Bill Cody-Thanks for the input!

RC - I used to think the main goal was to keep a hole open, but the number I have heard a few times is 10% of the lakes surface needs to be open water! Not sure if that is accurate or not. At this point, I am not sure if just keeping a hole open will get the fish through the Winter or not.

Bill D - glad you asked!!! I actually do have a little info on the water profile now!!!

My buddy actually went up to the cabin today. Due to the lack of snow, he was able to drive his Polaris Ranger all the way to the lake!

May have figured out part of the problem. We had a lot of built up condensation in the lines. He blew all of the condensation he could get to come out of one of the unused valves. Maybe that gets us through another 6 weeks or so and he can get up there to do it again. He did say the plume from the quad looked like it had improved after he drained the line. Maybe the pics over the next couple days will show some holes reopening. I had thought most of the condensation would push on through to the lake. I guess I have a bigger dip in the line than I realized. Next Summer I will have to re dig the last part of that line and put it on grade all the way into the lake. That should permanently solve the condensation issue.

He did not have any tools up there to pull lines off the valves to see if any were frozen up. He will be headed back up in a week or so though.

On a positive note, he grabbed the DO meter and got some data!! He chainsawed two holes in the ice to measure. One hole right off the peninsula which is fairly close to the diffusers. A second hole on the far end of the lake closest to the cabin which is as far away from a diffuser as you can get. Both holes produced almost exactly the same numbers!

Peninsula - 6.63 PPM and 34.7 degrees @ 4' deep
Far end of lake - 6.65 PPM and 34.9 degrees @ 6' deep

I don't like the fact that we have dropped from 8.7 in early November to 6.6 in late December, but maybe that is to be expected.


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