Manitowoc County Lakes Association

by Hanna Edelglass

Have you ever wondered how sloshing around, ankle deep in water, on top of a sheet of ice, helps you to get to know your lake? We were drilling holes into the ice, angling for plants and small organisms, finding where the fish are and why they are there and each answer only brings more questions. Such as, why are these plants here? And what is their effect on the water, on fishing, on boating and swimming, property values, even the local economy? We explore and work to find out how all this relates to what flows into this lake, which can create positive or negative change, upsetting or healing its natural balance. This is the purpose of our scientific endeavor. I learnt some of that on the ice with Manitowoc County’s Cedar Lake residents and Paul Skawinski (an Aquatic Biologist and Outreach Specialist for UW-Extension) in February of this year. And yes, I wore warm, waterproof boots.

UPDATED APRIL 21, 2017. Bruce Riesterer, Resource Conservationist at the Manitowoc County Soil and Water Conservation Department, has created a new, interactive, watershed mapping tool. Click here to use it to view the watershed for your lake.

Private and public lake watersheds are displayed, with a choice of base maps that includes terrain, street maps, satellite and others.

The new mapping shows the watershed land area and boundaries quite clearly. Because the water quality of each lake is affected by things happening in this area, this new level of precision is quite helpful! The boundaries are now more accurate because of new lidar-generated elevation data recently made available.

The image shown here is a great example of the new level of detail this tool provides, as evidenced by the watershed boundaries for Tuma Lake. The light blue area is the watershed according to previous maps. The bright green is the watershed as drawn by the new mapping tool.

On the actual mapping tool website (http://manitowoc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=c38b2149d3b947eb9bd120f5480c4a1e) the user can zoom in to show an extreme level of detail, as shown in the second image.

Bruce asks that people take a look at the watershed for their lake(s) and let him know immediately if they see something that doesn’t seem accurate (e.g., placement of culverts). You can contact him at bruceriesterer@co.manitowoc.wi.us

Paul Skawinski, the AIS Citizen Monitoring Coordinator for the state will be coming to Cedar Lake on May 30, 2017, to talk about his program.  At that time, he will also be distributing AIS monitoring kits to any lake that is interested in having one.  He will only give one kit per lake due to […]

Get your license and Go Wild!

Anglers are reminded that the new license year began April 1 for waters or species with a continuous open season. Licenses and stamps for the 2017 year are on sale now through GoWild.Wi.Gov. Fees for the 2017 license year remain the same as last year.

Anglers fishing Lake Michigan and all other Wisconsin boundary waters are again reminded they must possess a paper copy of their license to be legal. The paper printouts are required so law enforcement officials in the surrounding states can verify compliance with license and stamp regulations.

More information about length and bag limits as well as places to fish can be found on the DNR website.

An Event Report By MCLA Member Hanna Edelglass March 7, 2017—On Friday, the 17th of February, Paul Skawinski, Coordinator of the Wisconsin Citizen Lake Monitoring Network, UW Extension Lakes Program University of Wisconsin; Stevens Point, hosted an all day Citizen Lake Monitoring Network meeting with volunteers, sponsored in conjunction with Sanitary District #1, Cedar Lake. The […]