Are low water levels affecting your boat launches?

[Todd in NY]

I've been to a quite a few boat launches this year on Lake Ontario and northern NY (to include Cranberry Lake in the Adirondacks) and some of the boat launches are becoming very difficult to launch a boat from. We launched at Chaumont Bay NY a few weeks ago and couldn't even tie our stern line up to the last cleat on the dock because it would have put my bow on the concrete launch ramp. Much of the "floating" dock was sitting on the dry launch ramp. Henderson Harbor isn't nearly as bad, but you can see that the lake level is more than a foot lower than the water line on the retaining wall at the boat launch.

 

Is anyone else noticing this problem across the rest of NY in other lakes? We need rain real bad, and I think it is affecting the water temps as well.

[Rich s]

Where the boat is docked in Mexico on the little SR was getting pretty shallow 2 weeks ago . I hope it's not sitting on the bottom when I get there tomorrow

[Todd in NY]

Where the boat is docked in Mexico on the little SR was getting pretty shallow 2 weeks ago . I hope it's not sitting on the bottom when I get there tomorrow

I hope it doesn't get that bad. I'm seeing rocks all along the Black River that I've never seen before, because they've always been under water. I've lived here since 1997 and never seen the lakes and rivers this low, especially not Lake Ontario and it's tributaries.

[FleetTracker]

It gets a lot worse... still manageable now. If we don't get a lot of rain in August it'll be a tough salmon season on the East End. It's been another foot lower than it is now the last few years I'm not worried yet.

[Todd in NY]

It gets a lot worse... still manageable now. If we don't get a lot of rain in August it'll be a tough salmon season on the East End. It's been another foot lower than it is now the last few years I'm not worried yet.

Now that you mention it, our creek died up about 4 years ago, but that was due to a late summer drought, like August and September. I wasn't fishing Lake O back then so I can't compare then to now. I was still in the Army then (in Georgia), so I wasn't home enough to do any serious fishing.

[FleetTracker]

The near-term forecast for lake levels is not looking promising.  Possible to lose 4-6" in the next 2 weeks on Lake O... if that's the case... it'll hurt our marina and all larger boats ability to get out.  Not good timing for the staging King fishing in the trench.  Thank goodness I have a smaller boat to for exactly these scenarios.  Speaking of... what will they be staging for if there's no water in the tribs... it's going to be concerning and interesting to see the next 2 months unfold... 

[Todd in NY]

Very true, your marina entry/exit can't take much more drought. And it's already August, so many of us are wondering how the lack of rain will affect when and where the salmon will stage. The rain we got today was nice but it did little to improve our water levels.

[EsoxAC3]

Levels on SLR are low as well..... Shudder to think what its going to look like during muskie season!