floatfisher

Chemung river. Glad it is close and no one around. I have been wanting to go up and chase kings but every year it gets more frustrating with crowds. Now I am going to concentrate on local fishing until the crowds thin out, if they thin out. Sent from my SM-G920V using Lake Ontario United mobile app

My son and I found a few this beautiful evening. He wanted to get a walleye and finally got his first. Nice to know the spots I used to fish (or close to the old spots) still hold some fish. Definitely a day I will remember for a long time. The look of surprise on his face when he saw he hooked his first eye! Sent from my SM-G920V using Lake Ontario United mobile app

Short report. Windy! We did get a few small mouths fishing the shoal out in front of us and a few pike and large mouths but the wind every day made it tough to stay where you wanted to be. I heard the walleye bite was good but I never went out in the evenings, just spent time with the family. Got small mouths on tubes and drop shot rigs with hellgrammite and leech patterns in the 20-40 foot range. Beautiful place just wish I fished more. Less than 24 hours there, I dropped my phone in the water!!! My replacement is coming today. On a positive note the boat ran great! Going to try Keuka a couple days the end of the week. I hope the wind is not as bad and we get a few there to make up for it.....

Leaving tomorrow and staying a week. I will make sure to post our results and hopefully post on the spot reports. Any last minute tips or reports for us? Sent from my SM-G920V using Lake Ontario United mobile app

Thanks for the report. We are leaving in 10 days for a week. So looking forward to it! My son is super excited as well. We will be staying right near Alex bay right across from Bolt castle and there are a couple rocky humps right out in front of the cottage we are renting. Hope to get into a few smallies myself. My son wants pike and musky, lol! I am sure I can get him into a pike or 2 but I told him we will see about the musky.

Keep these reports coming! I will be up there the week of the 20th with the family. We just rented a cottage just outside of Alex bay. My son is dying to wet a line, as we are still going strong with baseball. We just won the district 6 10U all-star championship!!! We are looking for anything, bass, pike and of coarse he wants to get a muskie..... Hope the fishing is hot when we get there and the boat is running good!

Nice fishing boat for sure. I assume your is the 19 footer? I have the 17 footer (1706) and like it a lot for fishing the finger lakes! Want to get up to the big lake some time but I am not set up for trolling. Funny I am considering down sizing to make it a little easier to launch with my 10 year old son... Good luck with your trade/sale!

Nice bunch of fish. I was on a small "lake" on Sunday and we could not keep the small pickerel off the minnows. Got a few bass and a couple perch too. I am still waiting for a day like you had. I have yet to have a hot bit like that in all my days ice fishing, maybe it is time to switch up my approach? I am usually fishing with my kids so it is more tipups and I move around a little jigging.

Looks more like spooning....

I think we can all agree that there needs to be something done with the state of Catherine Creek. I am sure there are more streams out there that could use more attention but Catherine has been a hot topic! It was by far my most favorite place to fish as a teen/young man. That is until '96 when the skies opened up and dumped about 5 inches of rain in less than a half an hour.(I believe someone else stated '94 but I am almost certain it was '96) The state decided to flatten everything out and empty the stream of anything that could hold back water, to save a few houses and businesses THAT WERE BUILT IN A FLOOD PLAIN!! Slowly the state came in and tried to correct the mistakes that they caused and tried to put in some "stream improvements". Which did not last long, almost everything they built has already rotted away or is already in desperate need of repair, AGAIN!! Everyone blames the DEC, specifically the Conservation officers. They are doing what they can with limited resources and I for one commend them for their efforts! I think you should not aim your frustrations towards the CO's but rather the fisheries "experts"!! Here is an example of what I am talking about.... I just dont understand?!?! I like what they are doing here, re-enforcing the bank with rip-rap to help protect the property, but they RUINED a great stretch of the creek in doing so!! Those of you that know this spot (I am not spot burning here as there is nothing left but shallow riffles) know that there used to be a couple nice holes and a deep run with boulders. Just last year I hooked quite a few in this 100 yards of stream using floats and the water was at least 3-4 feet deep, which is very deep on this stream now a days!! My question is why not do what they did in past and come through and dig out the hole, especially after running your machinery through the stream and filling it in?? They have done this in most of the stream below Sleepers and now moving into the upper half and this is where the majority of the spawning happens on the main stem of the system. Back in the late 90's early 2000's I had contacted the DEC to volunteer my time to help out where ever needed on Catherine a few years after graduating from FLCC where I studied fisheries and graduated with an AAS in Conservation. I was told, no thank you. And then when I questioned why they were not digging out the creek after making improvements, I was told that they wanted the stream to go back to its natural state?!? After running bulldozers all over it, I said? I didnt hear anything after that... I think if they are not going to see their mistakes in how they are handling the "re-habilitation" of the system something else has to be done. Close the whole fishery? Not fair to the boatless angler. Not to mention, that would not stop the people that live along the stream from doing what they have always done. Change the opening day? Maybe, but most years a good majority of the spawn has already happened prior to the opener. This year was a strange, cold year. Close the feeder streams? Yes DEFINATELY!! Wadding restrictions? Yes definately. I am sure there are other things that can be put in place like the 1 fish limit, but this just puts more burden on the already heavily out numbered CO's. I still think with today technology you could "deputise" concerned anglers on the streams. Allow them to hand out tickets, kind of like self patroling. I think there are quite a few of us that already do this by taking pictures/video of illegal activities and take pictures of license plates and call the 1-800 number. 1 more observation I would like to share... My first stocked Fingerlakes strain of rainbow (18", 3rd year class) caught out of Catherine Creek. Notice the fin clips. Can be a good thing or a bad thing, depends on how you look at it. Good - the fish they are stocking are healthy, strong and doing well! Bad - It is a sign of the end of an era...... Again, my $.02.