KEUKA is finished for salmonoids.

[senecamike]

There are no baitfish. None. Lakers, rainbows...all salmonoids... are starving. Theres a few skinny lakers left with big heads and small bodies. Abominations. They and the rainbows are few and far between. These few feed on insects, perch/bass fry and a very occasional sculpin... thats about all. The swimmers/cottagers/visitors etc are saying 'no its healthy, we see big fish jumping out of the crystal clear water'.... little do they know that those are mostly starving trout desperately trying for flying insects! Pollution is to blame for the sawbelly/alewife die off and the shad went the same way but sooner. Dense packed lake properties mostly AirBnB'd now and therefore highly utilized, and wineries galore soaking their chemicals into the watershed. All of it out of effective control for many years now. Us trolling trout fishermen must leave it to the tourists and jetskis now..... and go elsewhere to spend our time and money. Its not even much good for bass and perch guys these days. 

Oh but the DEC will save us with their wonderful CISCO baitfish project? I mean... they've got PhD scientist from Cornell on the team and they've spent hundreds of thousands on the project these last few years!

Baloney! It was all BS right from the start. The ciscos can't survive in that toxic soup any better than the alewivesor or shad did. The real root cause.... no development controls worth a damn because the lakeside towns all want the big bucks from various types of property and sales tax.

Be sure to shower after swimming in Keuka folks!!

 

 

 

[rolmops]

It sounds terrible, but at the same time it sounds like an opinion. I often read these messages and they very well may be true,but so far the only people who actually research this problem are the DEC and Cornell. They usually come up with the facts and the possible solutions. If the cisco project turns out to be a success the lake trout will be able to reproduce naturally. I would like to hear DEC people weigh in on the matter and read what kind of solution they have in mind.

Edited August 19 by rolmops

[Hop]

Wow. I haven't been to Keuka in a couple decades. Back then it was common to limit out on lakers in a couple hours. Usually just up to 5 lbs. Loss of bait maybe, but pollution, really? With all that money living on the shore seems like they would be screaming. Idk. Anyone fishing there regularly care to weigh in?

[Gill-T]

Lake Ontario was a chemical dumping ground through the 80’s and alewives thrived. They had a robust plankton diet before the zebra and Quagga mussels. Poor water quality had seemingly presented no barrier. My guess would be you lost the food web in Keuka due to exotics and there is probably some disease(s) in play. 

Edited August 17 by Gill-T

[schreckstoff]

https://nysfola.org/wp-content/uploads/CSLAP/cslrpt19keuka.pdf
 

based these numbers, which are a bit hard to decipher, but it does not look like the lake has the nutrient concentration (phosphorus) to maintain very much fish biomass, especially if there is any harvest. 

[whaler1]

Mikes right. I’ve seen plenty of pics of the trout in that lake. Starving

[Roys Boys]

Maybe what keuka lake needs is a keuka lake pure waters association.. Dec does what they can but they have all other the finger lakes to take keep a eye on also million dollar tanks for ciscos is a big project.. Seneca took a while to get back on coarse when the mussels peaked.. is keuka college running any classes on the state of the lake like Hobart? Water sediment testing? Idk maybe a private group to do their own sampling could find some red flags.. what chemicals do wineries use in the area? Will gobies solve the bait fish problem? Fast reproducing baitfish? 

[Hop]

Really good question s I haven't thought about Roy's boys  dec, we know you monitor these thriedes , please comment to us..

