BassBlaster

What Happens When Your Bassin’ Lake Changes?

Just read a post (excerpted below) on NY’s Onondaga Lake. Seems like a case study of what happens when a lake changes: bassers say there’s no fish, the DNR says there are plenty. Is this what happens every time a lake changes? Read on.

Situation

> What’s with the bass fishing on Onondaga Lake lately? For years, it was Central New York’s best-kept fishing secret. It’s reputation reached lofty heights in 2007 when Peter (T.) took home $250,000 after winning the…Bassmaster Memorial tournament held on the lake. Thliveros and the rest of the top pro anglers in that event touted the fishery.

> After that…numerous bass fishing tournaments were held there. Local chamber of commerce and county tourism types joined in the hype.

> Something in the fishery appears have changed recently.

Bassers

> Members of the Salt City Bassmasters, which for years has held weekly club competitions on the lake, told me this past week the bass fishing in Onondaga Lake just isn’t what it used to be.

> A small club competition held there June 22 failed to produce a single fish. The only fish boated that night, said Keith Cardinale, Salt City’s tournament director, was by anglers who left the lake and went into the Seneca River.

> The results from another outing the following week was slightly better with three fish landed in the lake. The club’s weekly contests were moved to Oneida Lake….

> “Maybe it’s all the dredging and steel things being put up by Honeywell. Maybe the fish are just moving around,” Cardinale said. “All I know is that it used be nothing to throw a Rat-L-Trap lure in one favorite spot near Route 690 and catch 30 smallmouth bass in an hour. Now, you don’t catch nothing.”

> Joe Noffey, past club officer for Salt City, said that two former members of the club were out on the lake fishing within the past two weeks and saw “a lot of fish,” but just couldn’t get them to bite. Noffey wonders whether the bass on Onondaga are simply feeding during the early morning and late at night — and no other time.

Science Types

> Lars Rudstam, director of Cornell University Biological Field Station at Shackelton Point, oversaw a bait fish survey on the lake during the first couple of weeks of June and concluded the lake is flush with alewives. “Maybe there’s just too much food for [bass] and they won’t bite,” he said. “That’s a more likely possibility than they’ve all just left the lake.”

> Neil H. Ringler, a fisheries scientist…at SUNY ESF, has been monitoring the lake’s bass population for years using electroshocking and nets. “Compared to last year, things have perked up. There’s a lot of fish, some as big as 7 pounds out there. What we are finding in the lake is that with the increase of aquatic plants, the fish seem to be distributed differently.”

> He said in the past, anglers would routinely pick up bass on the weed edges. He said it now appears the fish can be found right in the middle of the weeds. “I think it just may come down to anglers learning to fish differently,” he said.

And?

Is that it – that bassers just need to learn to catch ’em differently? I’m sure those Salt City boys know their stuff and know that lake like the deck of their boats, so I wonder if the explanation could be that simple.

Asking because I’ve seen this time and again over the years, where fishermen think a lake is ruined and biologists say the fish are still there. Usually it involves vegetation removal, which does sort of ruin a lake for bassin’, but this seems to be a case of more veggies.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Chad Keogh

    July 29, 2011 at 1:50 pm

    The fish have adapted to the lake changes and the common lures that have stung them over the years, now the anglers need to adapt too.

  2. Dwain

    July 31, 2011 at 2:27 pm

    They all but drained a local lake to rework the dam/spillway, and at first it seemed the end of the world when the water level was restored (+1 foot extra after improvements) There were a lot of fish taken out while it was low and they were easy to catch while spawning. The tournament turnout dropped off significantly for a while due to the lower catch rate, but even though it has not been long enough for the fish to recover or for the small fish to grow up. The success rate and size of the fish being caught has went up significantly this year, we’ve basically learned how to catch them in the new environment. Doing the same old thing as before produces less than ideal results, but adjusting as the fish have to the new environment pays dividends. In a couple more years the added depth and re-dredged out channels and such will lead to a better fishery than we had before this.

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