Dive Condition Reports

[grantwiscour]

CSSP 5/27/13 Very few divers. Nice day at the park.
Water temp 73 degree. Thermocline at 20' and again at 27'.

Treasure Hunt at CSSP next Sunday.

 

[driftwood]

Spring Lake, San Marcos, May 30

Temp: same
Spring Flow: call it 103cfs

This was a complete cluster flop of a dive. They lowered the lake level Thursday (no I don't know why) and it completely screwed up the way I navigate the upper lake. For various reasons we only were able to hit 3 out of 10 monitoring sites. We called the dive at 23 minutes.

After the dive Pete and me talked with Taylor and we are hoping to get a hyper accurate map of all the spring locations with bearings between them. If we get the map/bearings, the next step is to find the optimal deepest/shortest route between sites. Once that is done, then I will try to post a comprehensive set of bearings/directions for all the dive sites in Spring Lake.

Great dive plan, but I had no idea how much lowering the lake by a foot would change the way I navigated. The little tricks I use became useless (you go shallow and look for a "deeper shade of blue" is one of them). On the plus side, I was able to find the old river channel in the Headwaters (never been there before) that got me close enough to Diversion.

 

[Bill Parker]

My first time on the river but it seemed crowded. 100s (maybe 1000s) of
tubers. We entered at Hinman Island park and drifted all the way down to
the last exit near Union and Lincoln streets. It took about 2.5 hours
to make that long drift down the river. From Hinman Island Park to the
concrete chute the vis was 5-10 feet mostly. Over 100 fish of various
species and dozen or so crawfish were observed before the chute. After
the chute to the last exit the vis was zero or effectivly zero most of
the time. I didn't even decend again after the chute. After the chute
I did spend a significant time observing from the surface and caught
glimpses of sizable fish a few times. Water temps were 70sF throughout.
My 2.5mm shorty and hood were adequate even though I was in the water
for so long. I can only speculate why the vis was so poor. Recent
rains and so many people on the river stirring things up perhaps. For
a future visit I'd probably avoid the high season in the Summer. Also
I'd get there early in the morning before everyone else does and
starts stirring things up so much. (We didn't get in the water until
after 3pm.)

 

[francousteau]

CSSP---6/2/13

Conditions---Packed! I arrived at 11am and sooo many people! I pulled between some trees on the east side, between ScubaToys and the pontoon dock and took off from the stairs there. Seems the water level is up a bit as the stairs were in the water more. Lots of stringy particulate in the water, but if you were shallow, viz was still 20' or so. I swam the east wall, at 28' & 68°, for a bit and then headed out to the middle and to the deepest part 49', for the swim north (1' deeper than the last time i was there). Nice and cool at 60° there but pitch black, so light on while there. Crossed over to the west side & past the double platforms...viz really good! I wanted to hit the plane, but missed it so doubled back and got it (all of my references look so different now that there's growth on everything). After a swim through the plane, I headed to the east wall and then to my exit point (only missed it by 10yds...doh!)

Surface--?
28'---68°
49'---60°
Viz--20' to 0
2 1/2hr run time

 

[driftwood]

Spring Lake, San Marcos, June 6

Temp: Same
Spring Flow: 100cfs
Vis: 70'+

Pete and I were assigned the bottom half of Catfish Hotel and Riverbed. The transitions into/out of Ossified Forrest are in good shape. Cream of Wheat and Little Riverbed need cleaning. CH is finally starting to look good. All the coontail and algae have been removed from the bed and great headway is being made in clearing the site of the built up silt. It was a nice long 87 minute dive.

 

[Bill Parker]

Lake Murray (Marietta Landing) 6/9/2013

My computer took three temperature readings:
71F @ 35ft
75F @ 25ft
75F @ 31ft

I think there was a thermocline around 25ft and it was
noticeably warmer above it.

Dozens of fish observed including a species I never saw
before that was vacuuming up zebra mussels.

Vis was weird and variable but good in spots. In the
first dive that included two wrecks, the training
platform, and some surrounding areas it was awful. A few
feet at most for most of the dive. I spent most of the
time looking for my dive buddies. The second dive went
from the beach along the wall in an Easterly course at
around 25ft on the way out for ~30 minutes and we came
back along the same wall at around at around 15ft. The
vis on this dive was 10-15 feet for 98% of the dive.
What seemed to be the pattern was the vis went really
bad below the thermocline if that makes any sense.

[video=youtube_share;pd5RV1s_oAc]http://youtu.be/pd5RV1s_oAc[/video]

 

[Sushi Boy]

Flower Gardens / Stetson Bank - June 8/9
low to mid 70's at depth, high 70's on the surface
Viz - 50ish ft without much sun, 100+ when the sun was out

 

[driftwood]

Spring Lake, San Marcos June 13

Temp: Same
Vis: call it 50'
Spring Flow: around 110cfs


Riverbed to Catfish Hotel again. It seems that most of the dives are concentrated on getting the springs in that part of the lake flowing as freely as possible. The area is starting to look pretty good. A large majority of the silt has been removed (moved). There is a die off of coontail occurring (noticeable on the east bank) and the algae is trending downward. Great time to dive the lake and see the contours of the bottom/banks. If they keep us diving RB-CH, I can start thinking about clearing the west bank of Catfish (very cool rocks and a great place for a "critter hunt").

Gary posted that Friday, he helped setting the boundaries for the Training Area in anticipation of restarting the DFS classes in the Fall.

 

[Bill Parker]

Plane wreck, both boat wrecks, East wall, Western shallows,
catfish crack, a training platform, and the Cisco visited.
Camera (and myself) attacked by a crappie. Dozens of bass,
a school of bass, numerous crappie, catfish, and several
turtles observed during 122 minutes of bottom time.

Vis was 10-20 feet depending on if it was an area where
classes are held or not.

My computer logged three temperatures:
68F @ 33ft
77F @ 25ft
85F @ 11ft

The thermocline was at about 25 feet.

[video=youtube_share;Veb1QydNkwo]http://youtu.be/Veb1QydNkwo[/video]

 

[driftwood]

Spring Lake, San Marcos, June 21

Temp: same
Spring Flow: 120cfs
Vis: 60'+

Did three dives over the last two days.

Deep Hole, floated a lot of coontail off the Soccer Pitch, cleaned the low pressure springs and the sand bank opposite of Fault Line. The west bank of Deep Hole at the Soccer Pitch is almost clear of coontail.

Arch Site, the hump from Deep Hole is fairly congested but still passable. Removed algae from the site. It is in fair condition.

Catfish Hotel There is a widespread die off of coontail right now (perfectly normal). This has resulted in large clumps of coontail getting caught. The first large clump is at the bottom of Cream of Wheat. The second has completely blocked the deep passage from Ossified Forrest into Riverbed. The third is about 80% of the way down Riverbed on the east bank. Due to low flow and strong south winds, cooperation with the cutter boat will be required for removal from the lake. My best guess is around 1 1/2 tons of material.

There is a large channel catfish residing deep under the big boulder at the bottom of Catfish Hotel. Cleared the low pressure springs and cleared algae.