Bigfoot

The south end of Canandaigua is ice free. There is ice from just north of Vine Valley until almost the shallows on the north end. The lake is high and only about one foot lower than the parking lot at Woodville Launch. DEC hasn't put the docks in yet, so launching would difficult (depending on the wind and the size of your rig). At least with the high water one's prop should be safe......

For what it's worth, I saw a 14 pound laker win an Avon Anglers derby and one year the winner of the North End Landings derby was a 19 pound laker. This lake can definitely produce big fish, but we need to continue thinning out the overpopulation of 2-3 pound lakers. Catch and release is detrimental to this lake!!!!

Thanks for the tour. Is the lake level still low?

The NOAA coast watch satellite pics show the lake still iced in on 4/2. Since then the satellite view has been obscured with clouds. We should have a good pic later today given today's lack of cloud cover.

I'm in total agreement that the lampreys have destroyed the fishery and that it is going to take years to bring it back. Your statement that the treatment didn't happen 4 or 5 years ago due to high water is incorrect. And quote cited in post #27 is does not reflect current DEC thinking. In the latest annual diary report for Cayuga Lake dated March 29,2013 Senior Aquatic Biologist Emily Zollweg-Horan wrote: "In 2011, the regional fisheries unit conducted a standard gillnetting survey on Cayuga Lake to determine the density, growth rate and incidence of sea lamprey attacks on lake trout. A total of 399 lake trout were collected in 32 nets for an average of 12.5 lake trout per net. This average was slightly lower than the 13.4 lake trout per net average found in the 12 previous surveys dating back to 1976. The number of legal sampled (275) was the highest ever recorded for this survey, indicating an increasing biomass of larger lake trout in the population. Nine percent of caught were wild spawned fish, approximately half of which were under 12 inches, indicating a possible increase in natural reproduction in recent years. Incidence of sea lamprey attacks in 2011 was very low. One wound and one mark were observed on the 46 lake trout in a 23.6 inch to 25.6 inch index group. This was well below our target level for lamprey wounding on lake trout in this interval. However, lake trout wounding rate for the 2012 egg take on Cayuga Lake was considerably higher, with 83 active wounds per hundred lake trout in the 25.6 inch to 27.6 inch index group. Sea lamprey wounding on Cayuga Lake salmonids increased in 2012 because of a fairly large year class of lampreys, born in Cayuga Inlet in 2007, migrated to Cayuga Lake as parasitic adults. We opted to "ride this out" and not do an expensive lampricide treatment because we anticipated the impacts to the fishery will not be as extensive as in the past. Although there were relatively abundant young sea lampreys (ammocoetes) in Cayuga Inlet, our assessments indicate they were not as abundant as they were prior to our treatments in 1986 and 1996 (see graph below). Given this, we had expected that the fishery should be able to absorb the impacts of this lamprey year class with far less mortality of trout and salmon than we experienced in the past. However, the recent wounding data and angler reports last season indicate that we were probably wrong in this assessment. (emphasis added) Unfortunately the abundance of sea lamprey larvae resulting from upstream escapement of spawning lamprey during a high water event in the Inlet in the Spring of 2011 is higher than the abundance of the 2007 year class. Plans are underway to conduct a lampricide treatment in 2014, before the 2011 year class matures." If you fish with Cayuga with any regularity you should be keeping a DEC diary. They really need your input.

The fisheries biologists admitted at the state of the lakes meetings that their assessments were wrong and that in hindsight they should have treated the Inlet after the successful Lamprey spawn in 2007.

Lots of wrong info here... Let's take a look at the facts. According to the DEC website: Cayuga Inlet, where about 90% of the lampreys spawn, was last treated with lampracide in 1996. In most years the adult lampreys are trapped at the fishway and destroyed by DEC personnel. This is usually adequate to keep wounding rates at acceptable levels. During 2007 and 2011 high water allowed spawning lampreys to bypass the barrier at the fishway. The damage everyone has seen on Cayuga to our trout and salmon is a direct result of the 2007 age class of lampreys. Those eels will return to spawn this year and (unless there is high water)they will be destroyed at the fishway. Or, if the bypass the fishway they will die after spawning. DEC is planning on treating the inlet this Summer and that should destroy most of the 2011 age class living in the inlet. We should see lamprey levels at acceptable levels as a result.