guess i've never really tried to figure it out, or knew much about the level... i remember back in the late 90's i thought, when it got too low to put in at white earth (thinking i heard about 1803?)... was a channel about 2-3' deep in a couple places out to the main lake... tons of standing timber in the water straight across from there on the south side - was like a mine field getting the boat through there... then when the water dropped a little more we didn't dare go into white earth and we started pulling to the hook... little beaver bay was dry and you had to load and unload on the north shore into the main lake... lost a prop on a big rock there...
i remember driving on a little trail through the trees to get to the south end of gull... they had steel grates down for a ramp, and we had to back the trailer in about 150' to get a 1775 tyee to crawl up on the ramp trailer... the pickup bumper would be in the water and the tail pipe under water to load and unload...
i knew the hook well back then... 8# was about 20' out of the water, and joes bar must have been 20 acres... i don't think there was an island north of fox at that time and the main ramps were high and dry... i remember spending a lot of time around 8# flats, which were out of the water at times back then... shell island was huge and was good fishing all around it... i don't think there was even a parshal bay back then - just a small cut a few feet deep if i remember right...
i went back to the hook for the first wow event a few years ago and was totally lost... everything changed and didn't even seem like the same place...
i really hope we start getting the rain and snow again as it really effects the west side of the lake... the smelt leave and the eyes follow for the most part...
one of my worst memories of the lake is after the water started to come back up a bit... almost everyone was pulling to the hook from out west...the corps put screens out on the west side of gull... we went out early one 4th of july and came back in about noonish as there was a big storm coming... we knew it was busy, but we got off the water for a couple hours to have lunch and wait it out... we counted 450 trucks with boat trailers in the 2 parking lots that day, and we just quit counting... i remember the storm, cussing guys, a few boats abandoned and crashing up on shore, and crying women trying to back trailers in in 60+ mph winds and 6 footers... spent a couple hours backing trailers in for sobbing ladies and getting folks off the water... was quite the shit show...