I drove over to Silver Lake Marine today to pick up my 2020 Crestliner Fish Hawk which I store there during the winter. Rt. 390 sure needs some repairs after the last winter - some of the ruts/potholes were nasty heading north. Rivers and streams including the Chemung and Cohocton were both high and muddy.
The crew over there was busy prepping new boats for this season. Most of the Crestliners they had have been sold, but Quinn has one demo model left that I told him I'd be happy to give a plug for.
It's a big water hybrid fishing/family boat. Here's a link to it:
2026 Crestliner 1950 Sportfish SG028 | Silver Lake Marine
Because it's a demo, Quinn will be offering further discounts on it. I don't generally put boats for sale up here unless it's a friend's/client's, but I consider the crew over there to be friends! You won't find a better place to buy a boat!
I nearly hit a turkey on the drive back from Silver Lake Marine. Fortunately I didn't.
The following dates remain open in May:
May 5th, 6th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 23rd - 29th and 31st.
I still have a salmon trip or two on the books. After that I'm looking at lake trout, pike, tiger musky and smallmouth bass trips. I'm still hoping to make it up to Lake Ontario as well.
I read through most of the Oneida Lake 2025 DEC Report. Gobies have eaten so many quagga mussels that zebra mussels have actually made a comeback. There's a lot to unpack in that report. Most of the freshwater drum that populate Oneida Lake were hatched in the mid-1980s! They can live a long time!
The smallmouth bass population looks to be in trouble over there. The only other lake I know of which has experienced such a severe population decline of smallmouth as a likely result of round goby infestation is Cayuga. Look for Seneca and Keuka Lakes to follow. But be on the watch for all the big bass and hear/read about how "wonderful" round gobies are. (The angling press like Bassmaster and In-Fishermen did a lot of articles touting the benefits of round gobies. I don't read/subscribe to either of those publications anymore, but if they aren't writing about the negatives, they're doing their readers a huge disservice.) A decade or two later, anglers will be wondering what happened to all the smallmouths.
Lake Ontario is showing a lot of shallow spring kings, which is rare for this time of year. I've heard numerous reports of kings being taken in 15' of water while trolling for browns! That's pretty insane and was unheard of in the 1980s and 90s for the most part - at least I never heard about it. I have to believe that there are some baitfish issues over there. We just had two strong winters. A few alewives were dying off in Cayuga Lake yesterday near the south end of the lake. The quick mixing of warm and cold water can kill them. A die-off of alewives is likely on Lake Ontario soon.
I posted a depthfinder photo in my last report on 4/29 which showed alewife schools on bottom in 200+ feet of water. That's likely the kind of depth that would harbor the majority of them this time of year in any northern deep lake. From time to time, some schools will move up - even winter caught salmon and trout often have a few alewives in them, and it's doubtful that the salmon for example are going down to 200' to feed on them. You never do know though until tracking studies are done, but I would think it's unlikely.
Looks like it should be an interesting year all the way around! Fasten your seatbelt!