Sk8man

Good points Lucky 13. A few years ago on cayuga we were walking out and encountered a pressure ridge about half way out to the middle and while we were debating crossing it the thing gave way with a whole bunch of snowmobilers and four wheeler guys out on the other side of it. They had no way to get back to shore as the ice had separated out quite aways. They had to pack their stuff up and motor to the Seeneca Falls area to get back off the ice.Sure would have been a very long walk if you didn't have a machine. Even open water fishing during thecold weather can be dangerous and unpredictable. Admiral Byrd and I once fished out of Watkins in his Penn Yan around this time of year trolling for salmon and everthing was fine while going out but at the end when we were returning to the launch huge icebergs were flowing out of Catherines Creek big enough to sink the boat and we were lucky enough to navigate around them to get back to the dock. Just something to think about....

Looking back on things it may have been better if I had sent my info in a PM to Dick as I know many other folks on here have a very different take on things including friends who own these firearms and I certainly respect their opinions or views which differ from my own. Best to let this one go here considering the intense emotional feelings and complexities attached to the issues involved.

There are however a number of guys out right now on Conesus....won't last long

We've been fishing there for weeks now and even in the real cold weather the mouth of the Keuka Outlet at Indian Pines was gradually becoming open water along the edge of the park at the south forcing folks to go further and further west nearly each time out. The outlet itself has been open water throughout the season with visible strong current operating and with runoff from the water on the ice it is now stronger adding pull from underneath to the existing ice shelf. As with a lot of the popular places the ice can be much thicker out beyond the shoreline but not safe getting out to it. Over the years I've seen all sorts of things tried along the shore (e.g. boards etc.) with mixed success but I have come to the conclusion it is absolutely not worth it taking the chance under these marginal (at best) conditions. It can be a recipe for disaster and nearly every year you see folks going through on the news at various places. It can be hard to admit that the season is over (as we are struggling with right now) but the integrity of the ice has been severely compromised and is it worth taking a chance with your life rather than just getting prepared for the next type of fishing coming up? I put my shelter back down cellar yesterday and rigged up the ultralights

Since I made the statement about the folks controlling the wealth I'll answer your comment: It has to do with the fact that the huge disparity of wealth in our country means that there are more and more people who don't have any and they are becoming more and more desperate in trying to survive and this places all sorts of extreme stresses on our society emotionally and otherwise (e.g. violence and crime). Those 10 percent and the big businesses don't in fact pay most of the taxes proportionately - they have cadres of lawyers and accountants that they pay big money to keep it that way. We the middle class "suckers" are the ones paying the largest proportion of our money to the government.

I'm a firm believer in the second ammendment, and I used to be an avid hunter. I still shoot at targets whenever I can. Like Dave, I experienced the same thing in school back then and the range was in the basement of the junior high school. In the military I was issued an M-16 (1st ones that came out) at age 18 and the first thing the range sergeant said to us was "This is not a hunting rifle it is a weapon and it is used to kill people not animals" I earned an expert ribbon for every weapon that we had available. I also gained a healthy respect for what these weapons do during the foillowing years. With all of this said I have strongly felt since that time that there is no place in civilian society for these highly lethal weapons. I know there are many here who feel that this is just one more instance of erosion of our constitutional rights suggesting that these weapons shouldn't be in civilian hands, and I am well aware of the differences between full auto and semi auto firearms and what actually coinstitutes an "assault weapon" but when 19 yr olds have open unrestricted access to things with multiple high capacity magazines something has to change....it should start with parents securing their firearms properly because there is no reason on Earth that a middle school child should be carrying a handgun in their backpack either as recently happened. Even in the military our arms were stored in an arms room and not permitted in the residential barracks .There are also the obvious mental health issues going undetected and/or unchecked, and the lack of effective facilities for treatment allegedly for bugetary reasons, the failure of neighbors or others detecting potential problems to report them to authorities in a timely fashion, the constant bombardment in the media, TV movies, and video games of extreme violence with segments of our culture seeming to thrive on it.Young people are allowed to spend copious amounts of time viewing the stuff without any supervision or any restrictions. Then you have the drug scene entering into things and the large scale gang influences replacing the traditional family contact and support of teens.The media also plas an important role as they give all kinds of attention to the perpetrators and constantly recite counts of victims etc. giving "copycats" the idea that they can "one up" the count and be "famous". What I am saying here is that this issue of school shootings is only a part of what is wrong in our society and it is much too late to think that controlling guns is an answer to it Our culture itself is "self-destructing" and you can see it in the lack of respect for the elderly, faulty childcare, the opiate crisis, children and teens having no respect for authority such as teachers or law enforcement officers, way too much leisure time for teens and too much money available with little to no responsibilities, parents spending time in bars or at the golf club giving kids money to occupy themselves, and the explosion of gang life to replace the parenting that should have been going on in our society. A cardinal sign is also that 10 percent of the people in our country control most of the wealth and the numbers are increasing. Sorry for the rant....but there have been 219 of these senseless shootings since 2013 and18 already this year....these aren't temporary or isolated problems and everyone (e..g. government) seems to always ask "why" instead of actually acting to change things to stop this stuff. Unfortunately, they need armed guards in schools and metal detectors and bulletproof monitored access points. No longer should it be acceptable to say we don't have the money....take it from other areas, and actively go after all the fraud and fake medicare billing etc. and use some of that money.

