Question for all the Divers

[Sculpin]

Recently there was a newspaper article about the possibility of Lake Trout in Winni that are 30 to 50 lb fish, some 4 ft in length. Can any of you divers confirm this story? What is the biggest fish you have seen in Winni?
In advance, Thank you for your honest responses.

[Winnipesaukee Divers]

Tout is one of those fish you never see when you’re diving. A diver makes so much noise down there they can hear or sense us a half a mile a way and they’re gone. With all the junk I have hanging on my dive gear, I remind myself of a one-man band marching down the street…. There’s absolutely nothing stealthy about me in the water.

Every once in a while I come along an area that has been disturbed and I surmise it must have been a tout that I spooked…. Or at least that is what I keep telling myself to keep from getting spooked. Since the roar of my air bubbles passing by is just about deafening and the viability is 5 to 10 feet on average, there is little to focus on so your mind is allowed to wander from thoughts to thoughts. The slightest movement caught out the corner of your eye can spook even the most season veteran diver.

So, what kind of fish do I really see down there??? Mostly Bass, Sunfish, a few perch (sometimes a lard school of them) and if you’re lucky an eel from time to time but they are nocturnal so they have been disturbed. Last summer when I was diving real early one day at the town docks in Wolfeboro, I pulling myself through the deep milfoil and grabbed on to a Pike. Well, I want to tell you…. I don’t know who screamed louder, the fish or me…. I guess we both though we were going to die. This fish had to be a good 30” long; it took a long time to calm myself down after that encounter.

Professional diving regulators come with an air volume control on it. Its main use is for the diver to feed more air to himself in panic situations. It’s called the three Rs, which is relax, recover and regain control. It also can be used to conserve air as well, but that’s the leading case hypersensitivity, which leads to panic attacks.

[dpg]

50 pounds is one big, no huge fish! Is there anything in the lake that big? I know if I ever caught one I'd be heading home for new shorts!!!

[csuhockey3]

A pickerel or pike? I here both sides that pike do and do not exist in winni. Still, I would freak seeing a pickerel! All I have seen diving is bass, pearch (yellow/white), horned pout, sunfish. Never any Salmon/Trout.

Every now and then I will throw a crayfish to a happy bass and make a new friend. Do that once and they won't leave you alone!

--CSUhockey3

[Winnipesaukee Divers]

Actually, I don't really don't know... Unless they have their nametags on them, I can't tell them apart and even if they did I don't think I could read it. When we dive the blue waters of the tropics it fun to try to identify the marine life and check them off a scorecard as we go along. However when we're diving in the lake there is so little life down there our thoughts turn to other interests, like artifacts. When we do happen on to a large creatures I'm always taken by surprise and startled. Even the fish are startled and in a split second they're gone. I've interacted or watched from a distance, many marine creatures on the bottom, but not for long, bottom time is very precious and I'm there on a mission and need to get to the task at hand.

I'm a treasure hunter and I'm looking for artifacts from a bygone era. I have explored more of the bottom of the lake than anyone else. However I'm constantly amazed that I can dive an area over and over and the very next dive in the same spot find something that is very rare or valuable. People are constantly asking me to find things for them and most usually I do. I get kick out the fact it's almost never where they think it is. Like Fat Lazy Less' motor... Where he thought it was (in 60' of water) had us dressing like we were voyaging into the artic sea, only to be directly under our boat in 10'.... I never did get my free meal from him.... I'll have to harass him again this summer.

[Rattlesnake Gal]

Do you have any photos to share? I am so curious what it is like down there.

[Winnipesaukee Divers]

As I said before, I'm a bottom dweller; I'm looking for artifacts. That means: I need to stay on the bottom and unlike most divers who strive for neutral buoyancy, I intentionally over weight myself so I stay on the bottom while I explore with my hands in the muck. A camera would end up dragging in the mud, rocks and junk all the time. Also the visibility is at best 30' and most often is 5'-10' everything is dark green and gray down there. To get any kind of recognizable image you'd need high power fill-in lights which would add to even more things to drag along, then comes the tribity issue (little particle of debris that is in the water column), the lights would have to be staged far enough from the lens so you light the subject, not the particles or it would look like it was taken in a snow storm.

I have done allot of underwater photography, but that was mostly in the ocean and done for competition when I was member of the New England Aquarium Dive Club. I have given up that part of the sport, sold my equipment and moved on to less demanding and more satisfying dive related activities. Now days I find just trying to fix things underwater (servicing moorings) and exploring the depths of Lake Winnipesaukee looking for those forgotten bits and pieces of the past very rewarding.

Fellow forum poster Grant would probably have some shots of him and his buddies exploring the lake, perhaps he could post some of them for you.

If you’re interested in trying the sport I recommend contacting Dive Winnipesaukee Corp. in Wolfeboro at 603-569-8080. I just got a flyer from them announcing the new spring classes’ schedule. They also have an introductory splash dive where you can try it out (in a controlled environment) to see if it right for you.

BTW: there is no connection between them and me, except good friends and where I do all my shopping.

[Grant]

I read that same article about the reported 50+ pound laker. There are some big ones out there, but 50 pounds is off the chart!

Personally, I've never seen a trout while beneath the surface of Winnipesaukee. By the time I usually get to diving the Lake, the water is warmer and they are pretty deep -- deeper than I usually go in the Lake. As WD said, lots of bass, sunfish, the occasional eel or large sucker, and -- yes -- plentiful rock bass on the wreck of "Lady of the Lake" in Gilford (also the home of an eel that you can see on most dives).

