Lake turnover question

Here's the details, 18yr old 35ac sand pit, max depth 27', no run off enters the lake, no trees within 100 yards, normal visibility 2'+, high quality fishing the past 10yrs, no power boats-only electric motors. Surface water temp today was 65*. While fishing today I noticed bubbles coming up from 18 FOW. It looked like the bubbles were bringing up huge clouds of redish brown water. I tried to find clean water to fish but by noon the whole lake was very dirty and small bubbles were rising over most of the lake. It almost looked like a volcano was erupting under the lake. In the past when this lake turned over there were chunks of decayed matter floating around for a few days, not this year. There is another 100ac sand pit across the road, 100 yards away that is very clear, 4' of visibility. The lakes are not connected. Any idea ? Thanks.

That's not a turn-over, these occur when water temps are 39*f. Here in KS, we generally do not get a fall turn-over. History says 20%, but I'd drop that to 15% personally, that a fall turn-over occurs. The last one I recall was 3yrs now I believe, it was the year the ice was around forever. That year the water temps were lower 50's and then in days it froze over solid. That 1st ice we would cut in to dirty, stirred up water.

This sounds like gas pockets, and with the surface moving so much with the absence of moisture, it's highly causative. In addition, some of you may have noticed or heard of basement foundations "settling" problems occurring because of these very reasons. This movement allows voids and ruptures to occur creating these problems. On another note, some of you might want check your homes for radon gases if you have noticed some additional cracking of your floors or walls.

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Originally Posted by crappiedoc

That's not a turn-over, these occur when water temps are 39*f. Here in KS, we generally do not get a fall turn-over. History says 20%, but I'd drop that to 15% personally, that a fall turn-over occurs. The last one I recall was 3yrs now I believe, it was the year the ice was around forever. That year the water temps were lower 50's and then in days it froze over solid. That 1st ice we would cut in to dirty, stirred up water.

This sounds like gas pockets, and with the surface moving so much with the absence of moisture, it's highly causative. In addition, some of you may have noticed or heard of basement foundations "settling" problems occurring because of these very reasons. This movement allows voids and ruptures to occur creating these problems. On another note, some of you might want check your homes for radon gases if you have noticed some additional cracking of your floors or walls.

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thats another questionable topic doc pretty dirty??

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Originally Posted by duramax

Here's the details, 18yr old 35ac sand pit, max depth 27', no run off enters the lake, no trees within 100 yards, normal visibility 2'+, high quality fishing the past 10yrs, no power boats-only electric motors. Surface water temp today was 65*. While fishing today I noticed bubbles coming up from 18 FOW. It looked like the bubbles were bringing up huge clouds of redish brown water. I tried to find clean water to fish but by noon the whole lake was very dirty and small bubbles were rising over most of the lake. It almost looked like a volcano was erupting under the lake. In the past when this lake turned over there were chunks of decayed matter floating around for a few days, not this year. There is another 100ac sand pit across the road, 100 yards away that is very clear, 4' of visibility. The lakes are not connected. Any idea ? Thanks.

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If a water body is stratified, stratification can be broken by temperature change and mixing of the layers by wind or a significant inflow event. I don't think what you are seeing is the lake turning over.

Rising bubbles can be caused by a number of things of which a couple are respiration (plants producing oxygen) or decomposition. Shorter day lengths and cooler temperatures do not support as much plant material/algae as the longer days of summer do. It may be that plant material present in your lake is breaking down after reaching a peak earlier in the year. Gases given off during decomposition could transport partially decayed material to the surface or stir it up from the bottom causing changes in water clarity.

Any organic material in a lake has the potential to produce bubbles as decomposition occurs. I've seen 30 year old brush piles send up steady amounts of bubbles in a Kansas reservoir under the right conditions.

Craig Clinton Lake had appox 55 surface temp the water was v dingy in the area of the lake I was at. When the water gets to around a certain temp is it safe to say the lake is close to turning over or is that not much of a problem on corp lakes like we have around here? Can you give me some info on lake turnover on these local lakes and how the fish tend to react to it?

Thanks

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Originally Posted by riverhorse

Craig Clinton Lake had appox 55 surface temp the water was v dingy in the area of the lake I was at. When the water gets to around a certain temp is it safe to say the lake is close to turning over or is that not much of a problem on corp lakes like we have around here? Can you give me some info on lake turnover on these local lakes and how the fish tend to react to it?

Thanks

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riverhorse,

Kansas reservoirs may weakly stratify but lake wide, complete stratification is not very common on most lakes. Lakes such as Wilson and Milford can see areas of prolonged stratification while other lakes such as El Dorado and Cheney hardly stratify at all. Stratification of Kansas lakes is usually broken by wind stirring up the lake and mixing layers or an inflow event instead of water temperature change associated with changing of the seasons so we don't normally see a hard fall turnover on a regular, predictable basis. I think it would be safe to say that anything that may have become stratified during the summer would have turned over already with all the high winds we've seen over the past couple of weeks even though surface water temperature is well above the magic 39.2F/4C temp.

In a heavily stratified lake, fishes will tend to avoid the bottom layer that is lacking adequate oxygen. Temperature sensitive species, such as striped bass, will seek out the area just above the thermocline where they have adequate oxygen and the cooler temperatures that they prefer. Most popular sportfish in Kansas (crappie, walleye, white bass, wipers, catfish) aren't as warm water sensitive as the stripers and don't need to seek out the cooler, well oxgenated water near the thermocline and won't concentrate as heavily as the more sensitive species. However, in a heavily stratified lake all species will spend most of their time above the thermocline where oxygen levels are acceptable making fishing below the thermocline unproductive.

How the fish react to the turnover depends on the strength of the stratification. Sometimes fish may hardly be impacted if only a small area was weakly stratified. Larger areas with heavier stratification may cause fish to move to more comfortable waters when the layers mix. Oxygen levels may decrease and clarity may decrease upon turnover which may cause the fish to move to other areas with more favorable conditions. Slight changes may impact prey species causing them to move which in turn causes the sportfish to follow.

Thanks Craig