Hello all! I wanted to chime in with my first-hand experience of the fishing on Conesus Lake. I was there shortly after ice-out, on April 19th and 20th. I was in the market for perch and panfish. I spent a total of 14 hours on the lake during those 2 days and I did not get a single bite. It wasn't until the second eve's dinner-time reading that I was looking over the DEC Fishing Regs Handbook that I can across the article about Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS).
Excerpt are as follows:
VHS is a disease that originated in Europe, and somehow was carried across the Atlantic and introduced into the Great Lakes (probably as early as 2003), with the first outbreak being documented in 2005. By 2006 and 2007 (the booklet states) VHS had infected “...Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River, and CONESUS LAKE.â€