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A Lakeside Companion
Why do fish jump? Why don't lakes freeze all the way down to the bottom? Which lake plants are invasive? What are those water bugs? Is that lake healthy? Whether you fish, paddle, swim, snowshoe, ski, or just gaze upon your favorite lake, A Lakeside Companion will deepen your appreciation for the forces that shape lakes and the teeming life in and around them.
You'll discover the interconnected worlds of a the water; the sand, gravel, rocks, and muck of the bottom; the surface of the lake; the air above; and the shoreline, a belt of land incredibly rich in flora and fauna. Explained, too, are the physical, biological, and chemical processes that determine how many and what kinds of fish live in the lake, which plants grow there, the color and clarity of the water, how ice forms in winter and melts in spring, and much more. Useful advice will help you look out for your lake and advocate for its protection.
You'll discover the interconnected worlds of a the water; the sand, gravel, rocks, and muck of the bottom; the surface of the lake; the air above; and the shoreline, a belt of land incredibly rich in flora and fauna. Explained, too, are the physical, biological, and chemical processes that determine how many and what kinds of fish live in the lake, which plants grow there, the color and clarity of the water, how ice forms in winter and melts in spring, and much more. Useful advice will help you look out for your lake and advocate for its protection.
208 pages, Hardcover
Published September 11, 2018
29 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 16, 2018
This book is a perfect model for writing about the natural world and science for a layperson. Very well written and accessible.
Brought me back memories of vacationing in Wisconsin on Moon lake. Lakes are amazing.
Brought me back memories of vacationing in Wisconsin on Moon lake. Lakes are amazing.
December 5, 2021
Ted Rulseh’s book “A Lakeside Companion” is a mix of personal reflections and science. It’s filled with memories and ideas that transport the reader to their favorite lake. The author writes regular columns for the Lakeland Times in northern Wisconsin and lives on a nearby lake, so he gets his ideas from first-hand experience. Simple chores like setting up the dock in spring and putting it away in fall do more than illustrate time passing. But in addition to his personal reflections, Rulseh has researched interesting topics like how ice melts, why fish jump above the water, and other things many have wondered about.
MEMORABLE EXCERPTS:
Of course, not every year brings exactly the same amount of precipitation. And some years there is less new water to recharge the system, and the level of the water table will fall. In that year just the opposite happens. We see this in our lakes, sometimes dramatically, so extended periods of drought in years of heavy rainfall.
Scientists estimate that ground water reserves in the United States comprise at least 33,000,000,000,000 gallons about as much water as the Mississippi river has emptied into the Gulf of Mexico in the past two years. The amount of water underground is 20 to 30 times as much as an all of our nations lakes, streams, and rivers.
Most lakes stratify or form layers, in summer. As summer wears on, all kinds of materials sink from the warm surface into the cold bottom layer. Plant parts, algae, fish carcasses, dead insects, and more drift down and decompose, consuming oxygen. As a result, the oxygen in the depths can become quite depleted. Fall turnover is a restorative process a bit like opening doors and windows in a long sealed, musty cabin and letting lots of clean, fresh air course through.
As summer fades in the autumn, the surface water gradually cools, and the difference in density between the surface and deeper water decreases, so that eventually wind and wave action can mix the layers together. And that means the link, from surface to bottom, becomes infused with oxygen. This is great for all manner of lake creatures that need oxygen to make it through the winter.
You’ve surely seen fish in your lake placidly filling in place, holding at a constant depth, exerting almost no energy. This is is only possible because of an ingenious feature of fish anatomy. The bodies of fish are slightly heavier than water, which means that without some effort they would stink if they held still. It’s there a swim bladder that enables them to achieve neutral buoyancy. The swim bladder is an elongated bag that rests in the fish’s body cavity just above the innards. The fish can fill his bladder with gas, mainly nitrogen and oxygen depending on the depth where they swim.
Fish have the same five senses we do, and one that we don’t. It’s the ability to pick up vibrations in the water, by way of structures called lateral lines. One could argue with a disability isn’t really a separate sense just a kind of cross between touching and hearing. What certain is that we have nothing quite like it.
The lateral line system consists of small receptor patches in fluid filled canals on or under the skin. They contain hair cells much like those of our inner ears. And these hair cells are smaller hair like structures called cilia. When they vibrate, the energy of movement is transformed to electrical energy, which travels by way of the nervous system to an area of the brain close to where hearing is processed.