[Sk8man]

I've fished Keuka on and off since the sixties; earlier for trout and later on mostly for perch. Like most of the Finger Lakes, the development along the lake and related intensity of use and recreational boating etc. has changed the very nature of fishing on the lake, but the more (and most) critical factor is the introduction of invasives - especially the Zebra and Quagga mussels which have strained out the most critical link in the food chain the phytoplankton and zooplankton along with other crucial components of the baitfish diet and reproductive cycle. In the late seventies and into the late eighties I used to troll for browns and rainbows as well as the occasional landlock there and I night fished for them as well. There were some really nice salmonids available at the time and a state record brown was even caught there Some really beautiful perch also rivaled those on Seneca and Cayuga too as well as a solid smallmouth population. Keuka was also one of my favorite ice fishing lakes right up until the past decade or so when things really came to a head and deteriorated in terms of the baitfish population really tanking noticibly. When fishing through the ice for perch and panfish lake trout starting being commonly caught regardless of type of jig or bait used in very shallow water. Most telling of the desperation of the trout population was that when them came out on the ice they were spitting up tiny perch and sunfish. Many of these trout had the enlarged heads with skinny bodies further indicating that they had been "starving". This condition has progressed for a number of years and now the population of all species seems to have drastically declined on the lake. Although it appears to have been a number of factors involved from those mentioned above to the lack of baitfish, the central thing is that when you knock out a critical link in the base level of the food chain eventually (and at different rates) everything above it will be drastically effected and eventually possibly totally decimated. and that is what has happened. Whether artificial restoration efforts can be successful in bringing back the previous fishery is a big question mark especially with the same still culprits operating in the lake; and in any event it will probably be a long time turning around if it does in fact occur.

[senecamike]

I respect your opinion Sk8man but beg to differ on ROOT causes. Yes the invasive mussels filter out some of the plankton which the baitfish also need, and the invasive spiny water fleas also eat some plankton soup. But the quantity of mussels around Keuka was minimal at worst (they were nowhere near as dense as on Seneca, Ontario etc at worst) and they declined in recent years... along with the sawbellies of course. FYI I had properties on both Keuka and Seneca.... I pumped lake water.... I know how dense the goddamn mussels were at their peaks! The mussels didn't do so well in Keuka .....not enough plankton floating around to feed 'em! So. In Keuka now theres just not enough plankton to feed ANY of the critters at the low end of the food chain. So what else kills off those types of plankton and stops them replenishing? Chemicals, is what! Just eyeball the DENSITY of the cottages/McMansions/vinyards around Keuka shoreline. Compare it to the DENSITY around the perimeter of other finger lakes. Look at the VOLUME of water in Keuka's comparitively shallow 'basin' (not even a tenth of Seneca's volume!). Keuka can't dilute the chemicals enough. Seneca still can. Cayuga can. Etc.

I repeat..... the problem is lack of property development/usage controls, through greed for our property tax dollars.... and pure ignorance, of course.

 

PS: just FYI, the fishing in S Seneca is really good this year! Best for many years. DEC did something right (lampricide).... theres fewer eel marks these days and tons of healthy salmonoids

On Seneca.......Spiny's, mussels, eels, development density..... all now within the capabilities of the volume of water to deal with. Keuka..... OOC.

 

[T-Rok]

Maybe actually stocking some lakers and rainbows would help. I think it is pretty unfair and imo kinda stupid of the dec to not stock some of these fingerlakes.. ie keuka and skaneateles. They say lake trout are self sustaining. Maybe barely, but they are tiny. Skaneateles has small skinny lakers too and few rainbows and almost no browns. Just like keuka, they stock landlocked, but never enough for them to do well, although they dont really seem to do well in other lakes either. But, at least they stock enough for some to make it. Cayuga, owasco, and Seneca almost every laker is a stocky. Self sustaining populations seem like a recipe for few and smaller fish in general. I mostly dont even bother fishing those lakes. You probably have a good point about water quality too. But, if you are depending on self sustaining populations, you will see poor fishing I think. Stocked fish have a major advantage over naturally born fish in that they are already much larger and have avoided predation throughout their early life. Dec should really look into opening a few more hatcheries and stock more fish. More fish stocked the better. If we can pay billions to put migrants in fancy hotels we can afford a few more hatcheries. Just saying. Dec states that keuka has a "large and self sustaining" lake trout population. Lol. That is either ignorance or stupidity. 

