funny water

[timmo]

good morning all... i fished at chenango lake, home of the chenango lake perch derby. in norwich new york .    after i drilled a hole, at the north end of the lake. and did very little scooping of the chips. i peeked down the hole, to see how far i could see in the water. its then that i noticed some white stuff suspended in the water. not sinking and not riseing either. at first i thought someone had chummed with bread. it looks more like the shaker cheese you put on spagheti.does any one know what this is?  could it be a septic tank run over, or just the lake its self turning over? dont know what that means.i did catch perch but would not eat them till i know more about what is floating in the water no need to get sick eating one of them perch not worth itt ill find another lake now that we have the weather to make ice ive fished for over thirty years through the ice and never have i seen any thing like this before has anyone ever encountered this before ??

[kerosenecounty17]

I've never seen it here in WI, and I do a TON of sight fishing.  Did you drill several holes, and was it the same in every hole?  Maybe possible that you drilled through something that was frozen in the ice (paper or something) and the pieces were what you were seeing.

kerosene

[timmo]

i fished the lake from end to end and it the stuff was heavier at north end but it was the whole lake that was affectedit does not look like paper but like the shaker cheese or bread crumbs . its all thru the lake and most likely the fish as well. i drilled about twenty holes and could not find any clean water . what happens when a lake turns over or works ?

[missfishylicious]

maybe the dec lymed it to cut the acid rain. not sure what that would look like ,but you could email the dec and ask them. a lake turn over is usually just dead weeds that go to the bottom and then when the lake water gets cold on top it sinks and the warm water on the bottum rises bringing dead weeds and such with it.

[GEM_EYE_GUY]

LARVA ?

[FullTmeDad]

Sounds like an algae bloom. Eukaryotes algae is yellow-green, brown and probably is white because of the lack of light through the ice. It won't hurt you, but does look nasty.
FTD

[dogfish]

Once ice is on the lake turnover has taken place and you will not have another turnover untill the ice is gone in the spring.  Here is the reason.  Turnover is when all the water in the lake is the same temp.  This happens twice a year because the water colume in temporate zone lakes sratifies (arranges itself by temp layers: aka the thermocline) twice a year 1 summer stratification 2 winter stratification.  Water is an odd thing in that as it cools it becomes more dense (like most things) then it does something nothing elts does it becomes most dense at 4 deg C, then fron 4 to 0 deg C it starts to become less dense (thus ice floats).  So in the summer the warmest water is on top and then it layers itself by cooler denser temps down to the bottom.  In the winter the coldest water is on top (ie: ice) and the warmest water, that is usualy 4 deg C (most dense) is on the bottom.  So you have turnover at some point between the seasons when the water is all (or close to) the same temp.
Your limnology for the day, I did try to hold back on the $10 words best I could.

Now back to the question, this sound almost like a chemical reaction.  Could be the calcium content of the water was at a saturation point and something (possibly the cold) is making it parcipitate out?  My best guess with out seeing it myself.  Since it is through out the whole lake I doubt it is a septic prob.  Every septic tank on the lake would hace to be leaking then?