Creating a Lake

[jinman]

We've looked at the ones at Atwoods and Tractor Supply and haven't decided on either one. Prices are around $600. Does anybody know of another source or place to look at paddle boats?

I bought mine several years ago at Academy Sports. Lately, I've seen one at Sam's with a covered cooler for around $500 (don't hold me to that $).

Some have removable seats and some padded seats and on-'n-on... It just depends on what you want to pay. I've always wanted to rig a transom on mine so I could drop on a trolling motor for those days when I don't feel like paddling.

 

[wushaw]

Eddie you need an aerial photo of the lake to get a good prospective of just what you have created.

 

[Bird]

I think there are several paddle boats on e-bay for sale.

 

[patrick_g]

Pat,
The paddle boats we looked at have four seats and a canopy. They also have plenty of room for drinks and tackle boxes, which would be nice for us and the kids.

Thanks,
Eddie

Eddie, A canoe will not replace a paddle boat functionally but is a terrific additional boat with abilities unavailable to a paddle boat . Kids like them too, the "Indian" or Lewis and Clark sort of thing. If the wind gets up, either can be a handful but the paddle boat with its "sail area" will become impossible to manage when the canoe is still usable. It won't take that much wind to ruin or prevent a paddleboat voyage.

Pat

 

[schmism]

Eddie, A canoe will not replace a paddle boat functionally but is a terrific additional boat with abilities unavailable to a paddle boat

not to mention the effort diffrence... a few strokes on a cannoe on a clam lake will send you skateing acorss the surface in near silence for a few hundred yards.

stop peddleing and splashing about in your paddle boat, and see how far you coast in that barge!

Ive got a 17' AL cannoe that me and my neighbor routinly fish out of. ITs easy for us to keep our own tackle by us and cast in near 360 deg direction and not be in the way of each other. A small trolling motor clamped to the side of a canoe and you can d@mn near ski behind it!

 

[Bird]

In 1969, I bought a 17' double ended aluminum Ouachita canoe, having had no previous experience with canoes, and of course, I bought it for fishing. I very quickly learned that one person alone in the back end of the canoe had a serious problem with steering in a crosswind. The weight in the back caused the front end of the canoe to rise slightly, catch the wind, and turn. So I put weight (5 gallon bucket and also tried a cinder block) in the front end. That really helped. Then I got smarter. I bought a mushroom type anchor, ran my anchor rope through the "eye" on the bow of the canoe, and back to tie it off on the crossmember right in front of me. I could untie the rope and let the anchor down from the front of the canoe, or pull the anchor back up right against the bow without ever getting out of my seat. Then I made a side mount "transom" and bought a 2 hp Johnson gasoline outboard motor when Johnson first came out with the 2 hp model in 1970. It held one quart of gasoline, and I carried a spare quart in a one quart oil bottle. So if I ran out, I could quickly and simply turn the bottle upside down to refill the gas tank without spilling any. And I could fish ALL DAY, even doing a lot of trolling, and I never used up the second quart of gas in one day. Wish I had that rig back.

 

[rox]

Eddie,
We do sortta get an idea of the lake from the pics, I'm positivie it is much better in person though. When we follow the thread and see many pics you kinda get the whole picture.

Wonder about the water quality. From the pics it looks brown, but probably that is jsut from the color of the clay bottom, right? I think you said, correct me if I am wrong that you are not going to try and fool with anything to change the clor. I am used to seeing blue or even green lakes but never brown. From Wisconsin and right next to Minnesooooota the land of is it 10,000 lakes, I have always been around water, the brown color takes some getting used to but I am getting used to it by seeing it in the pics. I can see how in different parts of the country lakes might be brown.

 

[patrick_g]

Rox, Not to start a dorsal fin comparison with a rep from the land of 10,000 lakes but I think we have more than that. Oklahoma has more man-made lakes than any other
state, which give us more than a million surface-acres
of water and 2,000 more miles of shoreline than the
Atlantic and Gulf coasts combined.

An awful lot of our water is RED or at least reddish brown. A town not too far from us is named Pink, Oklahoma and the soil around there is bright pink in color. The Wa****a river runs reddish brown nearly all the time and when I was a kid I had the red stained underwear to prove I spent time swimming in it.

The color is NOT a dangerous abnormality indicative of poor water quality. It is indicative of the type of fine red clay that when suspended in water takes on an electric charge so that the particles repel each other and do not clump (agglutinate) readily and fall out of suspension.

I have 10 ponds and some stay very clear most of the time while some have been continuously muddy for years and years (probably since they were first filled.) I have old and new ponds that stay muddy and some that are nearly always clear. I can't seem to get a good handle on why adjacent ponds are so different in that respect. The last pond I built is going on 4 years old and my hopes that it would become "seasoned" and clear up are dwindling.

