Crosby Pits on 8-11-12 and 8-12-12

[DetectorGuy]

I dove 4 pits this weekend and viz wasn't the greatest. Northwest Divers had a 3 day treasure dive with hidden clips in Portsmouth, Louise, and Mangan. There were 57 registered divers for this treasure dive. There were lots of other dive shops doing check-out dives in some of the other easy-access sites, so I locked in the hubs on the 'Remote Access Dive Vehicle' and was on a mission to find access to the less popular pits. The ignition on my Jeep got wet in one hole, and after 10 minutes of drying the plug/coil wires, it started back up. Needless to say my green Jeep is now red clay covered. I took a few pictures and a lot of video of bass, but I only won a pair of 3 mil dive gloves from the treasure dive.

Portsmouth had the best viz of the 4 with 15' viz down to 75' and the temp was 50 degrees at 75'. The first thermocline was at 20' in the 4 pits I dove. I found the 8' diameter concrete culvert East of the Cuyuna Country Campground at about 40'. I didn't have my light with so I didn't go in it, but I heard it is about 60' long and daylights out at 57' deep on the East side of a rock berm. This is one of the few that are solid concrete.

Alstead South had about 12' of viz down to 30' and worse below that. I dove the beaver lodge there and video'd fish for a while.

Hopkins (on the south side) had about 12' viz down to 20' and only 2' of viz from 20' down to 40'. I didn't go any deeper in this pit. I saw a rope swing and I thought this is where the G-men were a month ago (especially after I saw a bra hanging in the rope swing tree). I didn't see the ATV, but after looking at Hydro's video today, I was at the wrong pit.

With the viz so poor at Hopkins, I walked across the road and dove Menomin #1. The viz here was 10'  down to 25' and then only 5' below that. Nothing real great to see on this North side of Menomin #1 except for some massive pilings and misc steel pieces.

I did motor the Jeep around to the North side of Joan Mine and found a nice path down to the water in the NW corner where the creek leads from Joan into Menomin lake. The road on the South side of Joan is all blocked off so I didn't go down that one. I heard the 1 ton dually truck in Joan Mine is on the middle of the South side at about 40' and I would like to see that someday. There is a very destinct mud line at the West end of Joan where the red mud from the huge puddles in the main road runs off and into Joan Mine. There was a fairly large oil slick on the surface of Joan Mine along the North shore and more towards the East end of the North side. I wonder if there is another vehicle recently dropped in here...???