Where is best fresh water visibility in Midwest

[gary masonick]

Looking for best Midwest Diving conditions within 8-10 hour drive from Chicago. I have dove Lake Michigan out of Milwaukee, WI. 30-40 feet, Lake Geneva ok down to 30 feet then gets poor. Does anyone know of any good places with interesting things to see and great visibility as far as Midwest cold water diving?

[steve2281]

Welcome to the board, Gary. I'm not really sure what would be considered the best vis in the midwest; I just haven't tried that many different places. I'm sure some other folks on the board may have an opinion. Enjoy the board. steve

[M&P+4]

30-40 foot is as good as it gets to my knowledge. You can go north to Lake Superior and get that kind of viz but I haven't been there yet either....it would be pushing the 8 hour drive for you. I am about 5 hours from Chicago and Duluth is another 3 or so. There are wrecks to hit within an hour of there along both the north and south shores. I hope to get my first dive along the north shore on the 24th.



Otherwise there is Lake Wazee that is about 4 hours from Chicago...20-30 foot visibility but not much to see except for rocks down deep, an under water forest, the obligatory toilet and some fish cribs in the shallows (my personal favorite).



There are some other lakes in WI that I have heard about as well but I'm not sure about the visibility...Lake Owen, Round Lake, Devils Lake. Maybe some others will know how good the viz is.



Good Luck!



Lyle

[Atlaua]

Looking for best Midwest Diving conditions within 8-10 hour drive from Chicago. I have dove Lake Michigan out of Milwaukee, WI. 30-40 feet, Lake Geneva ok down to 30 feet then gets poor. Does anyone know of any good places with interesting things to see and great visibility as far as Midwest cold water diving?


Hello Gary. Welcome to the board.

Good vis in the midwest?

There is a simple formula for that: the colder the water, the greater the vis!

The big lakes can get some good vis because of the Zebra's filtering the alge but other than that warm water = more alge and worse vis. If you get far enough down, most sites have pretty good vis because it's cold and dark and alge doesn't survive there.

To answer your question though, if you want good vis and don't want to go caving, I'd sugest Bonne Terre. It's an hour south of STL (well within the 8-10 hour range). The prices and rules there are kinda restrictive but the vis is around 100-200'.

James

[DeepDiverBob]

I was at Haigh Quarry a few months ago, and on the deep side where the classes stayed away from, the vis was at least 30 foot, maybe better.

Penny Royal in Kentucky had 40-50 foot vis when I was there last month, again, on the deep side.

I have been to Table Rock Lake 2 or 3 times this year, and it is terrible between 15 and 30 foot, but under that, it opened up pretty clear, probably around 40 foot. The bad thing is, that real heavy layer between 15 and 30 blocks out a lot of the sunlight too, so I would still recommend a light or three. They had some rain the past few days, and the vis has gone down a little bit lately.

And as long as you dont want to go deep, Cerulean usually has about 20-30 foot vis. The whole quarry there averages about 25 to 30 foot.

I hope that helps, and hope you enjoy your time on the board.

[crpntr133]

Blue Springs can get to 30' viz. I was out last weekend and it was down to about 15' With all the rain they have had the water is up and viz is down.
Falling Rock, aka Joe's Quarry, in KY had pretty good viz earlier in the year. They just sunk another boat so there is even more to see.

[CaptnDale]

Looking for best Midwest Diving conditions within 8-10 hour drive from Chicago. I have dove Lake Michigan out of Milwaukee, WI. 30-40 feet, Lake Geneva ok down to 30 feet then gets poor. Does anyone know of any good places with interesting things to see and great visibility as far as Midwest cold water diving?

The Great Lakes represent the best visibility in the area. You hit the Milwaukee area on a slightly below average day. While the vis is down to only about 15 to 20 feet right now, that is due to the relatively unsettled conditions at present. The average over this last summer has been about 40 to 50 feet. In the extremes, I have seen 100 feet and I have seen 3 feet.