This page in the website is intended to provide a place for informal reports and comments of events and other activity at Peppermill Lake. If you have questions, contact one of he Peppermill Lake District Board.
October 14: The fall quarterly meeting (November 5) has a very full agenda (click here), including setting up a time for a meeting of the Lake Advisory Group. This is the group that oversees the Lake Management Plan and will review a number of possible actions that were included when the plan was originally devised. Lake district citizens should try and attend this quarterly lake district meeting as well as the Lake Advisory Group meeting when that is scheduled. These are the times and places to have input into the processes that determine how we will manage and protect our lake..
September 3: We held our 4th Annual Budget Hearing and Annual Meeting at 9 AM with 30 district voters in attendance (up from 24 last year). The budget (click here) and taxes (click here) were approved as proposed, with two changes: (1) The Emergency Fund was renamed The Contingency Fund and (2) Expenditures from the newly renamed Contingency Fund were to be expended only with a majority vote of the district board at a regular or special meeting. The Audit Committee reported everything to be in good shape (report letter-download) and the Lake Advisory Group (overseeing development of the Lake Management Plan) announced that the DNR had given full approval to the Lake Management Plan (letter from Buzz Sorge here). An outline of The Aquatic Plant Committee report is available as well (click here).
September 2: We toured the lake today to evaluate its condition prior to the annual meeting. The east bay bay and areas west to Olson's point (see map for lake place names), are relatively free from chara mounds. The Southeast Bay and the South inlet (with the small island) were still relatively free from milfoil (northern and Eurasian), but would benefit from another harvesting pass in the next few weeks. From Landgraf's Inlet and further west to the West Bay, there were a fair number of chara mounds, evidence that chara was rising up from the bottom. Some property owners have reported that the mounds are creating some problems with navigation.
In August 17: We toured the lake today to examine the results of the Mid-August plant harvesting that was completed yesterday. Many of the mounds of chara were gone (only one small mound was seen near Albert’s Point** and a few, but many fewer in the West Bay). The fairly dense milfoil (Northern, but also some Eurasian) around the south shore from Olson’s Point**,including the South Inlet** (with the small island) and throughout the Southeast Bay** was removed quite effectively. Channels were opened up based upon the DNR approved harvesting map and lily pad beds were trimmed as expected, but preserved. There are some floating plants, which is unavoidable when harvesting and the contractor is not expected to capture all of these. On some lakes, property owners make it a practice to remove floating cut plants from their property and other areas on the lake.

Take a look at the lake and let the board know your impressions and if you would like to see some changes to the harvesting plan, let us know that as well. You know of course that the areas and acreages harvested must be approved by the DNR each year.

** To aid in describing the lake, some bays, coves, inlets, peninsulas and points have been given names. Click here to see a map with those names.
 
August 14, 2005: Alex Perez's son caught a five pound bass last evening and we have a digital photo of that fish. He and Lisa Perez indicated that over the last two years, the size and numbers of bass they have caught have increased substantially from three years ago. This is consistent with comments of others (i.e., Al Olson) this year. Some others believe (Joey Klitzke) that bass fishing has declined, but perhaps he is referring to bass fishing 5-10 years ago, when it may have been better.
 

August 13, 2005: Two times in the last week members of the district board inspected the lake in preparation for the plant harvesting to be started on Friday, August 12. On Monday, August 8, Deb Konkel was contacted and after a second inspection on Friday (August 12),,based upon her suggestions, the harvesting map was revised. A copy of this revised map was provided to the harvesting contractor, Frank Knaus and to Deb Konkel.

Basically the changes in harvesting included the following (changes in addition to the harvesting plan approved with the original permit): (1) Removal of mounds of dying chara at a number of sites, particularly in the channel and in the west end, but some other areas as well, and (2) harvesting of nearshore mixed stands of Eurasian watermilfoil and northern milfoil at several sites, particularly in the small southeast bay, the south central bay (with the small island) and central peninsula.

It should be emphasized that the removal of the chara mounds is not intended to impact the living chara, but as a way to ease boat passage and as a bonus to remove biomass from the lake (always a good thing).

Several of the board members were quite amazed at the fact that the extent of chara spread in the east bay and the channel was not at all as extensive as reported by some. Moreover there was evidence of extensive bass spawning habitat throughout the lake.

 

July 30, 2005: Several comments have been received to be included in the discussion at the special meeting tomorrow. Rich Magnani and Alan Olson cannot attend but both report that in their observation bass spawning and bass density has not gone down this year and Al Olson suggests that it is higher than in the last few years. Al Olson said in his e-mail: "

  • There is no fast fix. The fishing so far this year has been better than in several years past. We saw more bass beds this year than in several years."

Rich Magnani made a similar comment:

  • We have seen the normal amount of bass and bluegill spawn beds. We can't say if it's more or less; but they are there. The bass seem to make a spawn bed even if it's in the Chara. Most spawn beds are with 1'-2' of the shore in about 1' of water. ...We have owned our property since 1979 and have seen many changes on the conditions of the lake, some have been good, some bad. The overall appearance of the lake is good. ...We feel the Lake District Board is doing a commendable job in dealing with whatever problems that have arisen on Peppermill Lake.

Len Zelaski also is unable to attend, but sent some interesting quotations that came from a fish survey report in 2002. In general the quotes he has selected support the idea that we have too many plants in the lake and that the plant density has reduced fish sizes and numbers. That report is avaialble at this website, if you want to see the full story - Click here
 
July 29: Perhaps we mispoke when it was stated earlier that the attempt to call a special meeting by sending a petition to Bob Cropp failed. We did not hear from Bob and assumed that the 17+ required petitions (10% of eligible district voters) did not materialize. We would like to hear if our impression was incorrect and we apologize for not contacting him.
 

July 10, 2005: Over the last month, several letters have been sent to a select group of Peppermill Lake Owners (not to the board or individuals who have been owners for a while), conveying a considerable degree of confusion regarding the lake and current lake management efforts. There were particular misunderstandings of why chara treatment was rejected some years ago, how the lake management plan was developed, the new role of Adams County Lakes Program and how the Lakes Management Plan is intended to function.

While the attempt to call a meeting by sending a petition to Bob Cropp apparently failed, The Board decided to call a special meeting on July 31 anyway to get everyone up to speed. As you should have heard, it will be held at 9:30 am at Boondocks on Jordan Lake.

\This meeting is particularly aimed at new members of our lake community and those who have not kept up with board efforts, to provide them with a better understanding regarding the lake district, the lake management plan and related issues. Old timers are urged to attend an give their input as well. Everyone who is concerned about the lake should make this a priority!
 

June 23, 2005: Cliff Schmidt, the aquatic plant harvesting contractor completed his early summer harvest today. He was able, at our request (and with the approval of the DNR - Deb Konkel) to harvest lily pads (for navigation and fish edges for predation) as well as those small areas of Eurasian watermilfoil as approved by our Lake Management Plan. In addition, he removed many of the offending mounds of dying chara, but not the valuable, living chara that keeps the water clearer and reduces the spread of Eurasian watermilfoil.

Cliff noted that he saw a number of bass and also many bass spawning beds (now largely abandoned because bass spawning is over or in use by Bluegills) around the lake and also made the comment that in his experience on a number of lakes, bass have little difficulty in moving the chara aside to produce spawning beds.

Cliff will return in the next weeks to chemically treat a small acreage of Eurasian watermilfoil and then again in September of harvest both Eurasian watermilfoil and any dying chara that is mounded at that time.