Things have changed radically over the past few years especially between the use of cellphones and the Internet and the recent explosion of fishing interest and technology.improvements. The sharing of information about trolling and other open lake situations where fish especially trout and salmon have an opportunity to even the playing field a little by having open access to a wide ranging territory is one thing, but when you compress schools of "schooling" fish and/or those spawing or gathering prespaawn in tightly congested areas the sport becomes something less than sport and when you factor in folks that don't care about the environment or the sustainability of a fishery, serious problems arise and that is where we are at in many places now. Some people actually believe that these schooling fish are unlimited in quantity, can be harvested days after day in huge numbers from the same spots without it having any impact of fishing whatsoever; nothing could be further from the truth. As in trib fishing spot burning can occur and does occur with great frequency these days and these resources are slow to rebound despite what these folks may believe. To a point fisheries (as well as some animal populations) when put under intense harvesting pressure may rebound by producing more offspring but when under multiple pressures such as those occuring in some of the Finger Lakes like Seneca and Canandaigua among others are not able to tolerate or sustain themselves without some sort of reprieve. It used to be that very few people open water fished from boats for them during the winter or even late Fall (most hunting) and not all that many people ice fished because they didn't have all the portable equipment we now have among other things. These changes are taking their toll and it is just a matter of time before the canary in the coal mine croaks. Some so called fishermen also take multiple limits (which are already too generous for perch and panfish), take panfish and perch the size that could be placed in a goldfish bowl, and in some cases leave undersized fish on the ice looking for bigger ones. The handwriting is on the wall and it isn't hieroglyphics.....it is clearly readable.

Dave - The sleds can sometimes be quite expensive to make it worthwhile compared with just getting a new shelter and when the model is old they may no longer make or offer the sled itself for sale and the size is not standardized from model to model. Usually the worn areas are at or near the front corners of the sled which makes repairs difficult or next to impossible. Rivets etc. installed on the bottom of the sled cut into the snow and ice making the sled very hard to pull. To compound things nothing seems to adhere to that type of plastic or stand up tothe use given it... flexseal wears right off, other products might appear to fix it but then crack or peel off after the first time out as they don't fully bond with that plastic the sleds are made from. One of the things that might work but I haven't seen tried is some of that black plastic type of driveway crack fixer sealer (comes in caulking tube) if used both inside and outside of the hole. It is very hard and durable on driveways and seems to adhere well just not sure how it would do with that damned sled plastic

There will probably be a LOT more company out there now....there are lots of good reasons for being tight lipped with that type of fishing.

In the past I've had security tell me that parking at the college was only for faculty, staff and students so seems as though it is still "iffy"

Nice going Mike

WTG Luke. Textbooks can be great for learning but there is no replacement for the hands on experience with things like that.

camper -you have a golden opportunity right there to learn from a very seasoned fisherman

Not quite sure how to take that but I was probably fishing before your dad was born too 1949

Sorry Bruce just saw this...where did you end up parking?

It already exists

The above is correct. The Branchport arm is totally open water. A lot of the main laker fishing right now is in up to 120 ft of water directly out in front of Keuka College on the Penn Yan arm of the lake. A few days ago someone caught one over 15 pounds which these days is quite unusual for Keuka and seem to be hitting just about anything put down there. Lakers have also been caught in shallower as well and they seem to be roaming about under the ice looking for food and feeding on the small perch which are very abundant at the north end. Last week they were present in numbers at about 45 feet The ice has opened up and there is open water at the entrance to the Keuka Outlet at Indian Pines and as mentioned you need to keep to the right as facing the lake to stay safe when entering the lake proper to the south.In most of the ice from Indian Pines to a ways beyond the the water treatment plant is about 12-15 inches of pretty hard ice but still a good idea to be careful. The sketchiest areas are near shore because of the temperature fluctuations and with considerable snow expected in next day or two may bnot be able to see weak areas with snow coverage.