Stinky Finger

We have covered this here before. I warned about what was done to Lime Lake in the summer of 2002 here~ Attending meetings and making a public show of force/solidarity is all well and good but the situation demands a more proactive response. It is blatantly obvious that the herbicide company and landowners association don't play by the rules and have no respect for the law. Unfortunately they enjoy free rein while the state looks the other way in complicity. We are a society of laws and that is not the way things should be but an awful lot of money is being thrown around here with plenty of palms being greased with a wink and a nod and that is where the rubber hits the road, rules and public interest be damned. I have lived in New York my whole life and in my 50 years I have come to learn this is not the exeption where politics are involved in this state it is the unwritten rule and business as usual. This land owners association will get there way unless they are met with sufficient resistance. This chemical company is there coaching them every step of the way and they play dirty. DOCUMENT THEM. Attending meetings is fine but video their actions in the field. Get boats out there and bear witness to their actions. If the permits say such and such volume applied in such and such area on such and such dates BE THERE DOCUMENTING EVERYTHING THEY DO. Remember my warning, they play dirty. Expect them to break the rules so make sure you record them being in violation.

I've been using them for decades, both the Swim Whizz and Believer. Some argue that one is better than the other but I consider them one and the same. You will find that sometimes one will develop a leak. Don't throw them away, just use the leakers for casting as they become neutrally bouyant. On the straight 8 inchers I like to remove the middle hook hanger, cut it off with a hobby saw flush with the belly. This eliminates those frustrating hook hang ups while casting and don't worry, plenty of hooking ability remains. I also upsize to 7/0 trebles on them. I like to add rattles to some too. Just drill a small hole and add some #4 lead shot or several BB's and plug the hole with epoxy, Bondo or JB weld. Check out the "Berger rig" used a lot on the Larry with a lite trolling spoon trailed behind the plug.

Anybody in muskie fishing, not just in New York but anywhere muskies swim, knows that skipper immediately on sight. He needs no introductions and certainly owes no apologies or excuses. I see absolutely nothing wrong with anything in the entire video. My hat is off to him and I look up to him with a huge amount of admiration. This esteemed Captain is likely the next world record producer. And you know what? If he does manage to top the 70 pound mark and keep it good for him and shut your mouth! If you don't like it go catch a 71.

Unfortunately this is all too common. Sometimes it is slob fishermen who keep everything they catch no matter what size it is or whether or not it is in season and sometimes it is ignorant Neanderthals such as our hero here. The problem with these mouth breathers is that they have no clue what the facts are and just as Cletus says in the video "Sh!t fish that eats all the good fish" he has no idea what he's talking about. The truth of the matter is that his favored species walleye actually eat an enormous amount of muskie fry in the shallows during spring, exponentially disproportionate to the amount of walleyes preyed upon by muskie. This deliberate clubbing of muskies is actually quite a problem on Chautauqua. My ex father in law is a member of the Southtowns Wallyeye Association and as we all know they prefer to fish Lake Erie out of Dunkirk, Barcelona, etc but will readily opt for Chautauqua instead when the winds on Erie are kicking up. More than once over the years he told me of buddies of his in the SWA who keep billies in their boats and club every muskie they bring to the boat because they regard them as pesky lure stealers and as we all know "they eat all the walleyes". Morons. I was with him at their clubhouse once for a fish fry when he mentioned to a table of his pals "this is my son in law, he fishes for muskie"... Right in front of me they replied to him "kill 'em, kill 'em all"! as the whole table nodded in agreement. This is what we are up against in educating the public about esox. Many can be reached and enlightened with the facts but these ***holes are a very real problem.

