From the Prior Lake Association
When fishing with live bait such as minnows, do not release them into the lake, winter or summer, when you have finished fishing.

The main problem is that the live bait can have a variety of fungi, diseases and internal and external worms that can attack our native fish. Another exotic species is the zebra mussel, which can be transferred in this manner. Even though we have a small population of zebra mussels in Prior Lake, let’s not help them expand in Prior Lake or any other lake.

From the Prior Lake Association
Prior Lake got some unwanted publicity with an article in the Minneapolis paper this past week about the trash being left on the ice this winter. Research indicates that trash hogs are 10 percent or less of the total population.

From the Prior Lake Association
The staff at Prior Lake Bait and Tackle Shop is reporting 13 to 15 inches of ice on Prior Lake. This exceeds the minimum safe-ice thickness for supporting cars (12 inches). Always be cautious out on the ice.

Over the period of 1996-2006 in Minnesota, 63 people drowned after breaking through thin, unsafe ice. Since 1976, more than 200 Minnesotans have died after falling through the ice.

The Prior Lake American is seeking a community columnist to write regular feature columns in 2010.

Guidelines:
* Candidates must be residents of Prior Lake or Credit River or Spring Lake townships.
* No previous writing experience is necessary, but extra consideration will be given to those with particularly sharp writing skills and a distinctive writing voice.
* The American will not accept submissions from those writing on behalf of a business or industry. We are looking for “slice-of-life” columnists with entertaining, engaging stories to tell.

The upper basin of Prior Lake has a surface area of 386 acres. The maximum and mean depths of the upper basinLakesmarts are 50 feet and 10 feet, respectively.

There are reasons why October and November are the deadliest months of the year for boaters. This is according Lakesmartsto the U.S. Coast Guard’s 2008 recreational boating statistics.

By Stan Tekiela
We are moving into the doldrums of summer. Gone are the fast-paced days of spring when the pre-dawns are filled with hundreds of singing birds and the cool nights are filled with a million calling frogs.

At this time of year, most of the birds are wrapping up nesting. The fevered pitch of spring-time nesting is over for another year. It’s time for the adult birds and their young to have a few weeks of relative calm and prosperity before moving into the next phase of avian life.

Vandal alert: At about 3:30 p.m. June 15, a not-so-new purple ski boat with four girls and a boy in their late teensLakesmarts hit a solar lighted channel buoy (by the point with the Quonset hut) so hard they probably marked their boat.