Black water reveals a bleak white truth
The amazingly good weather brought some time to do something I had not expected to do for at least another two months – we went boating tonight.
No, we didn’t take the Thunder Bay out for the year’s maiden voyage on Loon Lake, but we took the old Starcraft out that belongs to my dad. As a youth, he and his two younger brothers earned the money to buy the boat by delivering newspapers for what seemed to them like an eternity. Dad brought the boat over to live at our house last year, figuring it would make for some fun times on our pond. He was right! Tonight we pushed it over, climbed in and took a spin around our heart-shaped pond.
As we pushed off, however, my attention was diverted to something big and white in the water. A closer look and the prodding of the oar revealed something disgusting – a really big dead fish. At that moment, Tony and I looked at each other and realized there were lots of white things in the water. Big white things, small and medium-sized white things. Dead fish everywhere.
As we rowed around the pond, the carnage was shocking. Our pond was once the proud home of some seriously large fish – the kind that would have been trophies if caught…but now relegated to big white lumps. All appeared to have been dead several weeks, maybe longer considering the temperature of the water.
We have a theory that this winter that was so brutal above water, was maybe more brutal below water. Was it the temperature? Did the ice freeze to deeply? Was it a lack of oxygen? So many unanswered questions.
As the boat skimmed across the black water, I felt a sense of dread and loneliness that there maybe not a thing yet alive in the depths of our pond – save the algae.
Comments
did you see any live fish? I wonder if your pond froze completely through?
Posted by: drew zartman | March 7, 2009 12:01 PM
Just a comment about the dead fish. We have over 100 dead fish in our pond right now. Some of our huge catfish and a lot of our blue gill have gone belly-up. We called the DNR and also spoke with a local Vet who told us that when snow covers the ice for a long period of time, the sunlight cannot reach the plants below. Without the plants, there is no oxygen for the fish. The fish then suffocate. We've lived here several years now and this is the first year this has happened. Hope this helps.
Posted by: Chris Schilling | March 9, 2009 06:17 PM
Jen, sorry about the loss of the fish. It is very serious when you think of the pond/lake as a complete, living, entity, dependent on no one; a special life colony, year round. And now, as in human life, death has come to the colony who lives in and under the water. Sympathy for the loss of life. God's creatures all.
Posted by: Pat Heinbaugh | March 10, 2009 11:24 PM