handben
Contributor
I just got back from a week at Crystal Lake, in the northwestern lower peninsula of Michigan. I ended up doing 5 dives over the week - all along the southern shore of the lake, just west of the boat launch. Vis was around 40-50 feet, temps between 70-72 down to about 45 feet. At this depth there was a thermocline and we didn't choose to go any deeper. The surprising thing to me was the bottom contour in the "blue". Prior to diving the lake, I envisioned a steep drop-off going into the depths (approximately 175 according to the charts). What I found was a more gentle grass covered slope with some areas being flat and grass covered. There were fairly abundant fish including large mouth bass on every dive, crawfish, crappy, carp, walleye and a myriad of smaller fish.
I did find a fish, actually my daughter, found a fish in the grass that I am still unable to identify. It was dark brown and about 6 to 8 inches long, with a sharp tail, very small dorsal and ventral fins. It looked like a short eel. It swam with a snake like side to side motion. We spooked it out of its hiding place in the grass to sneak a better peak at it - when out of the distance a couple of large fish darted into the scene and gobbled him up right before our eyes. We felt a little bad about scaring him out of his spot. The hunting fish (I believe they were white perch) seemed to like us well. This little fellow stayed with us for about 15 minutes, even swimming between my daughter and me. I am not sure if he was expecting us to scare up some more smaller fish, or he was protecting his territory or was just curious. He had no fear of us though and would swim right up to our masks. The bass also were curious and wound swim up to us to check us out. The only real downside to the diving was the swimmer's itch. I must have 25 different little sores. Air fills were about 45 miles away in Traverse City.
I did find a fish, actually my daughter, found a fish in the grass that I am still unable to identify. It was dark brown and about 6 to 8 inches long, with a sharp tail, very small dorsal and ventral fins. It looked like a short eel. It swam with a snake like side to side motion. We spooked it out of its hiding place in the grass to sneak a better peak at it - when out of the distance a couple of large fish darted into the scene and gobbled him up right before our eyes. We felt a little bad about scaring him out of his spot. The hunting fish (I believe they were white perch) seemed to like us well. This little fellow stayed with us for about 15 minutes, even swimming between my daughter and me. I am not sure if he was expecting us to scare up some more smaller fish, or he was protecting his territory or was just curious. He had no fear of us though and would swim right up to our masks. The bass also were curious and wound swim up to us to check us out. The only real downside to the diving was the swimmer's itch. I must have 25 different little sores. Air fills were about 45 miles away in Traverse City.
They're pretty big though. The ones I just saw on the milwaukee car ferry were probably close to 18"