[Gill-T]

I am not a scientist but looking at the data provided by Dr Weidel, phosphorus appears to be at levels that trend the lake as Oligtrophic (cold, clear,less fertile). Of note was the last ph reading taken at the end of September showed a reading of 6.8 (trended acidic as the summer moved into fall).  It seems like what happened to Adirondack lakes during the height of acid rain degradation-big heads small bodies on fish. Add exotics and some disease (from lack of food-stress) and you might have an anti-fish cocktail. Are the shells from dying zebra and quagga mussels putting more Ca+ into the water raising the Ph?  The 2019 study concluded no major changes to the water. Are there monitoring studies still ongoing?  How does the water in 2024 compare to 2019?

Edited August 18 by Gill-T

[reeltrout]

Lakers are definitely starving in Keuka. Anymore a 4 to 5 lber is a trophy there, when you cut them open the stomach is empty or then a few small 2-3 inch perch in. I do think there is a lot of lakers in the lake though according to the fish finder the bottom can be stacked even though we can't jig as many up as we could 5-10 years ago. Hopefully DEC or someone can get it figered out or stock some fish that do well, maybe walleye would, I don't know.... Because right now the laker fishing is not good unless you like small skinny fish. Bass on the other hand are doing well. On a side note Seneca seems to be coming around, lampreys seem to be hurting the browns last time out one had a 20 inch lamprey attached ( about the size of a keuka lake laker uhg..)  and another had 2 attached.

[senecamike]

A big fish hammered my lure. We fought. Fish spat the hook. Hook caught the attached lamprey, and pulled it free. I hauled in the lamprey and beheaded it. Sometimes.... the fish win!

 

[jk1]

Still fun to fish there, we only have a small boat and the owner does not like bigger water.   It is fishing and catching and fun.   Oh we only jig.......jk

[troutman10]

I'm no researcher or fish biologist but Keuka, I feel, has a laker problem. There's too many Lakers. The description of no food, characteristics that they're skinny, have big heads tells me their population is out of hand. Theyve eaten themselves out of house and home. Other fish in different temp zones seem to be doing fine. Maybe I'm simplifying the problem. I'd also say some are right in that mussels have contributed. Can the laker creel limit be increased or dropped altogether to help the problem? Adding predators will only make the problem worse. They stopped stocking browns and landlocked salmon in keuka from my understanding. Rainbows can survive on insects and other things that are outside the laker preferred temps. Someone mysteriously added walleye which I'm sure doesn't help the issue. Sounds like ALOT of Lakers need to be removed from keuka to slowly turn the tides. Sizes will recover. That lake is just overly successful in producing lake trout.  

 

Edited August 19 by troutman10

[GAMBLER]

On 8/18/2024 at 12:32 PM, senecamike said:

I respect your opinion Sk8man but beg to differ on ROOT causes. Yes the invasive mussels filter out some of the plankton which the baitfish also need, and the invasive spiny water fleas also eat some plankton soup. But the quantity of mussels around Keuka was minimal at worst (they were nowhere near as dense as on Seneca, Ontario etc at worst) and they declined in recent years... along with the sawbellies of course. FYI I had properties on both Keuka and Seneca.... I pumped lake water.... I know how dense the goddamn mussels were at their peaks! The mussels didn't do so well in Keuka .....not enough plankton floating around to feed 'em! So. In Keuka now theres just not enough plankton to feed ANY of the critters at the low end of the food chain. So what else kills off those types of plankton and stops them replenishing? Chemicals, is what! Just eyeball the DENSITY of the cottages/McMansions/vinyards around Keuka shoreline. Compare it to the DENSITY around the perimeter of other finger lakes. Look at the VOLUME of water in Keuka's comparitively shallow 'basin' (not even a tenth of Seneca's volume!). Keuka can't dilute the chemicals enough. Seneca still can. Cayuga can. Etc.

I repeat..... the problem is lack of property development/usage controls, through greed for our property tax dollars.... and pure ignorance, of course.