The lateral lines can be extremely sensitive. Fish in rivers for example, can detect the vibration of a person walking heavily on the bank near the waters edge. The lateral lines might also pick up vibration of a bait fish and reveal its location and travel direction so precisely that the fish can turn and grab it even before seeing it.
But then there’s seemingly random jumping, like the fish that leaps out of an uncovered aquarium and is found dead the next day on the floor. Or the fish you see jump when you’re out in a boat. One reason fish jump is to escape a predator. If you’ve seen tiny fish leaping out of the water, you can pretty well guess that some larger fish is chasing them. But that doesn’t account for the jump of, say, a mature largemouth or smallmouth bass.
I’ve seen it suggested that fish jump to get a breath of air. This is of course absurd, since fish have gills that are adapted to gather oxygen dissolved in water. They can’t breathe air. Another possible explanation is a jumping fish are themselves predators, yet another theory is that fish jump to try to feed of insects that hover near the surface. It’s not hard to imagine insects eaten by trout for this reason. But that doesn’t seem plausible for lake dwelling species. Even trout for the most part just slurp floating bugs off the surface
Winter kill is much more common in the northern latitudes. Again, shallow and weedy lakes are the most vulnerable. Although the dead fish are discovered in spring on the ice after the ice leaves, the fish actually die in late winter from suffocation. This can happen as the water warms up after ice-out. Fish may come through the winter weekend from eating less than an open water months. They become stressed is the metabolism increase and they expand substantial energy in spawning.
The ice on your lake likely never gets more than two or three feet thick, no matter how long and cold the winter, no matter how many subzero days. The reason is a property of water that’s unusual among chemical compounds. Most liquids become denser and contract as their temperature decreases, and they continue to contract until they solidify. Water on the other hand stops contracting and begins to expand as a temperature sinks below 39°F. Then, when the water turns to ice, it expands even more, becoming less dense. That is why ice floats.
As winter goes on the coldest water stays on the surface, where it’s exposed to the frigid air. Ultimately it freezes, and the ice gets thicker as cold weather persists. Now imagine what would happen if water and ice didn’t behave in these ways. Suppose that ice was denser than water. In that event, ice at 32° would sync to the bottom of the lake. Ice with and accumulate on the bottom all winter long, gradually filling up the lakes bowl. In fact, scientist say that if water behave like most liquids, lakes would freeze into blocks of ice.
MEMORABLE EXCERPTS:
Of course, not every year brings exactly the same amount of precipitation. And some years there is less new water to recharge the system, and the level of the water table will fall. In that year just the opposite happens. We see this in our lakes, sometimes dramatically, so extended periods of drought in years of heavy rainfall.
Scientists estimate that ground water reserves in the United States comprise at least 33,000,000,000,000 gallons about as much water as the Mississippi river has emptied into the Gulf of Mexico in the past two years. The amount of water underground is 20 to 30 times as much as an all of our nations lakes, streams, and rivers.
Most lakes stratify or form layers, in summer. As summer wears on, all kinds of materials sink from the warm surface into the cold bottom layer. Plant parts, algae, fish carcasses, dead insects, and more drift down and decompose, consuming oxygen. As a result, the oxygen in the depths can become quite depleted. Fall turnover is a restorative process a bit like opening doors and windows in a long sealed, musty cabin and letting lots of clean, fresh air course through.
As summer fades in the autumn, the surface water gradually cools, and the difference in density between the surface and deeper water decreases, so that eventually wind and wave action can mix the layers together. And that means the link, from surface to bottom, becomes infused with oxygen. This is great for all manner of lake creatures that need oxygen to make it through the winter.
You’ve surely seen fish in your lake placidly filling in place, holding at a constant depth, exerting almost no energy. This is is only possible because of an ingenious feature of fish anatomy. The bodies of fish are slightly heavier than water, which means that without some effort they would stink if they held still. It’s there a swim bladder that enables them to achieve neutral buoyancy. The swim bladder is an elongated bag that rests in the fish’s body cavity just above the innards. The fish can fill his bladder with gas, mainly nitrogen and oxygen depending on the depth where they swim.
Fish have the same five senses we do, and one that we don’t. It’s the ability to pick up vibrations in the water, by way of structures called lateral lines. One could argue with a disability isn’t really a separate sense just a kind of cross between touching and hearing. What certain is that we have nothing quite like it.
