Grady95

Suggest targeting these in Oneida Lake as stated earlier. They are bottom dwellers for the most part so stay down. I have caught them jigging, but they will hit your basic walleye setup. Good Luck, Grady

There's a patch of open water near the north west end but that's it. Yes, as of today, there are 4-6 inches of good clear ice under a crust of snow pretty much everywhere else. The sleds and ATVs were out today. No reports of mishaps.

Sliderman, 1/8 leadhead with a twister in white, yellow or chartreuse is one effective combination. This weight may seem light, but this helps in being able to cast and retrieve it along the tops and sides of weed beds and edges. Also, as someone pointed out, there are some prerigged softbaits. They are called swimbaits and they are great for fishing drops and ledges. An example: the first major point on the east side of Conecus north of the public launch has a bay, a shallow and a drop. Their are some big pike on that drop. These heavy swimbaits have been effective in such a situation. Just be ready to cast some weight if you use them. You could probably take out a windshield with one of these things! Grady

C4 and a waterworthy fuse maybe. Seriously, favorite lure has to be the leadhead jig. I've caught everything from perch to tuna on the thing. Nothing against the choices of others. Everyone has their favorites and with good reason. They're all good. When I need to get it done though, it's going to be some kind of jig. How about the rest of you? What do you like most? Grady

Pete,I Bay is an interesting fishery. There are catchable populations of most game fish in there, ranging from panfish to salmonoids. The walleye fishery is a target that you can have success with if you spend the time. There are enough to go around, they behave pretty much like you'd expect them to in terms of location, times, baits etc, and yes, they can get pretty darn big. There are also many other good walleye fisheries in this area, so if this is your game, you'll be able to stay busy out there. As always, stay sharp, be safe, and best of luck to you. Grady

I can wait!

Yea, I just looked at the long range forecast Looks like some good icemaking nights are coming this week. We may get another chance out there. NE corner if I-Bay is likely to go back to ice along with the south end of Honeoye. Which of these usually gets hardened up first? This is great news. I can't wait to get back out there. BTW - Make sure you have your license on you especially on I Bay. They have been checking. Grady

Perch?

I went down on the weekend looking for perch and found pike again! Like you I was on the north side to start with. The toothy buggers took hold of all my perch presentations. I actually spent a few hours moving around the lake trying to find a place where I did not catch pike! They are up where you described. They are also down the lake around Sampson, over by Kashong, by Reeds, by Reeders Creek, by Smiths, and around Glass Factory. I am still not catching perch. Neither are some of my buds down here. Can't wait for that to finally happen. For now though, if you guys enjoy a good day of pike fishing, listen to Key Largo and go down to Seneca and have at them. Gas is over 3 bucks/gallon though and you won't need to troll to get these. You can box out pretty easily fan casting plugs. HuskeyJerks, Thundersticks, Rogues, Ripsticks; anything like that will do the job. Have fun... BTW- Thanks for the update KL. Good Luck to you and hope to see you out there some time. Grady

Hey, I'll trade you the bass for the critters! They're are a lot of schoolies in the 22"-25" range, but some larger stuff is there. If you are looking for good eating fish, these make nice table fare. You can box out in an hour if it is like what I hit into on Sunday. There are probably bass as well, but I can't get to them. Good luck...

My fingers hurt. I'm cut up from handling the toothy buggers. My boat is slimy and stinks like heck. It's northern fishing at it's best! They're just on the outsides of the weedbeds all up and down both sides of the lake right now. Spinner baits, thundersticks, soft swim baits, frenzys, or whatever you have in the box that you are willing to risk losing will work. Have fun. Take band-aids! Grady

Up there, walleyes like worms down near the bottom. Go ahead and use a jig to get them there. If you are fishing in the wind and the boat is drifting, if you have a bottom bouncer, that will help keep the bait in the strike zone. Go ask the guys in the bait shops to give you a suggestion for a good place to start. Last hour of the day and into the early evening, walleyes start to turn on and feed a lot more agressively. Make sure you are out on the water working at this time if you want to improve your odds. Walleyes can be tough fish to catch at times, but these are at least some basic ideas you can start trying for them with. I hear the bass fishing up there has been pretty good also, so maybe you can do that during the day, and then switch over to walleyes at evening. Good Luck.

Wow! You got some rockies? Congratulations! Maybe I'll go over to Canandaigua and try for them. Seneca has been ice cold for everything lately also. Yesterday, I was going to go out for a morning bass run at the north end. On the dock, there were largemouths hanging around in the shallows. Just for laughs, I threw a few soft shelled crabs out. Not on a line mind you, just tossed in to watch them feed. I stood there dumbfounded and watched as the bass stared at the crabs sinking to the bottom right in front of their noses. We're talking soft shelled crabs here. Normally those fish will jump on the dock to get those! I couldn't believe it. They never did eat them. A friend of mine was just coming in off the water (8:30 AM) after being out since sunrise looking for trout. This is a guy who NEVER goes fishless. He said he was coming in because he was so disgusted by the lockjaw. So the trout are apparently not willing to hit either. With gas at an all time high, bait costs up due to vhs, and fish so scarce, I'm guessing the cost per pound of fish has to be about $300/pound these days! Much as I love it, I may be giving it a little rest for a while until this wave of fish apathy passes. Need to straighten out my tackle and work on the boats anyway. Keep me posted. :?

Smaller fish like this sometimes don't pull the line free from the release. My guess is that you were probably pulling these fish around behind the balls for some time. Been there, done that. Good question about jigging. I have not done it, and now that you mention it, I don' really know why! I would imagine your target with that technique would be lakers. If so, it might be worth a try..

Skaneateles Lake is now VHS positive. This little fishbowl gets relatively little use as compared to the bigger, more easily accessed lakes. This is some pretty bad news. It seems almost statistically impossible that this is not in some of the others. I am based out of Seneca Lake. I can't help but look at floaters differently now, even though there has not been an announcement of the presence of VHS. There are always dead fish everywhere we go. There have been as long as any of us who fish a lot can remember. Are we supposed to start picking these up and submitting them somewhere or can we assume that this is being done? I know the kids from Hobart monitor this lake for various trends. Wonder if anyone really knows whether we can get sick from eating these fish???