Kevin J Legg

I stopped at Rossie to view the spawning walleyes that run up from Black Lake. They said last week they were flopping out onto the bank. There is a DEC officer there 24/7. He thought the run would be good on Monday with the warmer weather. We only saw a few with the high cold water.

Looks like you'll have a fishing partner for life. Very pretty fish.

I was thinking of trying them myself. Off a board in a chop they should work well.

I completely agree with Erskin. My wife and I have a large garden and eat an abundance of fish and game. We even purchase pork and eggs that are raised locally. I believe the fish from the lake are fine in moderation. We eat a great deal of perch, bluegill, crappie and smaller game fish caught in smaller local lakes releasing the large breeders which being older, have potentially accumulated higher levels of contaminants. My daughter, a doctor, is due with our first grandchild in August and she is being very careful with what she is consuming during her pregnancy and while nursing.

We covered a lot of ground yesterday and couldn't find the fish. Started at Port Ontario and went to Selkirk. We then made a run to Sandy Pond where we caught one small brown but we were hitting a lot of floating weeds. Picked up and ran back toward Catfish and ended up running back to Selkirk where we hit two more small browns. We decide to call it a day after a wind switch and the rain arrived. Water temps. weren't bad (up to 43.5) but Salmon River was only 39.5. Most places the water was extremely clear and the few we caught were is slightly colored water. I think some stable weather and warm rain would really help. We tried a wide variety of lures and depths with a 8-9 rod set but just could make it happen. One hit a Stinger spoon, and two hit jointed Rapala. Better fishing days are ahead and it's always a pleasure to spent a nice day on the water with good friends.

I've used the line technique on several occasions and it's worked very well with almost no pain but you do need to be able to push down on the hook to disengage the barb. Perhaps it was to deep to allow you to do this. The worst is when one barb is in you and another in a thrashing fish. Wishing you a rapid recovery!

Nice fish and photos thanks for the informative post.

There we only three trailers when we launched but a full parking lot when we left.

47 degree colored water sounds great.

Great Game Syracuse. Perfect way to complete my day!

Fished the lake this morning. 5.3 and 8.13 lb. browns, 7.0 lb.laker and 8.3 lb. steelhead. Good first trip of the year to Ontario with Gary and Garet Plantz. Water 39-41 degrees and clear. Couldn't get a spoon to fire. Never found a concentration of fish.

The divers were able to get it out yesterday.

A former student of mine and four friends of his put a John Deere gator through the ice on LOTI today. Fortunately they are all ok. The warm temperatures and high winds have obviously done a number on the ice so be very careful!

Pete, Nice to see your kids are taking to the water.

Although we had a slow morning on a local Indian River Lake I did manage to catch a couple small Tiger Muskies (20+24") Circle hooks made it easy to release them.

Not a great year but we still had some memorable times. Anyway, it's about the time spent together in the blind more than the numbers!

We've all made mistakes in our water fowling and the important thing is we learn valuable lessons. We saw you had limited gear and were new to the game so decided to not hassle you. We had a couple more days to hunt and had killed a few birds already. I'm just glad to know you realize what you did was wrong and unsafe and you learn from it. Glad you got a bird and good luck in your pursuit of big lake hunting. Hopefully you'll still be at it long after I'm forced to hang up my decoys.

Thanks for the great photos.

I made a run to the western end of the lake for the last of the duck season. There were quite a few hunters out in the unseasonably warm weather and not an over abundance of ducks. We managed to get six birds on Friday and five on Saturday. We had a couple young guys move in much to close to us (125 yards away in our line of fire) on Friday that basically put an end to our hunt. They were in a small boat with an electric motor and should not have even been on the lake. Hopefully they will practice better hunting ethics in the future.

Finally got out after the waterfowl and was pleasantly surprised by the number of mallards and geese in the upper river although the number of divers seems quite low. Manage to get 4 mallards and a goose yesterday morning but the birds are very wary and difficult to fool.

After limiting out this morning I took some photos of birds landing and walking in the decoys. Many geese around and flocks worked pretty well. They were still landing in the field when we left.

My dad passed away nearly 29 years ago on opening day after having a heart attack while hunting. They found him laying next to the 4 pointer he had taken. Thanks for sharing your story. It brought back many happy days in the field with my dad and it is a great tribute to all dads that were and are great mentors to their sons and others!

Nice looking birds.

Blockhead, Check out the Columbus Day Youth Hunt Poll on the Big Game/ Small Game forum and you'll see that my prediction on conflicting opinions on youth hunts was correct. Perhaps I'm not so ignorant after all. My wife participated in a women's pheasant hunt in St Lawrence County on Saturday. 50 birds we released on State Land for that hunt. Guess I need to adjust to new way of doing things and hunt the thicker stuffer after the youth and women hunts to pick up all the missed birds.

Our early duck season has ended . Now on to muzzle load riffle deer hunting for a couple weeks till goose and duck opens again.