I sure hope Lake Maribou clears up as we all like clear water more than muddy but it is not a disaster if it doesn't, probably just a small disappointment. The turbidity will reduce light penetration and cut down on the productivity of its ecosystem. One of the basic foundations of the food chain is plant life, both microscopic and larger. The little creatures eat the little plant life and in turn the larger creatures eat the littler ones and so on up the chain. The base of the pyramid is life driven by sunlight.

As instrumental in gaging turbidity as the yardstick is for measuring depth is the Secchi disk. The Secchi disk is a negatively buoyant white and black segmented disk that can be lowered by a tether into the water to gauge the turbidity (resistance to light penetration.) It can be lowered and raised to determine the greatest depth under the surface that its alternating white and black surface can be detected by sight. Subsequent measurements will tell you if there is an improving trend or a decrease in the transmission of light. The assumption is made that the penetration of light visible to the observer's eye is similar in nature or relatively proportional to the penetration of the wavelengths promoting the growth of plant life (usually a safe assumption.)

Anyone interested in building a Secchi disk for measuring turbidity can easily do so it is NOT difficult.

Here is but one of many sources of info:

Make a Disk

A Secchi disk is so easy to use that a child can literally do it. In fact it is an easy way to inoculate a youngster in the ecological/scientific pursuits.

A Secchi disk may be easily deployed from a paddle boat or canoe, a sort of oceanographic cruise in miniature. Good luck to any budding limnologists! (Don't get your lanyard hung in the paddle wheel.)

Pat

 

[KentT]

Pat,

If you define a lake to be 250 acres or more, then Minnesota actually has 15,422 -- as of 9 years ago when I moved from there...

Don't think any other state can match that number... it has more shoreline than the state of California...

Northern Minnesota (Boundary Waters Primitive Area and Voyageurs National Park) is one of the prettiest places in the country, with over 750,000 acres of public land -- then Quetico National Park on the Canadian side has another 500,000 acres plus that borders it... it has to be experienced to be believed...

 

[patrick_g]

Pat,

If you define a lake to be 250 acres or more...

(Sorry Eddie but by that definition Maribou is what, maybe a puddle and my ponds are beneath description.)

it has more shoreline than the state of California... (and so does the US Atlantic coast and gulf coast combined.)

Northern Minnesota (Boundary Waters Primitive Area and Voyageurs National Park) is one of the prettiest places in the country, with over 750,000 acres of public land -- then Quetico National Park on the Canadian side has another 500,000 acres plus that borders it... it has to be experienced to be believed...

Kent, I never fail to get a "rise" out of a loyal Minnesotan when I mention "water facts" of Oklahoma. No slight to the great state of Minnesota, Lake Wobegone, Garrison Keeler, the Sons of Norway, Mosquitus Gigantus, or your scenic grandeurs.

I have been up that way and can sure agree on the scenic beauty part. When stationed at Minot NODAK I was deprived of natural beauty and wandered some to make up the loss, when able. Canada helped but Turtle Mountain Provincial park and the International Peace Park can't hold a candle to the places you mention.

Pat

 

[turbo36]

Rox, Not to start a dorsal fin comparison with a rep from the land of 10,000 lakes but I think we have more than that. Oklahoma has more man-made lakes than any other
state, which give us more than a million surface-acres
of water and 2,000 more miles of shoreline than the
Atlantic and Gulf coasts combined.

Pat

Never been to Oklahoma but I know we have a little bit more water in Michigan then you folks.

Here is a link to one source of info for total surface area of all the states, other the Alaska we have more water then anyone. The Great lakes contain 20% of the worlds fresh water supply.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108355.html

 

[MadDogDriver]

Ahhhhh....the old water wars.


The great myth about the NW is that it rains "all the time" out here. (We like perpetuating that one, minimizes the overcrowding )

Yet, there's more drowned rats in the midwest than here.

 

[patrick_g]

turbo, You aren't claiming Canada's part of the great lakes are you? I have been to Michigan several times but always fishing and enjoying the lakes never to a large city or even a good sized town. Even after subtracting out Canada's part of the great lakes you still have a fair bit of water. I lived in Lima, Ohio for nearly 8 years and made it to Lake Erie a few times. Don't care for the winters in the UP or lower part either for that matter. I've done my time in arctic conditions (Minot, ND for 3 years where there are only three seasons, July, August , and winter.) I like the change of the seasons but get enough winter in south central OK to satisfy me. Some years we get no snow accumulation on the ground and other times we may get buried. Some winters you don't have to break ice for the stock to drink and other times it is quite a chore.

For me, Michigan was a great place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. Luckily there are hardier souls who do like it and that keeps the rest of the country from getting overcrowded so fast. I do miss some of the cold water fishing though.

