Not Much To Report Yet ......

I went out there a week or 10 days ago and it had risen enough to open the newest boat ramp at the west end of the lake. However neither the mid-lake ramp, the handicapped fishing jetty or the main boat ramp was open. I took some pictures but since I couldn't get into the main area and it was so badly overcast I decided to forget about it and come back on another day. I'd say the lake has gained close to another 10 feet and had about 10 feet to go and we have had some recent rains so it should be even less to go. Still that last 5 feet or so takes a long time to fill since the surface area of the lake has increased so much.

I also moved my preliminary maps from my Google Drive due to problems and now have them on my GitHub Repository

Netbook2Chartplotter GitHub Respository

I'll try to get out to the lake sometime between rains this week and get some updated pictures but I'm not going to take a boat until I know all the ramps are open.I don't quite have my new mapping rig all set up yet but should by the weekend

New Aerial Photo Maps

Courtesy of the Iowa Geographic Map Server

These look to be taken in late September and I'll contrast them with ones taken in 2013 but in August. The water levels here are roughly the same as the last set of photos I took, maybe another foot higher.

Have a Happy New Year everyone!!

8-26-2014 Photos - Main Ramp Now Open

They opened up the main ramp and parking at the mid lake ramp but water levels haven't raised much since July 4, maybe 2 feet leaving about 20 feet left to fill.

This is at the upper end

 These are at the mid-lake ramp, the pine tree point and the rock mounds in a finger east of the ramp. More trees are dead and more dying from having their roots suffocated

These are from the mid-lake fishiong jetty area looking north. They don't have this lot open yet due to rain erosion damage seen in my earlier pictures of the area.

This is at the main boat ramp near the dam where I haven't taken any p[ictures from yet. If you look at the photos that show the rip rap you can get an idea there is about 20 feet to go yet before the lakie is full

Mid-lake north side fishing access areas

Next time I go out there, hopefully next week I'll be taking photos from my boat. I won't be able to start depth mapping it until it completely fills but I can check and get new GPS coordinates to some structure. I'll try to take some screen shots of my downscanning fishfinder (Lowrance Elite 7X HDI) which should look pretty amazing as it has the resolution where you can see the leaves on the trees and even small fish if they are schooled up that you just can't see on a conventional finder