I am continually amazed at wildlife in the Bear Lake Valley.  This is a picture taken on 3-29-13 of an antelope feeding in the field west of the Chevron in Garden City.  Over the last thirty years I have watched antelope slowly migrate from the Bear River to the west,  Ten years ago I first saw them in the hills east of Bear Lake.  I then saw them cresting the top of Laketown Canyon.  Last year there a small bunch in the fields north of Laketown.  And now, this one on the other side of the valley.  If they were deer you might not be surprised but one thing that is different about antelope.  They can not jump fences,  They have to go under or around them.  There are a lot of fences between Laketown and Garden City.  Welcome.

Ice Breakers

Bear Lake State Park Marina looking west, March 22 2013

If you were to look at this picture you might think that Spring was coming to the lake.  The open water is actually the result of the water circulators around the moored sailboats to keep ice from forming. 

Boat Ramp

It is obvious that you can now launch your boat and go out on the lake as long as it is an  ICEBREAKER.

It is a beautiful spring day outside at Bear Lake.  Everyone knows that spring begins next week and they can't wait for the snow to leave and the green to appear.  This will begin everywhere around us, but not in the Bear Lake Valley.  We have, as close as I can estimate, 24,393,600 tons of ice to melt.  We are an icebox which will affect our temperatures and it is going to take some time to turn the ice into water.  This is especially true considering the lake is covered with snow that reflects heat.  In fact it is still making ice.

Ice pushed up around the shoreline

                                       

If you travel along the shoreline you will see ice being pushed up on shore.  This is not due to the wind or changing lake elevations but expansion.  This action is actually very important to the littoral zone of the lake.  After years of low water, dead trees and Pharagmites in addition to sandbars and rocks are now encased in ice which is now moving them up the shore.  

Rocks and sand on their way back up the beach

                                        

With that much ice mass nothing can resist it.  So when it melts, I hope  in April, things will look different   At this lake elevation a lot of strange things can still happen once the icebergs start banging around.  When breakup get closer I will talk about what happens then.

Goodbye trees

  

I hope you are all getting used to seeing white.  That will be the predominate color here for the next while.  When I look out over the pristine white lake, sometimes I see fly specks (ice fishermen) standing shuffling their feet, sitting on a bucket or out of sight in a tent.  If fishing is slow there isn't a lot to talk about but sometimes the conversation turns to the "springs" in the lake.  They all watch out for them.  There are some off the marina, the Rockpile, RV point and the east side.

I remember years ago Eldon Robinson and I ventured out to Popcorn springs off Fish Haven.  It had been well known for years, about a half mile off shore.  When we got out there, there was a circle of open water about 25 feet across.  Eldon decided to see how deep it was and ventured to the edge with his depth finder only to promptly fall in.  He got out but refused to go to shore because the fishing was good.

The USGS did a study a some years ago on Bear Lake and one of the things they were interested in was what kind of water was coming out of the springs.  We had mapped a lot of them so they sent divers down to collect water samples.  Much to our surprise, it was determined that they weren't springs at all but methane gas seeps coming up from the faults on the lake bottom.  As the gas bubbled out at the bottom, the bubbles kept getting larger due to reduced pressure as they reached the surface.  This disturbed the water column and brought warm water up, thus keeping a hole open.

                                                                Cisco Beach Vent  

The gas vents along the east side, especially off First Point, smell of rotten egg gas (hydrogen sulfide).  The most prominent one close to shore is just south of the Cisco Beach Boat ramp (picture).  Now there are springs in the lake, some identified when it was low but I guess the water is not that different in temperature and have low dissolved gases.  There are two methane seeps in the marina and I know there is no water because when they excavated the enlarged marina it was dry.  The lake is always full of surprises so just don't fall in a methane gas seep.

