Briar Lake

[bwtrout]

I fished on Briar Lake for the first time today. In 2004 over 6000 Rainbow were stocked.

Its max depth is 20’ so I’m assuming its spring fed. Main area of the lake is 5’ with one bowl going to 20’. Tried all depths and besides an occasional blip on the bottom, I’m assuming bullheads or suckers, we saw nothing. There was a consistent line on the graph running about 4’ under the ice and when ever we would pop a hole minnows would show up in the hole with their heads to the surface, 2” chubs, 1” bullheads, and lots of little ½” ones (possible baby chubs?)

My question is do you think that is a sign the oxygen is in the upper 4’? Would the trout be roaming right under the Ice? Seemed strange? Everyone we ran into claimed it has been dead for a month.

[Surface Tension]

I haven't fish Briar for years but when I did I fished just a couple feet under the ice. The band you saw could've been temp change or a layer of suspended particles. Briar has always been weedy but it seems like its gotten worse. Quite a few lakes had a bad winter kill last winter and I wouldn't doubt Briar was one of them. Springs don't offer any relief to fish suffocating because spring water has no oxygen.

[backcast]

A couple of us fished it yesterday (Saturday) for the first time also. We had the same thing happen, had minnows come to the surface.

Two groups were coming off as we were heading out. Nothing for them or us. Later in the day ran into a friend of mine who was there the day before and same thing, zip.

I thought it was strange for the water was really cloudy.

[I'llTakeWhatiCanGet]

I haven't been out there since shortly after the winter trout opener, but that wasn't going on at that time. The water was real murky, but we didn't see the minnows coming up. I caught about 15 rainbows on opener and they were all right under the ice, for a while fish were cruising through almost constantly. I'm kinda surprised that the fishing has been so poor out there lately, could be that most of the fish have been pulled out of there.

[Quickstrike]

I fished briar 3 or 4 times this year with every fish being hooked within 2 feet under the ice. It seems that lake gets hit pretty hard so I wouldn't be surprised if it was pretty closed to fished out for this season.