The docks are gone but it was a double edged blade. With the docks away, the boaters came to play. It was VERY busy there Sunday.
We had a great time diving though. Mike (rudebob) Mark (not on SB..yet) and I met sunday morning at Spring Canyon Landing, just east of Vista Point. The vis was pretty good though. At least 20 feet near the surface. Not as good deeper. We needed dive lights below about 40 feet. We found a deep trench that was a lot farther out than I remember now that the lake level has come up quite a bit. The surreal lighting from our dive lights and meager sunlight made the area resemble a freaky graveyard from some horror flick.
The water temp was around 50º at the surface. We found a thermocline at the bottom of the trench (74') and the temp went down to mid 40s.
The fish were pretty active. Staking out their nesting territory. We found a catfish and I thought it was dead. We swam right up to it. It was about 10-12" long and resting on a rock at about 30 feet. Mark waved his hand over it expecting it to swim away. Nothing. More vigerous waving. Nothing. He touched it. Nothing. He rocked it back and forth and I guess it woke up because it finally bolted.
At the end of our second dive we were coming up from the trench again. The "banks" of the trench are at about 30 feet. We were swimming about half way up the side of the trench looking up into the sunlight. We saw a huge shadow swim across our path along the top of the trench. Then it swam back. Further on we got close enough to see the size of the fish. It was huge. I think it was a bass but I don't know my fish that well. It seemed to be guarding it's nesting area. When we were almost to the top of the trench wall we saw 4 or 5 smaller fish trying to get past the big guy. There must have been a ladyfish thereabouts We hovered for a while watching the whole thing play out. The little guys finally gave up and swam further along the top of the trench to a rock wall where they joined a few more unlucky bachelors.
We stayed with the group and it was wierd. They seemed curious about us and gave us a look over while keeping their distance. But we were to big and what with our spewing bubbles every few seconds must have been off-putting to those self respecting fish. Hey, they were just looking for some spawning action.
We ended up moving around closer to the real Vista Point area for our third dive. There were just to many boats at the landing. They were either launching or coming back in. Dive flag violation seemed to be the sport of the afternoon.
Snaggle-toothed beer swilling boat driver, "Hey Mable, What IS that thar red and white thing a floatin' over by them buoys? 'better go and see. An' git me a sammich ana nuther beer."
The last dive was fun just getting there. We scaled (scooted?) down a bank to the shore. The vis there was every bit as good as at Spring Canyon Landing. The water seemed to be a bit warmer but I may be just getting used to it. We saw a lot of debris around the lake bottom on all three dives. That's the down side of the improved visibility, I guess. This time we literally saw a fish in a barrell. Again, we found 70' without any trouble. The boaters finally left us alone, which was nice. Another great dive day to be sure.