The lateral line system consists of small receptor patches in fluid filled canals on or under the skin. They contain hair cells much like those of our inner ears. And these hair cells are smaller hair like structures called cilia. When they vibrate, the energy of movement is transformed to electrical energy, which travels by way of the nervous system to an area of the brain close to where hearing is processed.
The lateral lines can be extremely sensitive. Fish in rivers for example, can detect the vibration of a person walking heavily on the bank near the waters edge. The lateral lines might also pick up vibration of a bait fish and reveal its location and travel direction so precisely that the fish can turn and grab it even before seeing it.
But then there’s seemingly random jumping, like the fish that leaps out of an uncovered aquarium and is found dead the next day on the floor. Or the fish you see jump when you’re out in a boat. One reason fish jump is to escape a predator. If you’ve seen tiny fish leaping out of the water, you can pretty well guess that some larger fish is chasing them. But that doesn’t account for the jump of, say, a mature largemouth or smallmouth bass.
I’ve seen it suggested that fish jump to get a breath of air. This is of course absurd, since fish have gills that are adapted to gather oxygen dissolved in water. They can’t breathe air. Another possible explanation is a jumping fish are themselves predators, yet another theory is that fish jump to try to feed of insects that hover near the surface. It’s not hard to imagine insects eaten by trout for this reason. But that doesn’t seem plausible for lake dwelling species. Even trout for the most part just slurp floating bugs off the surface
Winter kill is much more common in the northern latitudes. Again, shallow and weedy lakes are the most vulnerable. Although the dead fish are discovered in spring on the ice after the ice leaves, the fish actually die in late winter from suffocation. This can happen as the water warms up after ice-out. Fish may come through the winter weekend from eating less than an open water months. They become stressed is the metabolism increase and they expand substantial energy in spawning.
The ice on your lake likely never gets more than two or three feet thick, no matter how long and cold the winter, no matter how many subzero days. The reason is a property of water that’s unusual among chemical compounds. Most liquids become denser and contract as their temperature decreases, and they continue to contract until they solidify. Water on the other hand stops contracting and begins to expand as a temperature sinks below 39°F. Then, when the water turns to ice, it expands even more, becoming less dense. That is why ice floats.
As winter goes on the coldest water stays on the surface, where it’s exposed to the frigid air. Ultimately it freezes, and the ice gets thicker as cold weather persists. Now imagine what would happen if water and ice didn’t behave in these ways. Suppose that ice was denser than water. In that event, ice at 32° would sync to the bottom of the lake. Ice with and accumulate on the bottom all winter long, gradually filling up the lakes bowl. In fact, scientist say that if water behave like most liquids, lakes would freeze into blocks of ice.
February 23, 2021
Rather than a typical book wherein you read the chapters sequentially, this struck me more like your favorite out door savvy aunt’s answers to a series of lake related questions. The first, third, and final chapters (The Basics, Frozen, and Caring, respectively) are quite readable and I learned a great deal from them. For instance, he explained why some lakes can recover from insults faster than other due to, amongst other things, the retention time. That is how long it takes from when water enters a lake to when it exits; Lake Superior is 191 years while Lake Erie is only 2.6, with Lake Michigan in the middle at 99 years. So Erie could be expected to "flush" out pollution faster, assuming the source is stopped. The other chapters cover the plants, bugs, fish, and other creatures making up a lake’s ecosystem. They are filled with interesting facts, e.g., a pound of phosphorus (as in lawn fertilizer) can feed up to 500 pounds of algae and “minnow” refers to a rather large number of different fish ranging from shiners to carp. Anyway, I would recommend this book especially to any norther lake riparian owner, but also to anyone who sees lakes as more than a giant bathtub. But I think it’s the type you would want to own so you could refer to it as needed, rather than checking out from the library.
August 22, 2022
Rulseh offers a "living" book discussing the ecology and life of Birch Lake in Wisconsin. His writing is conversational; it's as if he is sitting on the sofa across from you, telling you about the colorful details of the habitat of lakes and his experiences at this particular lake, on which he has a home. This book could easily be used for educating 8th-12th graders whether or not your student has read "living" books before. Rulseh's tone is calming as he draws the reader into complex plant life and wildlife. Even if you don't consider yourself an outdoorsy person, I recommend this book as a quiet and lovely escape.
February 10, 2019
Well written in an easy to understand style. Very interesting and educational book.
December 22, 2024
Really good, accessible overview. The complete lack of citations, however, brings me immense pain.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews