Round Gobies in Keuka Lake

About a month ago, I heard about some online rumors of round gobies turning up in Keuka Lake.  I didn't want to write about until I had confirmation.  DEC was out there a couple of weeks ago doing baitfish netting.  No gobies turned up, but one of their crew or a friend of the crew did manage to catch one by rod and reel in Hammondsport.  No alewives, ciscoes or smelt turned up either.  Only perch fry, and a few spottail shiners and golden shiners to my knowledge.  I would guess some sculpins too, but I don't know.  There has been no official announcement from NY State as of yet, regarding the presence of round gobies in Keuka Lake. Gobies cannot swim up Keuka Outlet from Seneca Lake due to an impassable falls, so this was a purposeful introduction, likely from some angler or anglers.  It's unfortunate, but somewhat understandable given that many fish in Keuka Lake are in poor condition and they have very little to eat.  I think this is a bad thing, i.e., the introduction of gobies.  The lake would have eventually reached some balance but it is what it is. So what are the likely scenarios, given what we have learned about round gobies from their presence in the Great Lakes, Oneida Lake and Cayuga Lake (to name a few?) First of all, these other lakes have a lot of other baitfish - namely alewives and in Oneida Lake, gizzard shad and emerald shiners.  Keuka Lake has very few alewives.  Over 60 nets were set for baitfish and ZERO alewives showed up!   Out of nearly 300 lake trout stomachs analyzed after this August's gill netting, only one trout had some alewives in its stomach.  So there's no guarantee that the round gobies will take off in Keuka Lake.   They will not have the buffer of other baitfish populations to divert predator attention.  Hungry fish will be zeroing in on them. Gobies eat the zebra and quagga mussels.  Keuka is loaded with both.  Gobies also eat fish eggs and fry.  If goby numbers explode, eventually the majority of Keuka Lake's invasive mussels could and probably will disappear.  The mussels have been filtering Keuka Lake's water since the late-1980s or early 1990s if I'm correct.  We could see the lake's clarity (aka "transparency")  go down and we could even start seeing algae blooms here in the future. Smallmouth bass will get large, but eventually the gobies will wipe out a lot of bass eggs and fry (i.e., destroy the spawning beds) and the bass population will likely dwindle like it has in Cayuga, Lake Ontario and Oneida Lakes.  You'll still have smallmouths in Keuka Lake, but not nearly the numbers available previously.   Rock bass and other panfish populations will suffer a bit.  Homeowners and renters along the lake that enjoy catching panfish may wind up just catching gobies in the future.  Seneca and Cayuga Lakes are good examples of lakes where the sunfish and rock bass populations in the lower half of the lakes have really taken a hit, thanks to gobies. Lake trout will thrive, as will yellow perch.  Yellow perch seem to do very well in lakes with round gobies.  We may see goby predation on lake trout eggs and fry here, but given the massive lake trout population, they'll get more food to eat and they spawn throughout the lake for a long period - more or less from mid-October through mid-December, so they will likely be able to evade the warm water loving gobies to some extent. Largemouths should do well, as will pickerel and northern pike.  They spawn in softer bottomed areas and the toothies spawn over weeds, where there aren't a lot of gobies. We'll see what happens.  But Keuka Lake has very few nutrients!  That's been the case here for decades.  What happens when the gobies (if the population explodes) eat all of the mussels up?  Then what do they eat?   We will probably see some big die-offs of gobies here in the future. I could be wrong on a lot of this.  Time will tell, but this is what I think could happen.  We still don't know if gobies will be able to multiply much here, given the sheer numbers of hungry predators.  But gobies are fierce defenders of their nests and also spawn in some heavy crag that will likely give them some protection.