Bear Lake Turkeys

It is a tough winter so far for the flocks of Garden City turkeys.  These Merriam turkeys are an exotic species to the area.  I had never seen a turkey in the wild until I went to the Black Hills in South Dakota.  Through my adult life I read about turkeys, how smart they are and the effort of western states to introduce them for hunting.  Things started off slowly but within the last five years they have taken off (no pun intended).  As far as I can tell they were never stocked by a State agency in Bear Lake.  I am sure some moved over the mountains from Mink Creek/Riverdale area.  I personally believe the turkeys around Garden City originated when Ben Negus was raising them and they got away and headed up to Bridgerland, so you can blame or praise him.  Anyway they have expanded all along the west side of the Lake, in the hills around Garden City and up Cottonwood Canyon in Round Valley.  Wildlife Resources decided they were a huntable population and included this area in the Cache Unit.

I love to watch and hear turkeys.  Their domestic cousins are dumber than dirt and that is what most people think all turkeys are like.  The wild ones are smart and a real challenge to hunt, which I have done many times.  You just can't go out walking around and flush and shoot them like other birds.  Turkeys have incredible sight and can see anything that is out of place.  Once alarmed, they can run 20 mph or fly long distances.  For their size and weight, they are incredible fliers.  When they flush, they are in the air instantly, dodging trees or landing at the tops of the highest ones.

 

A few of us are turkey feeders.  Since Bear Lake doesn't  have nuts and berries like their native range has, they have become dependent on humans during bad winters.  The snow or predators don't seem to bother them so they head to the nearest feed yard (not many of those around anymore), open area, roadside or feeder to bum food.  I feed birds year around.  That is what I do instead of having a horse although it costs about the same.  My feeders are on the deck and the turkeys showed up a few years ago feeding on spilled bird seed.  Now they flying in and land on the rail and peck and shake the feeder until they have all the seed.  Fights erupt between them with the "Jakes" (year old males), hens and toms constantly trying to rise in the "pecking order".  They run off all the other birds including magpies.  It is great sport to watch them start changing appearance and colors for spring breeding as they come in at the same time every morning.  There is one thing I can be sure of however.  They won't be around during the spring turkey hunt. They are smarter than that.....     

Bear Lake is totally ice covered.  Normal winter weather has returned.  Lots of people think that it has been extra cold this winter but this has been typical in the past.  In 2007 the lake froze around the same time and it was the last time anglers were able to dip Bonneville cisco through the ice.  The lake froze again in February 2008 an stayed frozen until May.

Now is the time.  If you have never have dip netted cisco before or if it has been years, do it through the ice.  You don't get wet, the fish aren't spooky and even the kids can do it.  Just find a hole off Cisco Beach, bring or borrow a cisco net and start dippin'.  It is best first thing in the morning but during the peak of the run they spawn all day.  You can even put a lure without hooks down the hole and jig it to attract fish that you can then dip.  This is the best technique for kids.  At times, you can catch a lot of fishing in a hurry so don't get carried away throwing fish out on the ice or you may receive a visit from the friendly game warden who has been watching you through a spotting scope up on the road.  Once the fish are on the ice you can't put them back.  You have to have a current fishing license which allows you to catch 30 fish but remember, you can only catch your fish, not Mom's who sitting in the vehicle or the 18 month old baby.  The same friendly warden will give you a ticket for the over limit of fish "you" take out of the hole which usually cost at least a $1 apiece in fines.

  

Don't take more fish than you want.  Many people feel that it is their responsibility to catch limits and then find out it is a pain in the butt to clean 100 cisco.  When they get tired of cleaning (usually around 20) they think that they will save the rest for bait.  Well, most people never use them and they go out to the cats or in the garbage in the spring.  What a terrible fate for these beautiful endemic fish.  Leave what you don't need in the lake.  

So have fun, take pictures and don't step into any holes that have a thin sheet of ice on them.  After you get some cisco go into deeper water or off shore and fish for whitefish and trout.  It is the best time of the year and you don't need a boat.  Good luck,

ICE?????

Everyone is wondering if Bear Lake is frozen.  Well as of 5:00 pm there was still a large area of open water off Cisco Beach and North Eden.

The fog is in the valley today but I suspect it will freeze by the end of the weekend.  I bet the cisco are spawning below the ice now.