 

PS: just FYI, the fishing in S Seneca is really good this year! Best for many years. DEC did something right (lampricide).... theres fewer eel marks these days and tons of healthy salmonoids

On Seneca.......Spiny's, mussels, eels, development density..... all now within the capabilities of the volume of water to deal with. Keuka..... OOC.

 

The bait is gone due to over population of lake trout and the two back to back winters from 2014-2016.  SCHREKSTOFF can tell you what happens to alewife populations when we have hard winters.  

[schreckstoff]

Seems like similar conditions as in Lake Huron, low and declining phosphorus concentrations, mussels explode and exacerbate the nutrient decline, high predator density keeps munching down the older Alewives. In that state it only takes a cold spring or two to yield low /no prey fish reproductive success, and prey base is gone. 

 

Im curious, is anyone catching any Keuka Cisco or know of anyone catching them ?

[jk1]

 Fished there yesterday and the water clarity was poor, could only see the lure four feet down.  Those fish don't move in those conditions and we caught none.  But the bas were biting.   I think they might get vertigo or are so far sighted that they can't orientate themselves and freeze in one spot.  So stopped and had an ice cream on the way home........jk

[ifishy]

the fact is over the last 40 years far less pollution has entered all the lakes in this country.  the mussels exacerbated this.  the low nutrient load means that lake and most of the finger lakes just cant sustain the populations they did in the past.  in essece the water is to clean.  People talk about run off from wineries but the the fact is there is not nearly as much as is precieved.  Muddy water running out from creeks is normal it is not pollution.  the fact is more fertilizer run off on a regular basis would make the lakes more productive as the nutrients such as phosphorus would help grow algae which is the bottom of the food chain.  lakers live long enough that the current population was created under more productive conditions which is no to much for the lake.  there will be a large crash and it will take years for the ecosystem to rebalance itself but as mentioned it will be a Oligtrophic lake.

[T-Rok]

..only problem is fertilizer run off all too often makes for blue green algae. Which is the bad kind. The lakers were here for millions of years before farms. I think that they probably have enough food. They should just stock more fish... and bait too. Which they are doing with the cisco. Lakers take a long time to reach maturity/breeding age. Then when they get close, people keep them because most of the fish are small. Stocking fish would eliminate that. All of the fingerlakes that are stocked with lake trout annually tend to have many more/larger fish. Pretty easily made correlation. 

[ifishy]

Lakers were there yes but in much smaller qty's before human intervention.  Human intervention and various forms of pollution specifically nutrient loading lead to a massive increase in productivity in the lake and thus more fish.  with things getting cleaner and humans attempting to be more environmentally friendly the lake is getting cleaner.  stocking more fish is the opposite of what is needed.  stocking bait in qty is not realistically practical, the cisco project only works if it establishes a breeding population.  

blue green algae is not all bad its potentially harmful sure but still creates a base for the food chain.  dying blue green algae still release nutriets that can foster growth of other algaes and planktons.  

fertilizer is the nutrients that help plants grow a key one is phosphorous.    Phosphorous IS the limiting factor for productivity in the lake.

[Pequod1]

I have fished Keuka for a long time and totally agree with Gambler on what happened.  A die off of food for alewifes or a pollution problem with toxic chemicals would take a much slower progressive reduction in the population of salmonids.

There was a sudden crash of alewifes on that lake following those two winters. Apparently, they do not do well in very cold winters.  Those of you that know me know that I am not a big fan of lake trout but I do care a lot about the overall health of that lake including lakers.

Starting in the spring of 2017 something bad was happening. Every perch I caught that May had 4-5 baby perch in their bellies.  It was great fishing, but I knew it was going to get bad real soon.

