Dean lake?

[fishTankin]

anyone here any reports of Dean lake in the rockford/ buffalo area...tried last year...not a dam thing but a 9 inch perch. no one was catching a darn thing out there. did it have a winterkill? or is the lake starting to come alive again? funny i heard an aeration system was suppose to be in that lake...according to a fishing book...however when asking the locals they laughed and said what (explicit word) aeration system...just curious. use to be a good crappie lake. if you don't want to post on here please message me. -thank you.

[BartmanMN]

Dean had an aerator last year.

[fishTankin]

catch anything...because that lake aint big....drilled 20 holes...nothing....even watched the other dozen people out there nothing...just wondering if it come back because i know it had a winter kill 2 years ago.

[fishersofmen]

Dean has had an aeration system since 2002. They haven't needed to use it since 2010. I don't fish out there much because of the lack of structure its basically a bowl.

[fishTankin]

aeration or not question is....anyone catching anything out there...or is it still a dead bowl! or has the bowl filled with food and all it needs is a spoon which i shall supply haha.

[The Dogger]

Fished it this week. Full of 4" bass and 4" bluegills. Gonna be a few years...

[fishTankin]

thanks for the update...i figured as much a shame all those crappies died out give it 5 years it'll be back than.

[th64]

Not sure why people think a lake can rebound from a winterkill after only a couple of years-I think you need at least 5-even with the fast growth after a kill

[1eyeReD]

Lake has very tiny panfish and no other species that'll interest you.

[searching4slabs]

Stopped out for a little bit today. Couldnt find any decent panfish

[mrklean]

Drove by today saw 1 house out there the O2 levels die?

[fishersofmen]

It has aeration system. Not sure if they are running it this year or not I haven't fished out there in a while.

[RuddyDuck]

I know it didn't die off last year, I caught some fish this past summer out there.

Here are the DO reports for this year, surprised it is that low, hasn't been too bad of a winter. Guess it started early. According the the DNR webbysite, the aerator was started on 1/16. Guess the last reading is a month old too!

Lake (DOW#)

D E P T H

1' 3' 5' 10' 15' 20' 25'

Dean (86-041)

12/4/14 17.9 15.9 15.1 1.3 1.8

12/30/14 19.7 6.2 4.8 0.6 0.7

1/14/15 4.3 3.2 2.9 1.0 0.4

* all DO measurements are in ppm.

* most game species can survive DO levels down to 2 ppm.

* Lakes with aeration systems running: Dean (1/16/15), Crawford (1/21/15)

Lakes open to Liberalized fishing: none

[jigginjim]

I think they started the aerator late. Would like to see what DO levels are now. Even if they done a week ago.

[Bob spice]

The lake was also fished really hard in 2011. I used to go out there then and did really good for that lake on sunfish and crappies also did really good that fall before ice fishing. Then everyone and there moms and dads and grandparents went out there and you could not find a place to park if you did not want to walk to the access from the Rockford township hall that was in January of 2012. Then then the next year I went back out there and did not caught anything out there. So no the lake did not freeze out people just fished all the fish out of the lake when I mean there was a lot of people there had to be 100+ people out there in that little lake every weekend in 2011-2012 that little lake can’t support that many people in a small amount of time. It sucks but that’s how lake around here in Wright county are once the word gets out about the lake find a new lake to fish. That’s just like I live on Dutch lake in Howard lake Mn know a guy at my old job said u bought a house on Dutch that used to be a good lake for crappies when I was in elementary school back in the day my dad used to pick me up every day and we would go out there all winter long. I ask him how many people where out there and he said about 50 ish people all the time he was out there well that being said they fished this lake out also the so we have to wait sometime for these lakes to come back to normal and I know this post was from 2014 and it’s 2021 that’s 7 years but it takes longer than 7 years to come back because of the northern in the lake we need to get these northern out of the lake for the crappies and sunfish to get big again.