and find the diffuser for the air pump. The diffuser must have been left in the lake for the last 10 years unused and either the diffuser or the line is clogged. I did not have much time or I would have done much more. When I go for rifle season next month I plan to cut the diffuser off the line and check if that is the problem. I also happened to find the old aerator pump and it still works! So hopefully I will have the aerator running in November for the freeze. If not it won't be such a problem because I don't plan to stock anything new until 2016.
The crib I built is not the best, I know I should have added brush to the inside but I did not have much time. I set it in 16 feet of water and the only way I got it there was the small 30lb thrust electric motor. I used 4 cinder blocks to tie it down and it still wouldn't sit on the bottom. I used 4 15' ratchet straps to hold the crib together and I used 14 logs about 10' long to build it. The height was about 4 ft
Next summer, I plan to add to the crib with another 14 logs on top of it so it will be about 8 ft tall, along with moving it to its final resting place which is a point in about 13 ft of water with a 3 or 4 ft ledge around 3 sides sort of like a peninsula. I will move it, add the brush, then add the 2nd part on top to make it to the 8 ft mark. I plan to ship my fathers 3rd lung up to use (air compressor with hoses and a regulator like scuba diving for those who don't know) I will dive the whole lake, choose spots to add more trees, set the aerator in the perfect spot, and whatever else I come up with by the time I do it.
I believe I made the decision to add SMB. Which I will need to wait until fall 2016 for unless I can find someone in the spring, if not no problem because I need to add rock/spawning beds and structure specific to them. I am also going to add a feeder for the YP and will be adding some pellet trained YP so I don't waste feed along with maybe pellet trained SMB, not sure if it's a good idea to do both though.
I also trapped the creek more, I got 2 large minnows maybe 4 or 5 inches I believe they are creek chubs, which I guess are good for bait but won't be great as a minnow base for forage since they won't reproduce. I trapped my swamp that is spring fed 2 weeks ago and only caught tadpoles so I let the chubs go in there, I felt they would have a better chance spawning in there instead of the lake, we'll see. I also got a few smaller minnows I'm working on uploading pics after this post to get an id. They may be creek chubs but some looked different then the others so let's hope I have a few BNM.
