As I write this on Monday December 8th at 8 pm, we're looking at 7 degrees Fahrenheit outdoors with the forecast low being 3 degrees, coupled with calm conditions. The cove in Union Springs skimmed over with ice last night. On 12/18/88 we had 6" to 7" of ice on Silver Lake when I ice-fished it. In 1990, I ice-fished Honeoye Lake on December 13th with 5" of ice on the lake. I can't recall it being this cold, this early in the season in a long time. If this cold continues throughout January and February, we could see Cayuga Lake freeze entirely for the first time in a very long time. Of course, given the weather patterns of the last 40 years, it's very unlikely to happen - but you never do know! We are certainly due for it. According to historical records, Cayuga Lake completely froze over on nine occasions between 1795 and 1912. Since then, it's there are no records of the lake freezing over completely, although during one winter in the late-1940s/early 1950s it almost froze over entirely.
Lake surface temperatures on Seneca Lake around Watkins Glen are 42 degrees currently. We still have a long ways to go this winter, but last year, the lake temperature dropped down to 39 degrees.
I was hoping to get a few more trips in this calendar year but that's unlikely to happen. I do not guide unless we see air temperatures getting up over freezing for a good portion of the day. I much prefer low-40s at the coldest. Tackle tends to malfunction. Launches can be tough to get in and out of. A lot can go wrong with very cold weather and boats/motors. I realize that guides on the Niagara River go out when it's in the single digits. They can have that! It's not for me and it never has been.
When I got this website's theme re-designed in October, a lot of my older reports' text got scrunched together. Paragraphs disappeared! It made for tough reading. I went through nearly my entire 21 year backlog of fishing reports and corrected the paragraphs. I'll usually spend an hour or two a day working on it, while listening to music or a podcast, so I don't mind. But it is fun looking back on old trips. I didn't reread all of the old reports, but quite a few of them. Some of those trips are as vivid for me as yesterday, whereas others have disappeared in the recesses of my mind. But a few posts had some historical (recent history that is!) significance to me, and may be able to help answer some questions I often get asked.
People often ask:
When did the yearly late-June/early-July algae bloom start on Cayuga Lake? This post was written in late-June/early July 2016. Here's part of my post when I started noticing that something was going on:
Cayuga Lake 6/29, 7/1 + Seneca Lake 6/30
Both Cayuga and Seneca Lakes currently have some algae/weed issues going on. Seneca Lake is full of milfoil parts. There's also a green, "particulate" sort of bloom going on near its bottom - it's very visible from shore in shallow water. Whether this is affecting the fishing is unknown. Cayuga has a murky look to it despite no significant rainfall in weeks. I'm sure it relates to the hot weather.
This also correlates with peak numbers of round gobies in the lake. Correlation is not causation, but it's worth noting. 2015 featured excellent water clarity during July and good fishing on Cayuga Lake.
Another question that comes up a lot is regarding when the trout/salmon fishing got bad in Seneca Lake. The Memorial Weekend Derby of 2015 was incredible with large lake trout, rainbows, browns and salmon all being weighed in. The big downturn was in 2016. That's when we noticed something was going on. We also had an incredible amount of lamprey hits on northern pike in Seneca Lake during that year.
It's complicated, but in summary - two years in a row of lamprey treatments were missed due to low water (one year) and high water (in another year.) If the water levels are too low, the chemical just sinks to the bottom and does not spread properly or efficiently. If the water is too high, the chemical gets too diluted. The stream flows have to be in a certain range to make the process effective and worthwhile. The Seneca Lake tributaries (Catherines Creek and Keuka Inlet) need to be treated for lampreys once every three years. It's a time-consuming and expensive process. Lamprey larvae spend 4 years on average in the silt of the streams and then morph into a parasitic phase as they swim back to the lake. They then spend two years in the lake attaching to and killing fish, before they run up to spawn, typically in May and early June. Each lamprey can kill 35lbs worth of trout in its 2-year lifespan. If there are plenty of host fish around, the eels tend to be parasitic and just attach for a while and then swim over to another host. If there aren't many hosts around, the eels become "predatory" and stay attached to the fish until the fish dies. Lake trout do a much better job surviving the attacks (in particular our Seneca Lake Strain fish - which are what all of the cold-water Finger Lakes have.) The other trout and salmon species are easily killed by the lampreys. If you imagine maybe 30,000 adult lake trout on Seneca Lake and perhaps a few thousand salmon, browns and rainbows - a few thousand lampreys can do a lot of damage! Once the parasitic eels are out in the lake, there's nothing that can be done about it.
Once a lot of the trout and salmon get killed off, the eel-like creatures go after whatever is left - they love pike! (Maybe they just grab what's around...I don't know.) Once all those predators disappear, the alewife population explodes. The alewives then are able to wipe out a lot of yellow perch and the whole fishery starts a downwards spiral. Fortunately Seneca Lake is well on its way back now!
Pike fishing on Seneca Lake has declined due to the lack of milfoil. Getting rid of milfoil has been a big goal in getting this lake "healthy" again. For years we had piles of milfoil blowing into the launches and shorelines on Seneca Lake. We had a pike explosion here from 2006 through 2008. World-class number of pike along the entire lake from end to end. I'm guessing that there were tens of thousands of northerns back then! Even after a lot of them died out - likely due to viruses from over-population, the population bounced back over and over. We had spectacular pike fishing here in 2018. I had guys getting tired of catching them - we had some 30 to 40 fish days with fish running up into the mid-30" range. Over the past two years, the weeds have disappeared and the pike population has gone right down with it. Skaneateles Lake has seen the same thing happen with its much more modest pickerel population. You control the habitat, you control the fish population. It's that simple. Seneca Lake is healthier now, but the pike fishing has suffered. I will try to get more information about the phosphorus reductions when I can.
Cayuga Lake's Hot Nearshore Goby-Fed Lake Trout Bite: That bite was something we started really noticing in late-2016. It stayed very hot and heavy for a good 4 years. By December of 2021, the gobies had eaten most of the shallow quagga mussels up, and the hot and heavy fishing slowed way down. Since that time, we've had consistent winter-time shallow lake trout fishing on Cayuga Lake, but nothing approaching what it was then. Our "shallow" fish often range from 10' out to 50' depending on the water conditions and what they're eating. When fly-fishing for them, you'll want some spinning tackle just incase the fish aren't up in fly-fishing range.
Lake Ontario's fishery may see some setbacks this year if the cold weather keeps up. Cold weather is not good for alewife survival and production. We shall see what happens.
Of course, in three weeks we could be looking at highs in the 50s! You just never know. But thus far, I feel pretty safe saying that it appears as though we will be in for an "old-fashioned winter."
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