Seneca Temp and current info collected by the barge 1968-1971

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/769227.pdf

 

This is pretty interesting.  Anyone wondering what occurs in the lake with regard to temperature and current should have a look at this info. Some of it is too technical to understand, but the charts and graphs give a lot of info. 

 

Jason

[Sk8man]

I'll bet those currents were really ocillating a bit  back when I hung up my 2 Seth Green rigs with 15 leaders each on the cables of the barge and had to cut the wire on each with wire cutters....bye bye 30 Suttons, 30 bead chains, swivels and wire connectors and 2 36 oz sinkers and 200 ft of 60 lb ss wire in exactly 500 ft of water....a rather unfortunate day of fishing

Edited July 1, 2014 by Sk8man

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Yeah Les, that would ruin a good day of fishing for sure. I have hung stuff up on the cables as well, even had personnel from the barge tell me to move away from it. I've learned to stay away from it. As you just stated, it can be too expensive to get too close to it.  

[Ray4852]

There’s a boundary line out there trolling around the barge. If you get to close to the barge they will let you know. There’s somebody in the barge all the time. Every morning you can see a small boat from Dresden harbor taking people out. If you get to close to the barge they will come out with a load speaker and tell you to back away. If you don’t listen. You will be reported to the Seneca county police. They will come out with a boat to give you a ticket. It makes no sense to fish to close to the barge anyway.    

[Sk8man]

My situation happened in the early eighties and there were no actual boundary lines or signs of any kind but the real problem is that you don't even have to be very close to it to hang up your lines - just running them very deep because the huge cables go out at an extreme angle on all sides and you couldn't see them from the boat...I was running lines down well over 200 feet...that was the major part of the problem.  They do have a 17 ft Boston Whaler Montauk that transports staff between the barge and the small office/lab on land in Dresden. The sense it made fishing near the barge is the fact that a lot of bait collects near it and there are HUGE fish out there and once in a while you connect with one way down deep. I fished out there for well over 40 years and have never seen anyone ticketed but I have heard them on the loud speaker.

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Ditto, what les said here as well. Were talking back in the 80's, not recently. Although I do like to fish near it, for reasons les already explained, I know the "danger zone" and i stay away from it.

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[Ray4852]

Im also a 40 year man fishing this lake. I know bait can collect along the barge. I know it takes long cables to anchor the barge. Seneca is almost 40 miles long. You can find plenty of bait out in 500' any ware along the 40 mile length of it. If I had to pick a spot on this lake to fish for trout this spot is on the bottom of my list to fish. I know there’s an underground cable off Dresden in 200'. every time I troll the bottom at that depth there I hang up on it. I don’t know what it is.

[Sk8man]

I believe it supplies power to the barge if it is the one I'm thinking about.

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Read the report. 50,000 kw generators supply the power. No cable to shore. Also, when you fish over 60 days a year and things get a little boring on occasion, your curiosity can get the best of you. Im not saying I fish too close to it, bit i do know the danger zone, and i learned it from harmless, but expensive curiosity.

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[Ray4852]

I was told it was an electrical cable that ran across the lake. I think what you told me makes more sense now. I can hit this cable every time I troll the bottom there. The fish love this area. I got enough wire and copper wrapped around the cable. I'm still trying to find the barge that sunk off perry point. No luck yet hooking into it. But that darn cable is a pain in the as-s.

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Now that im thinking about it, I bet if you asked some of the "serious" fisherman on Seneca, and by that I mean people who fish it for a living and fish it more than just 10-20 trips a year, you would probably find that most of them have hung gear up on something related to that barge. Probably all of them. And from the sounds of it, you also heard the bull horn! So, if the fishing is good there, you will probably see my boat there, but I won't lose anything there. been there and done that!

By the way, what did you think of the 145 pages of info, charts, graphs, and such that was the topic of this discussion?

Jason.

