March31: Today’s dive had been planned for April 1 but since that conflicted with Easter Sunday this year, it was moved to Saturday the 31st. It was about a hour drive to Gull Lake which is a little north east of the bustling metropolis of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Gull Lake is a nice lake having a little over 2,000 acres of surface area with a maximum depth of 110 feet with a very soft bottom. Soft bottom means that if you have a 5-foot rod with you and you then poke it in the bottom you will lose sight of it before you hit firm bottom. Word to the wise is don’t drop anything cause you most likely will not find it.

The shoreline of the lake is fully developed, and is ringed with homes and cottages. Typical fish are Rainbow trout, Lake trout, Land-locked salmon, Smelt, Smallmouth bass, and Yellow perch. With the extensive number of water access property owners, and being close to Kalamazoo, its one public access (boat launch) is used a lot in the summer and there is a ton of boat traffic. This time of year there is lots of parking available and, at least this weekend, there was zero boat traffic. Besides the bathrooms were already open and being in an enclosed room out of the wind when taking off cold wet gear is a plus. Having the working electric hand warmer on the wall was a nice side feature too!

We generally dive at Ross Township Park on Gull Lake and not the boat launch area but it was not yet open for the season. The reason we most often dive at the Park is because of the sandy beach entry. In that area there are several boats, motorcycle, trampolines, wooden Indians, fishing shanties, rail road track and a host of other objects to see. During the summer weekends many dive shops hold their open water training at the park.

Though we were expecting a few more divers it might have been the sleet, stiff southerly winds, significant white caps and waves that might have soured some from coming out.

Along with shore support, which is always great to have, eight divers got in the water including one brave gal in a wetsuit. Water temp was a cool 41° and once you got below 20 feet the visibility went from around 4 ft. out to 20ish. Saw no fish today but thick mats of vegetation in the shallows.

The coldest part of the dive was on the surface, with that strong wind in your face getting into and especially out of your now very cold & wet dive gear was a colder process than expected.

We still had fun and several of us had lunch at Ned’s Restaurant afterwards.