220 acre reservoir in Eastern Nebraska, opened to public in 2018.

 

Water visibility has consistently been less than 2 feet.

 

This spring I was shocked to see my lures 8-10 feet down(!) 

 

Note: bald eagles built a nest next to this lake...heard rumor the lake got designated as "protected," they had to change drainage so run-off from surrounding neighborhoods cannot feed in to the lake. Could this be the reasons for better water clarity?

drainage could be part of it, though it depends on what was coming with the drainage.  If it is suburban drainage like we get up here in a few places, that would be yards, sidewalks, and road runoff.  You get a lot more nutrients and salts in that than you do silt and dirt.  As a result we get algae blooms that life off of the yard fertilizers that wash in.

 

How was your spring for rainfall this year and what size of creeks feed it?  Any new grass in the upper ends that could help trap silt?  We have a lot of 100-300 acre natural lakes around here that get a lot of grass.  Not huge streams feeding them and the streams are generally rocky mountain streams.  As a result, what silt and dirt does come in generally is held back by the grass in the area so we get a lot of clear water up here.