Usually channel cats don't cross my mind much but your thread brought back some memories. I don't go out of my way to targets channel cats but I don't complain when I find one on my line either They have saved the day a time or two when the walleye bite on Oneida was painfully slow, usually due to heavy rain. Leaving the lake and the canal behind and heading up fish creek to the deeper holes and outside bends (feeder trib close by always a big plus) with chicken livers fished on bottom with a slip sinker always produced a stringer of 2-5 lb cats. When it rained all day but cleared up after dark was a good time to head back out in the boat up the creek for that. Have been quite surprised to have them strike spoons too. This was at Dunkirk harbor in winter while casting for steelies and browns around the warm water. My weapon of choice there is a 9' 5 weight fly rod with a light spinning reel and 6 lb test to cast trolling spoons. That setup will toss a pirate or an NK a good distance, provided the wind isn't in your face and gives good control to play light trolling spoons on a slow retrieve. By chance happened to discover a nursery area for young of the year channel cats on Tonawanda creek near the reservation while getting crayfish for Niagara river smallie fishing. Would go to a spot that was wide and shallow, a long riffle where just about every rock overturned would reveal several 2" channel cats scurrying for cover. Definitely not bullheads. They were all silvery pearl in color with white bellies and tiny black spots on their sides.

This reminds me of the time when I lived in Cattaraugus county near Lime lake, 2001 - 2002. I fished the lake almost daily then. There were vibrant weedbeds and well defined weedlines everywhere. It was beautiful. One day I noticed signs posted on telephone poles all around the lake by the landowner's association stating that the lake would be treated on such and such dates with chemicals to kill aquatic weeds. I remember looking into it at the time and my memory is a little fuzzy being it was a decade ago but if IIRC I found that the total amount of gallons of chemicals to be used was limited by law and the areas/ distance from shore where it could be applied was also limited/defined by law. Great, or so I thought. About a week later I was at the lake fishing and couldn't believe my eyes. Not a weed to be seen anywhere and an unnatural funny green tint to all of the lake. This was at the public launch area on the east side. An DEC ECO pulled in and I chatted him up about it. He laughed and gave a wry smile. His attitude was one of "ya, so what. You have a nice day" and off he went. It was blatantly obvious there was no limit observed and the entire lake was completely denuded of aquatic vegetation. This is what we are up against with these lake associations who want nothing less than a giant swimming pool. If the end result is that anglers don't come to "their lake" any more then so much the better as far as they are concerned and apparently the state is A-O.K. with that. This is all politics, pure and simple. As with all politics it's all about the money in the usual pay-to-play scheme of things. The only way to have any impact on this depravity and wanton disregard for the environment and our fisheries is to band together so we have a voice. Get out there and document these events. Get proof of how much and what type of chemicals are used and where they are applied. There -ARE- laws in place, probably the best we can hope for is to make these lake associations -and the state- abide by those laws or we won't have any more lakes, just swimming pools.

I'm not familiar with that area but from what you describe I would expect the predators to be there. Maybe a muskie too, that wouldn't shock me. I have seen muskies come from creeks many miles up from the great lakes in very skinny water that would be the last place you would expect to see one. If the food is there the predators will be too.

I used to drive right by the old H-I factory on my way to school every morning when I was attending Riverside Aeronautics back in the 90's. One morning there was a huge crane parked next to it with a giant wrecking ball. On my drive home the factory was no more, just a mountain of bricks. When I took my car for an oil change out there once I noticed the owner had a lot of H-I stuff in his office and I got to talking to him about it. He said his grandfather or great grandfather owned H-I and he was always buying H-I stuff and asked if I had any, I did. I brought him some H-I fly reels I picked up with a box of muskie plugs at an auction. The reels just happened to be in the box of plugs I bid on and won and I didn't want them anyway. They were in great condition but not mint, he passed. He was extremely picky, only wanted stuff that was absolutely mint. You might give him a try but like I said he's picky. It's been a long time but I think this is the place~ http://www.yorkvillecarwash.com/

Land lubber!

Tales of Lake Michigan (headed our way?). http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/127610953.html Many more here~ http://www.jsonline.com/news/31339794.html

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Just a heads up. Like any city anywhere in the country Rochester can be a rough place at night. I don't know where you're staying but just be careful out there. What looks like a nice area in broad daylight can be a whole different ballgame at night. Watch your back and don't go walking around in the city alone at night.

