thompson lake open water spot???

[freshwater drum]

fished thompson lake in howell this afternoon. first time out there. fished right off the boat launch about 120 yds to the right of the permanent shanty sitting there. there were 3 spots between where i was and the permanent shanty that had no snow on them and there was open water blowing around in them. this was after the snow we got this morning and there were no tracks or evidence of anyone being around there. i got about 30 yds from them before i noticed them. one was about 6 feet in diameter. startled me to say the least, that was the fastest about face i've ever done, i was walking in that direction drilling holes. i was wondeing if this is normal or if anybody else has seen this. my b@ll$ weren't big enough to go closer and check it out. although we did have 10-12 inches of ice everywhere we fished. we caught a lot of dink gills and little perch, that was about it. we fished anywhere from 23 f.o.w to 6 f.o.w. if anyone has any recommendations on a lake in that area to catch some decent gills feel free to shoot me an email. (like that will happen). i'm tired of catchin bluegill smaller than the pike minnows. good luck to all and be careful.

[Michigan Mike]

That's spooky for sure Fd!
I've seen it before on other lakes and sometimes it's just springs
and other times it's been muskrats keeping small sections like that open.
Either way it's good to learn and know each lake and what to avoid and watch out for.

mike

[freshwater drum]

i've been told it's a large spring that stays open all winter long. i also heard the county sherriff uses it for training rescue missions and it's usually roped off with caution tape. it wasn't last friday!!!

[wild bill]

you used to see a lot more of them spots out there near shore. i have found some in the past the hard way. if you fish shallow during the summer you can see pipes in the water coming from the houses and this is usualy where the open spots are.

if you walk out by the island and stay easy of it we used to get decent gills in the deeper water. the far east end of the lake is shallow and called stump town. usually you can do good with tipups for pike down there.