Category: Days on the Lake

Who knew there was a B-29 Bomber at the bottom of Lake Mead?

I didn't.

B29
On July 21, 1948 a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber ditched into Lake Mead. Apparently the pilots, on a test flight, misjudged their height over the water and hit the surface at 250 mph. The crew were able to escape into life rafts before the plane sank and were rescued, but the plane was never recovered. This was one of WWII's largest planes, and it's down there nearly intact.

B-29_in_flight


 

Lots more about it here:

Lake Mead's B-29 Superfortress

Here's an album of photos from the NPS

And here's a link to all of the National Park's Lake Mead videos

Lake Mead is Screwed

Lake_mead_july_2009
Most of us know that Lake Mead's waters are really, really low, but to see just how bad the situation actually is, check out these satellite images – the first is from 1985, the second was taken this year:

1985mead 2010mead
1985 2010

The lake is suffering from a combination of natural forces and man mad problems. The lake's levels naturally fluctuate, but a 12 year drought is kicking its ass. The second part is all of the water that is pumped out to Las Vegas and elsewhere exceeds the amount of water flowing in. And the demands are growing.

The scary part is that according to one study the lake could be completely dry in just another decade (here's a link to the study). So the question is: what can we do about it?

Read more:

"Why worry about Lake Mead?" on Boing Boing

I linked to this one before, but it's a good one: Lake Mead on GOOD.is

Aug 2010 article in the NY Times about the low waters

Official National Parks Lake Mead page

Trout falling from the sky

Aerial-fish-stocking
I just discovered a new blog that has a terrific introduction to the history of Rainbow Trout on the West Coast.

There's a new book called An Entirely Synthetic Fish about the introduction of Rainbow Trout into our waterways, that documents some of the ways that these fish were introduced by very novel means.

It turns out that in the 1950s apparently they decided that dropping trout from the sky into California lakes was a good idea.

"In one of the more surreal sections of the book, Halverson describes
the origins of aerial fish-stocking missions, as surplus World War II
planes and demobilised pilots were successfully redeployed in the 1950s
to introduce the rainbow trout to previously fishless lakes, high in
the California mountains. Even as you anticipate the disastrous
ecological consequences, it’s hard not to be amazed by the gung-ho
ingenuity of former crop duster and California Department of Fish and Game pilot Al Reese:

First, Reese tried freezing the fish in ice blocks and
parachuting them in ice cream containers. Both of these techniques,
though, proved dangerous and difficult. And so, one day, Reese and his
assistants tried a simpler technique. They put fifty trout and some
water into a five-gallon can and threw it out the window toward a
hatchery pond about 350 feet below. They missed, and the can bounced
along the rocks nearby instead. But when observers recovered the
twisted metal debris, they found sixteen fish still swimming in the
small amount of water that remained.

Ultimately, Reese and the team ditched the barrels altogether in
favour of releasing fish that would hit the water “with a vertical
speed of about thirty miles per hour,” in a scene described by
observers as “a cloud of mist that suddenly appeared behind the plane,
full of the barely distinguishable dark shapes of small fish.”

Fish-on-water-aerial-fish-stocking

Read the rest here: The Amazing Allegorical Synthetic Fish 

BaitSmith Fishing Report from Diamond Valley Lake

Ed Proulx of BaitSmith lures sent in this report from his trip down to Diamond Valley Lake in Southern California where he landed this beauty.

Ed
I just returned home from a long weekend trip to Southern California
and was able to get out on Diamond Valley Lake Monday 3-15-10 and had a
great day fishing with my nephew Mitch. It was my first weekend trip
ever to Hemet and Diamond Valley and I was very hopeful to catch some
nice fish in a warm place away from the snow and cold at home in
Northern Idaho.

We started the morning out with a 5.5 pounder that was
on the shoreline. She ate the soft plastic stick bait without
hesitation. I then told Mitch that by the way she bit we can find them
they are going to eat today. We continued to search the shore for
females for a short period of time but could only find scrubby males who were spooky, so we made the decision to set ourselves away
from what everyone else seemed to be doing and get further away from
shore.

Soon we found a school of 4.5 to 6 pounders suspended and hooked
and landed five of them in short order with soft plastics. I continued to
throw the BaitSmith 9.5” Magnum Light Color Trout and Mitch threw an
assortment of BaitSmith Original 6” colors and the 5” BaitSmith
Threadfin Shad. We ran from spot to spot looking to duplicate our
pattern and caught several more fish from 4 to 5.5 pounds – but on the
soft plastics not the swimbaits.

At about 2pm the water had warmed up
to about 63 degrees and I continued to throw our BaitSmith Magnum as a
search bait when we came across a classic swimbait spot. That is
when my Magnum got bit. I yelled for the net and continued to crank my
Calcutta. As the fish got close to the net she managed to shake her head
hard enough as I cranked her towards the net to shake the bait free.  She had eaten the 9.5” Magnum clear up to the eyeballs, but I allowed her
to get enough stretch in my line to shake her head and the bait . . . big
mistake as we watched her swim away! She looked to be a 10 or better but
I cannot say for sure BECAUSE I didn’t get her into the net to weigh
her, we just know she was a bigger fish.

As I tried to calm myself down,
I repositioned the boat and began to cast to the same area at the same
angle and depth, on the fourth cast the Magnum got bit again this time,
same drill, except there was no mistake like I made the last time. When
the fish made it into the net we high-fived each other, took some
pictures, and released the fish (shown above in the picture above) that weighed in just over
8.10 pounds.

I caught another fish on the Magnum a little later that
weighed just under 5 pounds. I capped a great day of fishing on a great
body of water with one of the people in my life I always enjoy spending
time with. 

Bass Jam 163
BaitSmith Magnum shown in blue trout pattern

Baitsmith Swimbaits>