Down here in PA, one of our local dive sites has a healthy population of large golden rainbow trout (not palominos, but quite similar), and you can often see them at depths of 50+ feet where the water is always in low 50s. This PA lake has very good visibility at depths up to 100+ feet, due in large part to an abundance of zebra mussels (not something we want to encourange in Winnipesaukee).

[Grant]

Also -- I second that emotion from WD regarding treasure hunting. While I've only done about ten different locations (some multiple times), it's amazing how much old stuff you can find down there. It usually requires more "feeling" than "looking," but the array of artifacts is astounding -- and return trips to the same sites always yields more.

And I second his endorsement of Dive Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro. Great operation. Check them out if you want to try it!

[csuhockey3]

I have never found treasure, just something funny. When I was probably 9 years old or so, I dropped my plastic kayak paddle a few hundred yards from shore. Afew years ago (about 12 years later), I found it. There it was, standing upright on the bottom, perfectly clean, no alge or anything. It was so long forgotten, I got a kick out of it.

--CSUhockey3

[Winnipesaukee Divers]

Cliff my dive instructor and good diving buddy, said, "I like diving with you. You swim right over all the good stuff and never even see it". He always had old bottles and good stuff when we came up and I had nothing. Then one day as I dropped off the back of my boat at it's mooring to do a recon dive. I had a twisted strap that was particularly uncomfortable so I tried to fix it before I hit the bottom. I got it undone, but was closing in on the bottom to fast to stop. "Yuck" I did a perfect face plant into about 2 feet of mud, what could be worse? I put my hand out to right myself and struck something. I grab it and rose up out the bottom and tried to identify what I had found. When I got into clear water I saw something gleaming at me. What I had found was a silver snuffbox with 24 k gold inlaid initials "GHB", what a find, I put it in the pocket of my BC and continued on with the dive. It was at the point I realized what Cliff meant. All the treasure are hidden and all you have to do is, look... If you can't see with your eyes then your fingers are the next best things. By the time I returned to the boat I had the silver snuffbox, a gold pocket watch with fob and more old bottles than I could carry. That was the beginning of my treasure hunting… I was hooked. Today, I have hundreds of antique artifacts including: watches, rings, bracelets and coins. Not to mention all the bottles old boat parts.

Did you know there has been civilization on the lake for 350 years and for the 200 it was considered the dump. That was where you took your trash out on the ice in the winter and come spring it was gone. Time has taken it toll and now all that is left is the good stuff. Think about all the items that were lost or just thrown into the lake over that same period if time and is still being deposited today. It's still there you just have to look for it...

Remember what Ansel Adams once said when he was asked how he became the world’s foremost photographer…. “Even a blind chicken can find feed if it pecks at the ground long enough”.

[Grant]

Mmmmmmmmm....bottles........my favorite.

Just remembered a funny find. We were bobbing along, and saw what appeared to be an abandoned scuba cylinder. "Yikes!" I thought, "Wonder what happened here?" Went over, dusted it off and lifted it, and turned out to be an old fire extinguisher canister -- and it was an old one, because it had brass decoration and the company's name embossed on the front. The decorative stuff fell off.

Last year, we found a rather ornate tea cup at one site (along with some really nice old decorative antique bottles). Another buddy team on the dive came up with an ornate pitcher that was obviously from the same set as our little cup.

On another day of diving, I found (at two or three sites) four different "antique" soda bottles -- ranging from a 50s-era Mountain Dew to an older Pepsi and another Canada Dry -- all embossed. Not as old as the bottles I like to find, but very cool -- and odd that that day's haul consisted mainly of soda bottles.

[Winnipesaukee Divers]

After re-reading some of my posts, they're awful... Must be something wrong with "s" key on my new keyboard.... Ya, like you'd believe that one... I take full credit for the spelling and punctuation eras. I sure am glad my wife, the spelling cop, doesn't read this forum; there'd be red ink marks and big D+ on my screen for sure.

Sorry, I'll try to do better...

[csuhockey3]

That's okey, eye kant spel eyther. Me an spel chek are goode freinds.

--CSUhockey3

[RI Swamp Yankee]

Originally Posted by Winnipesaukee Divers

After re-reading some of my posts, they're awful... Must be something wrong with "s" key on my new keyboard.

Didn't notice any errors, must be something wrong with my eyes WD I thought your posts were great. I would not want to dive but loved your descriptions of your experiences diving The Lake.

[meredith necker]

Hate to think that the fifties era are antique, but I suppose. . .I know you are right about the lake being used as a dump especially for island people. Long ago it was just too hard to take things all the way to the dump and people didn't have power boats to help transport stuff, they had to rent one with a barge. At least there are very few "dumps" behind houses on the islands.

[Jonnyross]

I have a well stocked tackle box thanks to the many lures I find around rocks and stuck to underwater trees, stumps and weeds. I also have a few decorations on my garage wall, scary looking pieces of destroyed lower units and props picked up at various shallow rocks in Paugus and the Witches. Other than lots of old bottles like everyone else, I did find a 5 dollar bill once in the sand while snorkeling at the grave yard in Paugus!

[jrc]

That's pretty scary, I found three $1 bills on the bottom there while wading. It was one of those cool days last summer, no other boats in sight. I always look down at sandbars now.