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[Ray4852]

I haven’t read the 145 pages of info yet. I will read later. That cable is not close to the barge. Its in 200' of water. If that’s the cable that comes from the barge its pretty darn long. What about the north, south and west sides of barge. I never hooked into any cables there. You might have seen me in the area. I have a Red lund boat. I haven’t been out there this year. When I’m out there I’m the only guy there. But I stay far away from the Barge.  

[Sk8man]

I guess I should have reviewed the total article Jason   I once had a printed copy of that information back in the late 70's or so and some very specific charts of the thermocline as it moved from month to month throughout the year that was given to me by one of my buddies back then. The sampling was done in the 500 ft of water and as I remember in the month of November there was a radical drop off of temp and then it was nearly a straight line from slightly below the surface during the dead of winter of 39 degree water all the way to the bottom.  There are also measurements taken by the Hobart and William Smith research buoy out from Roy's at the north end but they end in the late Fall. It includes quite a few profiles including wind speed throughout the day and water temp plots (thermocline plots).

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Yeah les, I saw years of study by Williams and Hobart. From around 1998, til recently. Most of that is sediment and pollutant study. I also know about the bouy, still waiting for it to get back in the water. Should be this weekend. I caught one of there turbitity test drops once. Bunch of PVC pipes with caps, spaced 20 ft apart. Holes drilled in the top caps. They measure debris in the water. how muddy the water is.

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[Sk8man]

Jason - it is up and working right now....

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

Ok, I just checked it mon and they said by July it would be up. Thanks les. Going field testing some new lures this weekend. Tomorrow thru Mon. If you got soe time to kill, get a hold of me. I'd be glad to take you out. Fri-sat am south area. Sat eve, Sun and eve, North end.

Jason.

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[Sk8man]

Hi Jason,

 

The north end sounds like a possibility Sunday. I wouldn't mind testing out some of my new (home made) trolling flies either. Send me a PM with your cell and I'll do the same. Thanks. Les

 

Jason you have a PM

Edited July 4, 2014 by Sk8man

[Hop]

I guess I should have reviewed the total article Jason   I once had a printed copy of that information back in the late 70's or so and some very specific charts of the thermocline as it moved from month to month throughout the year that was given to me by one of my buddies back then. The sampling was done in the 500 ft of water and as I remember in the month of November there was a radical drop off of temp and then it was nearly a straight line from slightly below the surface during the dead of winter of 39 degree water all the way to the bottom.  There are also measurements taken by the Hobart and William Smith research buoy out from Roy's at the north end but they end in the late Fall. It includes quite a few profiles including wind speed throughout the day and water temp plots (thermocline plots).

 

 

Hey Les, I`m sure your computer and printer is faster than mine.  Print out a copy of that report for me, would ya?  My ex-wife burned my old copy (with a bunch of other good stuff) way back then. 

[Sk8man]

Hop I can't find my copy bud I was going from memory (which you know can be a real question mark) I haven't actually seen that material in years

[Hop]

Hop I can't find my copy bud I was going from memory (which you know can be a real question mark) I haven't actually seen that material in years

 

I was actually joking!  Printing all that would fry most any printer...

[Great Lakes Lure Maker]

I bookmarked the page. If you are interested click the link at the top of my original post. Probably cheaper to put it on a thumb drive, than to print. I was talking to Les about the report you both had years ago. Sounds to me like this is the same info, and it has pretty interesting details. 145 pages was a lot to absorb, that's why I bookmarked it to refer back to. Just too much info. 

[Hop]

I bookmarked the page. If you are interested click the link at the top of my original post. Probably cheaper to put it on a thumb drive, than to print. I was talking to Les about the report you both had years ago. Sounds to me like this is the same info, and it has pretty interesting details. 145 pages was a lot to absorb, that's why I bookmarked it to refer back to. Just too much info. 

 

 

Thank you for that.  The more experience I have with this lake, the more the old adage:  "The more things change, the more they stay the same" rings true for me.

[Sk8man]

  same ole Hop