October 22, 2014 Water Monitoring Report and Field Notes

The weather yesterday was nearly the opposite as October 8th when I conducted the last monitoring.  Driving through the countryside from Oshkosh to Lake Puckaway was a foggy business, but one for one or two miles did I feel the need to slow down to 45 mph due to low visibility.  When I arrived at the Lake about 8:00 am the shore was lightly foggy but the lake looked like a soup.  I put the navigation lights on the boat and decided to head out.

Not far in the lake visibility went down to 50ft, maybe even less.   I putted along at 4-6 mph and navigated by GPS, and occasionally stopped to listen for other boats.   There was no wind and the lake was completely still.  Every now and again I startled groups of 3 -6 Rudy Ducks, and the odd fish near the surface.  As I was about to Marquette the fog began to lift slightly and I could make out the shapes of the cane beds in Blue Bill Bay.  Even though my GPS is very good I kept well to the south of the dredge bank to avoid slamming into the rocks.  With the fog lifting the sun slowly appeared, and when very dim I could make out a few sunspots easily on the surface of the Sun.  I've since learned one of them, called AR 2192 is the size of Jupiter, and is the largest in years.  The appearance of the sun also created an odd light phenomenon in the form of a giant white lens.  Very interesting  phenomenon, that I have never seen before.

Sunspots

A little farther East the fog was showing more weakness and a slight break revealed the carp fishing boats waiting in the stillness to begin their days fishing.  Just as I arrived to the East shore the fog began to lift quickly.  I scared up a few ducks that took a wrong turn.  Bang, Bang!  Sorry ducks, your welcome hunters.

The bright sun, lighting up a section of the fog on Lake Puckaway.

The rest of the day the wind was calm to non-existent and and cloud cover was about 10%, and the sun that provided quite a show in the morning, kept me warm the rest of the day.  Surface temperatures of the lake were in the upper 40's, winter is coming.  Water clarity was pretty uniform throughout the lake, and much better then the 8th when the surf was up.

October 8, 2014 Water Monitoring Report

The lake was rocking and rolling with winds blasting past 30 mph.  It is very unusual that I go out during high winds and this was certainly the windiest I have ever ventured out on Lake Puckaway.  The waves make sampling and everything else much more difficult.  I am glad I got there though, it will be a good test to see how much phosphorus is kicked up from the wind during this events.  The wind created a constant flurry of cattail fluff, unfortunately about 99% will be from non-native invasive cattail species.

The carp fisherman were also out there braving the wind and waves, I can't say I envied them.  I heard there efforts paid off and there are getting a good haul of marketable fish.

There was a fair number of Rudy Ducks bobbing up and down in the water and some wood ducks hanging around at the mouth of the river.

Water clarity as measured with a Secchi disk.  The disk was still visible while
resting on the bottom at the Fox River Inlet.