Once known as the sixth Great Lake, this hotspot was an angler's paradise. BCQ was deep and had beautiful blue water the color of Lake Michigan. I don't know how they got there, but it even had zebra mussels. :shock: I caught my PB largemouth and smallmouth there. When I moved out west here the place had a thick tree and brush lined shoreline. The vegetation was removed later and the shores were all stone, gravel and dirt like many large quarry lakes. I was first introduced to it by someone who had access to it and a key to the large gate for the access road and a gang of us did some bang-up night fishing. Typical that Darth Wader outfished us all.
The fish were large and plentiful and HUNGRY. Largemouth, smallmouth, yellows, whites, crappies, perch, gills, flatheads and channelcats were the usual suspects there. The catfish were monstrous, the kind you see in photos where guys are holding them vertically and their whiskers are up by your face and their tails down by your ankles. I hooked one so large once, I couldn't get it through my 6" ice hole and had to unhook it and watch it swim away.
Sadly, when making a run to pick up some beautiful hardwood for some projects yesterday, I saw the lake was gone. Maybe there's a puddle there somewhere but no water could not be seen from the north end or the the southwest entrance. An obnoxious bumper to bumper caravan of semi-dumptrucks were bringing in loads of rock and stone and dirt and filling in what's left of it. Seriously, dozens of trucks were in sight at any given moment.
I knew there was an agreement to partially fill it in to preserve the unique alkaline water of the calciferous and historic Bluff City Fen that is across the road from it, but I didn't know they were going to eliminate it. Another one gone, another one gone. Another one bites the dust. Hey! Fill in this one too. Another one bites the dust... :evil: :evil:
The fish were large and plentiful and HUNGRY. Largemouth, smallmouth, yellows, whites, crappies, perch, gills, flatheads and channelcats were the usual suspects there. The catfish were monstrous, the kind you see in photos where guys are holding them vertically and their whiskers are up by your face and their tails down by your ankles. I hooked one so large once, I couldn't get it through my 6" ice hole and had to unhook it and watch it swim away.
Sadly, when making a run to pick up some beautiful hardwood for some projects yesterday, I saw the lake was gone. Maybe there's a puddle there somewhere but no water could not be seen from the north end or the the southwest entrance. An obnoxious bumper to bumper caravan of semi-dumptrucks were bringing in loads of rock and stone and dirt and filling in what's left of it. Seriously, dozens of trucks were in sight at any given moment.
I knew there was an agreement to partially fill it in to preserve the unique alkaline water of the calciferous and historic Bluff City Fen that is across the road from it, but I didn't know they were going to eliminate it. Another one gone, another one gone. Another one bites the dust. Hey! Fill in this one too. Another one bites the dust... :evil: :evil: