locating the spring

[sturgman]

My cottage sit's on a really small spring fed lake that has no water coming in or out. At times its a crapshoot catching a pickeral or smallie, but I always thought I could find more fish if i could only locate the springs on the lake. Wouldnt water gushin from the bottom of the lake attract fish?

Is there anyway to locate them? Cheers!!

[oldschool]

As long as it's a small lake you could wander around with a temperature probe. The inflow should be colder than the surrounding waters. If it is a small stream this could be problematic as the water would blend very quickly. You would probably want the sensor at the end of a line so that it could be submersed for best analysis.

 

My father found a spring feeding a small lake near his home when the lake water in the area of the spring did not freeze in the winter. We actually found it as we walked along the area in very cold weather. There was only a small area but it was enough of an indication for us to come back and check it in nicer weather.

 

Roy

[Nemo]

Swim it. When I swim our bay say 5 acres I can tell where the cold water enters very easily.

 

It also corresponds pretty closely to the steeper hills on the shoreline eg the water flows down the hill and enters the lake under water. Our bay is sand or clay on the bottom. Sand = Cold.

[solopaddler]

Early mornings when the lake is calm a heavy fog/mist will sometimes hover over the water where a spring enters the lake. Your best bet is probably a temperature probe that you can drop down though...

[OhioFisherman]

No water coming out? It might be a spring to small to detect? Most I have seen had some sort of overflow. Look for the cleanest water, spring water is usually filtered thru sand or rocks.

[danc]

Locating springs is very important for the type of fishing that I do. They're not the easiest things to locate. The best results that I had was when I flew over a still frozen lake in April. All the open water pockets among the expanse of ice proved to be springs. Over 100 of them. I videotaped the lake and later marked the open pockets on a map. I actually sold a copy of the video for $200.00. That's how valuable springs can be, depending on what species you are after. But obviously not everyone has this option. So here's a few other things that I've learned over the years. When I was a kid I used to go snorkeling along the shores of a mid sized lake near Thunder Bay. I found one obvious spring as I swam over it one day. Of course the water was much colder than the surrounding water, and there was always about a dozen Brook Trout swimming in a small circle inside the cold water area. But what was obvious if you weren't in the water was that the rocks over the spring were covered in some type of algae that seemed to thrive in cold water. The algae grew directly on top of the spring and nowhere else. If you see algae covered rocks in a specific area in an otherwise warm water lake, it could mean that there's a spring there. The second thing that I learned was from a native guide while fishing the Hudson Bay area for Brook Trout. Once again it was the vegetation that told us where the springs were, this time in fast flowing rivers. This time it was "spider reeds" as he called them. These reeds protruded high above the waters surface, so they were easy to spot. My guide told me to cast towards the reeds and it certainly paid off. Bottom line, the type of vegetation can tell you where the springs are, but there's a few things to learn before you go looking.

[Clampet]

Swim it. When I swim our bay..

 

Yeah that's pretty much what I do too!

[Clampet]

Hey Sturgman.. we talkin' Le Lac Clair, proche de Field?

[sturgman]

bay weee es tee!! Thanks for the help guys