Bigfoot

We think of alewives as baitfish, but alewives think of walleye fry as baitfish. Walleye fry don't have a snowballs chance in you know where of surviving in a deep water lake like Owasco or Cayuga. So even if the few walleye in Cayuga were able to reproduce, it would be extremely unlikely that any of their offspring would grow to maturity. History tells us that the introduction of the alewife into Owasco lead to elimination of the walleye population.

The effort to eradicate the hydilla is going well. The current bumper crop of lampreys is the result of high lake levels that allowed the spawning lampreys to bypass the fishway . NYSDEC is working on the paperwork to treat the inlet with lampricide this Summer.(90% of the lampreys spawn in the inlet). The sturgeon that were stocked about 20 years ago should be reaching sexual maturity-they will be checking for spawning activity. No mention of walleye on Cayuga. Lake trout stocking has been adjusted downward on both Cayuga and Owasco. They don't feel that stocking more rainbows would necessarily result a better rainbow population.

The meeting was quite informative and time well spent, if there is anyway that you can attend Wednesday's meeting you should make the effort to attend. Flyrod2, many thanks for getting this organized!!!!

Important Reminder: these meetings are this week.

Weather permitting, DEC plans on shocking Naples Creek this Thursday, March 21st.

We trolled for 10 hours on Saturday and 8 on Sunday. On Saturday we took 17 lakers and 2 rainbows. Best laker was 8lbs. 14oz- eventual second place fish. Our best rainbow was 4-6, not even close to making the board. Very tough to catch any laker over 6lbs. on this lake. Almost all of the lake is barren of lakers, the exception being the North end where 95% of the fish are. The lakers that are there are mostly in less than 100FOW where jiggers can find them and perhaps lead them into thinking there are a lot of fish, when in fact they are fishing over almost ALL OF THEM. I doubt there are 20% of the fish in this lake that there were 10 years ago. Sunday we took 2 walleyes and 7 lakers. Walleyes weighed 6-4 and 3-14 which took first and second in the derby (only 4 eyes were weighed in all weekend). The winning derby fish (as I recall) Lakers: 12-6, 8-14, 7-14 Rainbows: 8-10, 7-13, 7-4 Walleye: 6-4, 3-14, 3-12 Northern: 6-4 (I believe only one was caught) SmallMouth: low was 4-1, don't know the bigger ones Browns: ? Oddly, our 8-14 laker was taken in mid lake at a depth of 45ft over 160FOW- out of temp. We took the walleyes by mistake, we were trying for browns. It was really funny, everyone was pumping us for info at the awards ceremony, like we were walleye experts (they were taken 50down trolling stingers). The winning laker was taken on a white spin doctor and blue boy fly. The fish had a huge head and no body. It probably weighed the best part of 20lbs at some time, didn't look like it had eaten much in the last six months. Hope this helps.

I fished a club derby there last Sunday. I found fish (including lakers) in the top 25 feet, everything else was down at least 100 feet, with a lot of fish at 110ft. Very odd to be fishing top and bottom and nothing in between. Last weekends weather really scrambled the fish. Before the thunderstorm on Friday night, the wind had been out of the South. Saturday it was brisk, out of the North. Sunday it was back out of the South, so bait wasn't really set up much and the fish were scattered. The 13 boats in the club derby weighed in 35 lakers (biggest 9.6lbs.), 3 rainbows, and 2 browns (one weighed 6-3). Winning string was 25-2 lbs. I finished a distant forth. I'd be more specific, but I'm also fishing the South Shore tournament there this weekend.

The boats you saw on Sunday were the Finger Lakes Trollers Association crews. 14 boats participated. Joe Matwiejow had the winning one man limit, 3 browns, 2 rainbows, 22-6 lbs. Vince Kadlec had the largest lake trout, 10-8 lbs. Jim Stewart had the largest brown trout, 7-10 lbs. Joe Matwiejow had the largest rainbow, 5-15 lbs. Fishing was tough, but it was a fantastic day to be on the water!! Avon Anglers had their event on Saturday.