by Emily Hilts So far this summer, I’ve either stayed below the surface of Mendota’s waters or perched on top of the lake in a boat. Which means, of course, that I’ve been missing big pieces of the overall puzzle of this aquatic ecosystem. To fill in some of the gaps, it was time to …
Once again, the batter is coming out in the kitchens of restaurants across Wisconsin and folks are preparing to cap off another work week with the time-honored ritual of eating fried fish – happy Fish Fry Day everyone! Today’s special: black crappie. As any angler knows, May and June are good months for crappie fishing …
This summer, UW-Madison undergrad, Emily Hilts, will be exploring Lake Mendota and the other Yahara lakes and writing a running diary of sorts detailing what she finds. Stay tuned for more great posts from her about the history and ecology of the lake, as well as closer looks at the animals and plants that call …
We interrupt this “Fish Fry Day” to bring you breaking news. Or, well, not news, but a timely example of the challenges urban water bodies like Madison’s lakes face on a daily basis. On his way in to work this rainy morning, CFL graduate student (and “David Buoy‘s handler”), Luke WInslow, snapped a few pictures …
Forgive the late post here, but your trusty blog author has been out and about in the Rocky Mountain front range for the past few days. But, never fear, it’s still Friday here in the Mountain Standard Time Zone and that means it’s still the day that Wisconsin offers up its fabulous fish fry dinners …
Following up on our posts of Lake Mendota freezing while Monona flirted with open water, Ted Bier, the Long-Term Ecological Research team’s senior research specialist, sent in this photo. It shows Ted a few winters back drilling a hole through twenty inches of ice on Lake Monona, while open water laps at the edge in …
Over here at the CFL, all the talk has been about the ice covering Lake Mendota. That’s all well and good, but it’s diverted attention from something happening on the other side of the isthmus – Lake Monona is refusing to freeze. UPDATE: Matt Schwei reports that, ow that the temps have moved to being …
UPDATE: Due to the awesome amount of interest this post has generated, we thought we’d share last year’s more in-depth look at the late freeze AND a post on flu season and Lake Wingra to inject a bit more science into the proceedings! For the post you were linked to, read on: This Monday, I …
As fall gives in to winter, we thought we’d hold the long cold season off a bit more with a tale from open water days and the warming months of spring… A number of years ago, CFL senior research technician, Ted Bier, got a call from a friend who had just biked in to campus …
If you head down to the shore of Lake Mendota today, you’ll notice you can see right down to the bottom. In fact, the current Secchi reading is seven meters, meaning you can get a clear view of Lake Mendota’s depths more than 20 feet down. At first glance, it might seem that there’s just …