You can take a drive down the 390 to Conesus Lake and rent a rowboat for the day from these folks for not a lot of money. Call ahead. http://www.conesuslakecampground.com/features.php Don't worry, you don't need a motor to "get to the good spots". The whole lake is a good spot. -OR- you could throw a post in the "OPEN SEATS/TRADE A TRIP" forum on this site and maybe hitch a ride with somebody, just pitch in for the gas. Enjoy your stay in New York!

http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/fish_marine_ ... xlkmap.pdf http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/24488.html http://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/in ... c=113475.0 Availability of bait is of course seasonal but the last link provides locations of local bait & tackle shops.

So earlier tonight, just before it got dark I'm at the state launch on Silver Lake. Had just pulled up my little 12 footer onto the grass where there was another guy there with a boat actually smaller than mine (!) with his son and grandson so I had to wait a bit for him to load up before I could get my truck. He sees a rod in my boat with a jointed red & white vamp rigged and says "you fishing pike"? Yes. The next thing he says I wasn't expecting. "We were out here the other day fishing and a big pike swam by us with it's head out of the water! Must have went 50 yards like that!" What is up with these crazy pike???

We've sure had some warm water temps here but nothing like Texas. O.C. Fisher Lake, San Angelo State Park Wednesday, August 3rd 2011. Remains of dead alligator gar on dried out lake bed.

Sounds like you had a great vacation. 5 pound smallies is good fishing in anyone's book, I'll take some of that action any time!

When the water temps are in the 80's being caught and released is extremely tough on the fish, especially esox. Instead maybe consider some smaller stream fishing where the temps aren't so bad and leave the lakes alone for now. Ever fished the Conewango, Chemung, Susky or Tioughnioga? Load up the canoe or Jon and go try something new for a change. The fish are out there. The state stocks hundreds of Chautauqua fingerlings into the Conewango each year. Pures wander up from Pa. into the Chemung from the Susky. These tend to be smaller fish but not always. I recall a sporting goods store in Olean called Olympia sports (still there but in a new location now) that had an Allegheny river muskie skin mount on the wall in the tackle shop section of the store. 54" IIRC and the plaque on it claimed it to be the 8 lb test world record. The Conewango does give up a 30 pounder from time to time. Ishua creek is another sleeper. The Tioughnioga produced the state record tiger back in 1990.

I just now got back from Conesus. I read this thread yesterday and I had never seen that happen before. Until about two hours ago. (Went zippo today). I was in the south end, right in the southwest corner in 6 fow just outside the weeds. Sitting there tying a knot and saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was about 25 feet away and at first I thought muskrat? beaver? What is that??? It's a fish! I scrambled to get the camera out of the bag but it went down before I could get to it. about a mid thirty inch fish I'd say. It went maybe twenty yards like that and had quite a bit of itself out of the water. Weird.

I think it would be worth a try. What's the alternative? None. Obviously it would take a 50"+ livewell, available on very few production boats (Tuffy Boats maybe the only manufacturer?) so that means customizing your own but it's not hard to lay up mat & resin in a plywood box. Maybe saving a few is better than watching them die. Just a thought I might incorporate into my next boat. Large livewells in muskie fishing are nothing new, the question I'm kicking around is whether the revival chemicals would work with Esox. http://www.tuffyboats.com/boats/EsoxMagnum

LOL. If it's lively and thrashing then maybe it is time for it to go back in the lake?

Unfortunately it happens. I've never lost a muskie this way but I have had several big pike that didn't make it. It sucks but it happens. Most often during the highest water temps of the year in summer. You all know the routine, work with them at boatside forever but sometimes they just die on you. For several years now the bass guys on the pro circuit have been using chemicals in their live wells to prevent stress induced mortality, why not for muskies? Of course we do things a bit differently than the bass crowd. We don't purposely keep a livewell full of fish with the intention of taking them (sometimes several miles away) to a weigh-in and then release them. It got me thinking, even though I don't have a livewell in the aluminum or on the party barge that having a big enough livewell with a powered aerator and using this revival chemical the bass guys claim success with might just save a muskie's life too. Link~ http://www.basspro.com/Catch-and-Releas ... 0/-1326493