In 2018, we still had pretty good perch fishing but they were again loaded with perch fry.  The winter ice fishing changed a little earlier than that when as Les  stated, we were catching lakers in 20’ off Indian Pines and they also were filled with perch young. 
I tried a few more times after 2018 for perch in both the east and west branch. It definitely is not what it used to be.  
The best thing right now for that lake is to reduce the laker population. They will eat everything they can catch but eventually,  their numbers will hit a level that the lake can sustain. That is if all those population charts I learned many years ago in grad school are correct.   Once that happens, the population of other fish should increase too barring any other unpredictable environmental event.  Unfortunately, it will take some time. 
 

 

[Lively1]

Seneca Mike and others, I have a seasonal cottage on Keuka (one the few left) and have spent the last 11 summers getting to know the lake and the fishery. I jig for lakers and bait fish for bass and panfish. Let me offer some observations:

1. I don't know if salmonids are done in Keuka, but they are certainly on the ropes. That's one thing everyone agrees on. The lake trout are skinny, and eating perch fry and tiny shrimp mainly. Anything over 20" is a rarity. 

2. the sawbellies disappeared right after the back to back cold winters when the entire north half of the lake (from Branchport and Penn Yan to the Bluff) froze over for an extended period of time. Can't remember exactly the years but it was about 10-12 yrs ago. The alewives are known to be sensitive to dissolved oxygen levels which would be depleted during a lengthy ice-over.  DEC believes this is what killed them off. Some of you may remember piles of dead sawbellies on the shore of Cayuga in the 60s and 70s. Also due to oxygen depletion. 

3. I don't know how it compares to the 'old days' but I regularly catch smallmouth 17-18" and a few larger, and largemouth up to 4-1/2 pounds and 20" in Keuka. You may not catch a state record here, but I think the bass fishing is great. Last I heard I think there were a couple dozen bass tourneys on the lake each year. 

4. The water in summer is usually incredibly clear, like an aquarium, with visibility to 15-20 feet. After the runoff from tropical storm Debby a few weeks ago, the water turned green and visibility went to more like 4-6 feet. This happens when the lake gets a burst of nutrients from runoff. It goes away in a week or two. 

5. There is no Keuka Lake Pure Waters but there is the Keuka Lake Association (KLA). They have a water monitoring program in association with Keuka College. They work with the DEC.  They have a website with data on the lake.  They have a very active program going to control invasive weeds like starry stonewart. They sponsor boat launch stewards to encourage people to clean their boats and trailers. All good things. 

6. There is some rental activity but it is mainly the older places. People need the rent money to pay the property taxes. The trend is the older homes get sold and replaced with trophy homes that sit idle most of the time. Plus baby boomers retiring and moving to the lake, wintering in Florida. Septic systems are upgraded every time an old house is replaced with a new house, so I doubt very much that nutrient loads due to septic systems have increased over the past 20-30 years. 

7. Walleye are established in Keuka now. The latest DEC survey found all age groups from fry to adult. Seems logical this puts more pressure on the forage base.  

8. There are still some sawbellies in the lake (I believe), but not able to return to previous numbers. Cisco stocking has not been a success, to date. 

 

Observations end, statement of my beliefs begins... 

 

Our Finger Lakes are dynamic systems, not static ones, and the best one can hope for is resilience, i.e. a lake returns to its former state after a perturbation. DEC, Soil & Water, zoning boards, volunteer stewards, etc. are working to control the variables that can be controlled (like nutrient load into the lake). Other factors like cold winters and tropical storms are acts of nature. Predator/prey cycles take years, not weeks or months, to resolve.  So you have to be patient, and let nature respond to our best efforts. 

 

Meanwhile, we are blessed to live surrounded by so many great fishing opportunities, from Ontario and Erie, to the Fingers Lakes, the fall trib fishery, the Delaware system, our local warm water rivers and ponds.. not to mention across the border in northern PA.  So while things may not be ideal in Keuka Lake, there is plenty to enjoy, there and elsewhere.  

     

Edited August 26 by Lively1
grammar

[jk1]

Excellent discussion and reply's keep them coming please.......jk