Cougar Siting

Some documentation that it was not very far away.  Folks in Boulder Junction have also caught it on trail cams.

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/outdoors/130031863.html

 

Cougar Siting – Catfish Lake Road

Many Northwoods residents have made claims to seeing a large wild cat.  The DNR has reluctantly admitted that there might be some truth.  The Northwoods has many bobcat but these cats are pretty small.  They are an integral part of the Northwoods ecosystem as they are third largest predator of deer (coyotes are 1 and wolves are 2).  Lois Derrick’s relatives spotted the cougar 2 weeks ago near Catfish Lake Road.

In other news, there is about 16″ of ice and there is an ice fishing tournament at Braywood this weekend.  I hope all can make it!  It should be fun.

It has been a warm winter but we still have lots of snow and ice.  The trails are very good except where the sun can hit them during the day.  However, we got 2″ yesterday and expect another 2″ to 4″ Thursday.  A big storm is bearing down on us for Sunday so the trails should be fabulous!!

Ice On

Catfish Lake actually froze up November 21.  However, we had such a warm Thanksgiving week that it opened up again!  Warm weather just cannot stick around long this time of year and the lake refroze on November 28.  We then got a lot of snow on December 3 (6″).  The quality of ice could remain poor because of the insulating quality of snow.  That will affect ice fishing ans snowmobiling for some time.  Not the best of news for winter enthusiasts.

Ice Status

The lake water temperature has dipped below 36 degrees. The air temperature the last few mornings has been in the mid teens. Ice has formed on the shorelines but the wind has been too strong to freeze up the lake. I suspect that we will be iced up over the weekend. The smaller lakes have frozen up.

Eagle River Chain of Lakes Association meeting

Here is the report from Catfish Lake Association, Lois Derrick.

Last night I attended the annual presentation by Onterra who does the surveys & management of the milfoil treatments on our Chain. Next year will be the 5th year that we have received DNR grants to help with the cost of the treatment plus the 25% the municipalities contribute. The DNR grant pays 50%. Eddie Heath from Onterra gave the report. When they were hired in 2007, they found 278 acres of milfoil on the chain. They only found 93 acres in 2011 & have identified 38 acres to be treated in 2012. Catfish Lake alone had 71.4 acres treated in 2010, 11.8 acres in 2011 & they have marked only 6.2 acres for 2012. No milfoil was found on two of the lakes. Ideally, what happens is that the native weeds take over where the milfoil was & crowds it out. That happend on the west end of our lake after we aggressively treated the milfoil in 2002 & 2004. We were reminded that we should not become too complacent but must be vigilant so the milfoil doesn’t flourish again. I want to thank all of you who have faithfully paid your dues & donated to the milfoil control. We only received dues from 132 members this year from a potential of 200 members & 300 total property owners. Just want to remind you that I send out the Catfish newsletter in April with the request for payment of dues. ERCLA sends newsletters in Jan. & mid summer requesting dues for their organization. They do good work for our Chain. They sponsor the interns who have been monitoring the boats at the boat landings, they had boat safety cards printed last year to be handed out at marinas & resorts, they arranged for trash pickup by Eagle Waste at the boat landings & they will be instrumental in pursuing a Lake District for the Chain. So you might want to support them as well. We had our first significant snowfall a couple of days ago. I am one of the few property owners who will spend the winter on Catfish Lake.

Catfish Lake Update – November 9, 2011

The first significant snowfall of the season.  Eagle River only has gotten about 4″ of heavy wet snow.  Rhinelander, 26 miles to the south has already gotten 11″.  The lakes are still open (even small lakes are still open).  Temperatures in the 40′s are expected this weekend so the snow won’t be around long.

Catfish Lake Turnover

It appears that turnover is over.  Water clarity is back to 3-4 feet.

For those of you unfamiliar with turnover, it happens when the surface water temperature cools off to below the temperature of the deeper water.  This causes the warmer water to rise to the surface and forces the cooler water deepr.  This phenomena is known as turnover and the fish have a tendency to become idle during this time.  Water clarity is greatly reduced during this time as well.