When Steve Ripley went scuba diving this week for the first time in years, he was joined by his daughter – and his trusty underwater camera.
Ripley, who has lived near Ramsey Lake for most of his life, said the trip was partly about recreation, partly about finding some good spots to fish. He and his daughter are certified scuba divers, and the weather was perfect.
"It was a beautiful day down at the lake, so we threw everything in the boat and off we went," he said.
They jumped in and were getting used to their surroundings when some visitors showed up.
"We just got down there, and I was just kind of moving around and feeling like, 'OK, I can still do this,'” he said Tuesday. “We went down about 20 feet.
"I get my camera out and I'm getting ready to take a shot of my daughter. I turn it on and I look, and there's these two bass. One of them kind of turns and starts swimming right toward me. I put my camera up just as he swam toward me and I clicked the shot."
He managed to snap a photo of a four-pound bass who showed no fear of the human visitors from above.
“They don't know what you are,” Ripley said. “You're just this big thing shooting bubbles that they've never seen before. They're one of the biggest things in the lake, so they don't care.
"Especially when they're that curious, if you reach out really, really slowly, sometimes you can poke them.”
In addition to the big bass, Ripley said he saw signs that aquatic life is doing well in Ramsey, a major source of drinking water for the city.
"I'm just really glad that the fish are thriving,” he said. “There's a lot of fry, a lot of minnows swimming around, a lot of bass minnows ... The fishing is pretty good on Ramsey, if you know where to go."
