factors affecting water clarity MN

[ballfrog]

Water is really colorless.  Light is either reflected in full spectrum from the surface or absorbed at different wavelengths through different depths and according to what is in the water.  The colors that we see are caused by the backscatter from various organic or inorganic suspensions in the water, or light being reflected back through the water column from the bottom.  When you look at deep water a long way from shore and other sources of  collodial contaminants there is less suspended material, less light is diffused and reflected by it, and the bottom is so far down that there is no reflection from that.

This is all just my opinion, I can't cite any experts for back up.

[DetectorGuy]

that sounds interesting. I would like to visit the Cass lake area, and perhaps have a couple of spots selected to visit. this sounds like a good spot. i assume it has public launch. any other lakes or bays you could recommend being your familiar with this area. also how cold is this spring water. we just were in the upper Mississippi tributary last week and found a small stretch with springs that were too cold for shorties.

Long lake would be far too cold to dive with a shorty. It has a 110' deep hole in the center and the average depth would be about 40'-60'.

We would drive just past Longville and just past the small airport and turn to the right on Farinholtz Road. our cabin was 3 miles down this road. the public launch is on the North side of the lake and I don't remember the name of the road, but if you drive North of town, North of the airport, North of Farinholtz Road, You will see the "Musky House" bait and tackle store. the road is the next right. The access is about 3 miles down this road on the left. The public launch is right across the lake from where our cabin was and just a bit south East of our cabin was a big bay with a long peninsula on the South end of the bay. The spring is just off the lake side of the peninsula on the lake side not the bay side. This lake is 8 miles long with about 8 islands on it. My sister bought the two cabins from my folks and I still have access to the cabins but the hill is too steep for launching at the cabin.

A really good source of contour maps of all of the Minnesota lakes can be found at: . Just punch in the lake name and county... and Poof... you get a nice PDF file of the following:water clarity, water clarity by satellite, water quality, contour maps, topo maps, water levels, recreational compass, fish consumption advisory, and other lake information. I print out copies of all the lakes that I plan to dive or have dove and shrink them down to fit in my dive log. I then pencil in my finds on these maps and use them for planning the dive. In the winter, when there isn't much to do, I review these maps and they really spur the memory of the dives.

There is a small lake about a mile of the end of the runway of the Longville airport called Gijik. I have hunted dear all around this very small lake and I have only fished it one time as it is extremely difficult to get to. There are small overgrown logging roads that spiderweb through the woods in the area and some of these get back to Gijik. There is an abandon log cabin on this lake that the snowmobile clubs keep fixing up and they leave it unlocked for people to use as a shelter while hunting/snowmobiling. The logging roads are so overgrown that an ATV would have to drive slow navigate these trails. This area is on the Chippewa National forest and there is 14 miles of woods beyond this so a compass is a must. We took a three-wheeler and pulled a 14' aluminum fishing boat back in there and I have never caught so many bass in my 41 years of life. The interval of when the "mister twister" hit the water and the setting of the hook was about 5 seconds. They were all small but that was 25 years ago and it was the most fun I ever had fishing... But I digress...

[popolarbear]

that sounds very much like a boundary waters trip i took. we were on a back bay. i had draged tons of heavy rods with monsterous plugs in hopes of finding some large pike(as we usualy find a couple just about anywere in the BWCA, that we go). on this particular trip..nothing not even a small one. depth finder, and my eyes were shocked in one spot, i slowly reeled in with a massive nearly countless school of monster smallies. theye were all holding off  a sunken island. average size was atleast 2-3lbs with some bigger. we caught non-stop smallies three at a time for half a day, before we caught them all. i imagine we got atleast 50 fish 2-3lbs or bigger. only two other 5lb class walleyes. that was it. the rest of the lake had very very few fish. very weird. but again a great memory. my boys were i think 3,5, and 11 . we had 3 canoes with a ton of people. mostly smokers who were upset because i got them lost for a half a day(too cheep to buy the map!).. i paid my dues in heat stroke. and a nap in a spring.. yes that was an awsome trip. like to do it aagain with snorkle gear.