Mad dog, When is the last time you went in to get the web between your toes trimmed back? I went to Sequim (pronounced skwim) Washington to see the effect of being in the rain shadow of the Ho peninsula. It misted or rained for the 10 days I was there and that was supposed to be THE DRY SPOT, a veritable mecca for retirees.
Weather it rains in the pacific NW a lot or not depends on which side of the mountains you are on. Very desert like east of the coastal range in large swaths but you wouldn't try to convince anyone that your rain forests are misnamed would you?

Stats are available for precip, and visibility limitations due to fog etc for say SEATAC tend to support the contention that there are many days with precip or mist, or fog. If it is so dry there they why is one of the major skin ailments treated by dermatologists on long term residents, moss?

Pat

 

[MadDogDriver]

Pat,

You're too funny!!

That's exactly what I was referring to. When people visit God's Great NW they get the myths of what life's like up here reinforced. Stay awhile longer next time and you'll see the real NW, but then the myths will be revealed.

Yes, Sequim really is the dry spot up here (relatively) and just a few miles SW on the other side of the Olympics the rain forests of Ho are spectacular! I live out past Puyallup (pronounced PEEYOU YALLUP, gotta love these Indian names) toward Mt Ranier and we enjoy looking down over the fog of the valley, but we're below the snow line. Love driving to the snow instead of digging out of it.

I used to live in VA, FL, TN, HI, IL, CA, MD and with the exception of the People's Republic of California and Hawaii, it's been my perception that there's alot of states whose total rainfall far exceeds the Great NW state of Washington. Our rain just gets spread out over a much longer time than the down pours others suffer from.

Gotta get my sprinklers set up for the summer draught or my lawn will be as brown as the fields in the Great Plains without water.

 

[john_bud]

Ha! Visitied the inlaws that live just south of Seatac and for the first 12 years of visits never once saw a mountain. Was SHOCKED seeing mt raindeer the first time. Wouldn't want to stuck in I5 traffic and see that sucker blow it's top in the rear view!

jb

 

[MadDogDriver]

Roger that about I-5. Washington State politics and our road system are more screwed up than anywhere else I've lived. I'm so glad we live in a rural are and don't have to commute into the city.

Like I said earlier, it all depends on when you're here and where you're at. We're very fortunate to enjoy our views of the big hill (it is more than once in a blue moon too), seems like it's in our backyard sometimes. The USGS scientists predict that when it pops the lahar (mud flow) will create the largest danger to our area. The Tacoma mud flats from the last lahar several thousand years ago is one model they refer to. They predict where we live will become a plateau/island, accessible only from the private airstrips around us. It won't be a Mt. St Helens type of event, but more of a glacial meltdown. (Al Gore's been to the mountain already to check it out, so I feel certain he knows what he's talking about , all politics aside) (Sorry Muhammad, you can delete that sentence if you want). You are correct about not wanting to be in traffic when it does pop. Shoot, I don't like being on the BIG roads at anytime let alone then.

Timing is everything when you visit this area. Despite our lack of rain from about July 4th to October, the one weekend it rained was when we hosted our daughter's wedding shower in our backyard a couple years ago. Go figure.

Now I gotta go find me an excavator to dig a hole while it's dry so I can have a little pond compared to Eddie's Lake. (my feeble attempt to get this back on topic )

 

[mjarrels]

Lived on Whidbey Island for ten years... not much rain or annual rainfall compaired to Virginia!

mark

 

[coopers]

Roger that about I-5. Washington State politics and our road system are more screwed up than anywhere else I've lived.

AMEN! This state is mentally challenged when it comes to transportation and thinking AHEAD!

Blake
WA

 

[BTDT]

I think (back to topic) the water/creek from the overflow I would call Little Marabou Creek. If it keeps raining, and the flow increases significantly, you could call it Tyler Falls.

 

[EddieWalker]

I was in the area of Tyler Fish Farms today, so I decided it was time to buy some fish. I told the owner that I've been catching fish from my small pond and letting them go in the lake for about four months now with good results. My estimates are around 30 channel catfish in the one to two pound range, 200 coppernose bluegill and close to a thousand fathead minnows. I also explained to him that I wanted to create a food base for bass, but didn't want to put bass in until next year.

He said that I have enough catfish already and all they are going to do it eat the forage fish, so I didn't need any more of them. He also said they will try to spawn next year, but it might take another year for that to actually happen.

He sugeested that I add another 2,000 1-3 inch copper nose bluegill, or brim, to the pond, and 3,000 fathead minnows. Teh bluegill cost $100 per thousand and the minnows are $30 per thousand.

He figured out how many there are per weight, then added some to give me quite a few extras. I have no idea how many I actually got, but I'm sure I did pretty well.

The total bill was $490, but he gave me $20 back in change with a smile!!!

We'll keep adding fish from the small pond to the lake just because it's fun, but as of now, I really don't need any more.

Eddie