so does that mean you're going to do your part and not fish during the spawn on your home lake?

Yes Chris....Thanks for asking!!

Haha. Not me. If I see em....I catch em.

Then I release them.

60-80 boats. Several hundred thousand spawning bass. I think anglers are the least impactful thing to the spawn. I think muddy water is gonna cause the water temps to stay slightly cooler, increasing incubation time. The increase in incubation time means the dinner table for perch, carp, lizards, craws, whatever, is set for a thorough meal. Is taking momma off the bed for a minute or two gonna hurt anything? Doubtful. Hell, if we rip poppa off the bed, maybe he won't eat his young.

I dont know....maybe I'll go chase butterfly's or hug a tree instead.

Luckily, Athens won't get too muddy.
Those fish will spawn just fine.

*month and a half ago or so



(Just giving you a hard time.)

I was close!

Lake Athens is still closed.
the level has dropped slightly from yesterday.
No word on when they expect to re-open.
it is higher than it was back last Spring in May and it stayed closed for several days.

Thanks for the update! I've got my fingers crossed for Sunday!

You and 200 other boats!

I'll check again this afternoon.

Just talked to Bill, our great Lake Athens Lake patrol officer, and he expects the lake to be closed to all boat traffic well into next week. This weekend is definitely out.

Probably a good thing for the fish then

Nutman, I think it closed last spring because of the dam partially breaking up on AF&G, not because of Lake Athens' water level.

As I mentioned somewhere else, I did the math back then to determine the effects of all the water draining from AF&G into Lake Athens and assuming its shoreline didn't expand (it would), it would only have raised the lake by 17" or something like that. More likely, what the engineers might have thought was that if AF&G did give away totally, the water would have stacked up like a tsunami and it might have created problems at the boat ramp since it is not far away from the smaller lake's dam.

Go figure!

I think records from last spring show a 442'+ reading maybe it touched 443' very briefly.

Today, it is 441.67 at the 11:30 reading, down as you say from just under 442' as a high this rain event.

To me? This is incredible that a lake that is only 1.67' above its conservation level, is closed.

Some more rain expected over the next day or two then sunny for a bit!

Brad

I just drove through and it didn't look too bad. The docks around the ramp are under water so that could be a hazzard