It is a shallow man made lake with less than 8 foot overall average depth. There is one dug hole that is around 18 foot. we have been really fighting the weeds for the last few years after they got away from us a couple of years ago when we had an early warm up in the spring. Money has been tight for the association as we are embattled in law suit with the developer over him wanting to add a huge bunch of lots. We tried to get the dues raised by $75 last fall but it got turned down. They figured that the $150 dues could keep the lake the way it was 10 years ago when they were last raised.
I spent 4 hours scooping and gaffing what had to be over 200 lbs of dead fish in a couple hundred feet of shore line in one of the parks. There were a huge amount of bass that would have been life time catches for many Michigan anglers. I had no idea that there were rock bass in the lake of the size I put in bags. Luckily a neighbor and her daughter showed up and helped me get the fish bagged. this old fart can hardly move today from all that exercise.
Have to go back on Monday and bag what fish I missed yesterday.
I bagged some of the dream yellow bellies I knew were in the lake but could never get them when they were full of eggs. One that had blown up on a dock was right around 16 inches by comparison to the 5/4 deck board is was laying in the picture I took. Another one that I gaffed out of the water was right around the same.
I also bagged two bigger walleyes, one around 24 plus a 20 incher. We did not have many walleyes in the lake so this really hurts. We did not find many pike but there was a huge die off them back in early July of 2012, I believe.
The guy that mows our parks and does the snow plowing we need came with his back hoe and dug a deep pit to burry the fish in so that helped with the disposal problem. The lake front property owners have really worked to get their propertied cleaned and put in the pit. They have also helped the older residents clean up and dispose of their fish.
I have pictures but am not into the way to post them on this site.
That is too bad you lost all those fish, but being that shallow and with that many weeds it was a winter kill time bomb waiting to go off. It does not sound like it was 'desinged' as a fishing pond/lake with it being that shallow, especially in Michigan. It was probably dug only so the developer could raise the lot cost and sell them as 'waterfront' property. Sounds like the association is tight on the funds and not willing to raise the dues, but this will always be a threat unless something is done to keep some water open in the winter to allow O2 to mix in. Hopefully, something survived and you don't have to start the lake over from nothing. Good luck!
