The Friendly Skies over Derby Hill

By Spider Rybaak

Sign marking the spot.

Oswego County is a fowl paradise. Hunters take to the open waters of Lake Ontario and the swamps around Oneida Lake, the deep woods of Winona State Forest and patchwork of ponds, forests and clearings of the Happy Valley Wildlife Management Area to pursue birds of every feather.

But there’s a magical corner of Lake Ontario that sees more birds each spring, particularly large raptors, than some sovereign nations do all year: Derby Hill. Indeed, on March 12 alone, 110,000 snow geese flew over the place like a blizzard in the sun, punctuated by raptors ranging from bald and golden eagles to turkey vultures and ospreys.

Onondaga Audubon Society’s Michele Heligan says the reason so many large birds use this corridor is because of thermals, “heat waves coming off the ground. Raptors use these currents to gain and maintain altitude. The clearer the day, the higher they can reach on the thermals,” she explains

In other words, this time of year Lake Ontario sucks in the sun’s heat like a magnet and raptors heading back north naturally avoid its drag in favor of flying over land and exploiting the lift which thermals bouncing off the ground provide.

The big bird fly-over season runs from March 1 through May 31, so you still have a month of decent viewing ahead of you. According to the Audubon website, some species are restricted (ospreys, for instance, are most active from mid-April through mid-May) while others, like bald eagles, flip restrictions the bird and appear whenever they want to during the season.

OAS member Bill Purcell reports it’s been “a good year so far” for raptors; and colleague Gerry Smith adds: “There are more bald eagles around now than there were at any time during the 20th Century. So your chances of seeing America’s favorite bird are pretty good.”

Unfamiliar with the ways of birds and need guidance?

You’re in luck: The OAS is staging its FREE bird festival on Saturday, May 11, 10 am-5 pm at Derby Hill. Gene Huggins, president of OAS, will lead ½-mile-long bird walks, over moderately difficult terrain (i.e. hills) throughout the day. OAS volunteers will also be on hand to offer assistance and intelligence.

Other features planned for the festival include a display of live raptors, face painting, vendors selling everything from food to jewelry, hawk identification, raffles…stuff like that.

Volunteers are needed. If you’d like to help, contact: oabirdfest@gmail.com or call 315-474-3778. Their website is www.onondagaaudubon.com.

Derby Hill Observatory is located in the Town of Mexico on Sage Hill Drive, off NY 104B, about a mile east of Texas.

Michele Heligan searching the sky for hawks.

The tally up to April 28.

Spring 2013: Back to Normal

By Spider Rybaak

Walleyes in the ripples at Scriba Creek.

Ice finally broke up on Oneida Lake on April 1. A heavy northwesterly wind on March’s last night grabbed the tattered corners of the cap on the north shore, ripping it open, piling it into a jagged ring along the south shore like the crust on a giant frozen pizza.

Within a week, the icy ridges clinging to the shoreline melted into sandy beaches punctuated by rocky points poking into the lake on all sides. The water stayed cold; the fishing slow.

Fortunately, heavy rains soaked Central New York recently, swelling creeks beyond their banks, shooting their currents into the lake like chocolatey fingers. They stirred the downpour into the inshore waters, warming the lake‘s edge and raising it to normal levels, spurring the natural cycles anglers expect each spring.

And the fish are responding. Walleyes stormed into Scriba Creek so thick they looked like a throbbing carpet. Every step I took along the streamside path from the Oswego County Recreation Trail to the hatchery dam sent walleyes sprinting for cover in the deep rapids in the middle of the creek. Their backs exposed, they ran upstream creating a surrealistic scene in which the whitewater crashed into their wakes, creating a Maytag effect of clashing currents. What’s more, they bumped the mass of walleyes in the whitewater, causing them to erupt through the surface like miniature autumn cohos in the fish ladder at the Salmon River hatchery.

At the New York State Toad Harbor Fishing Access Site, a colorful ring of anglers lined the bank. The water is still a little too cold for massive schools of crappies to pack in, but a few hardy ones are there. In addition, some yellow perch averaging 8 inches and bullheads around the same size are present.

But hey, the one thing fish and anglers have in common is: the early bird gets the worm. The water’s warming as you read this, so get out there when you’re done and maybe you’ll hit a major run.

If you go by the old saw: spring makes the rest of New York’s weather bearable, you understand that there’s more to fishing this time of year than just catching fish. Coming back from the THFAS last week, I decided to take a right on McCloud Road to see if wild flowers were blooming along the forested shoulder. A couple daffodils were up but that’s it...for now.

On the way to Phillips Point, an old guy was bottom fishing for bullheads in Toad Harbor, off to the right. Mergansers were about 100 yards in front of him, diving and water dancing, feeding and courting at the same time. I disturbed a large blue heron; it cackled as it took off in fright off to his right, startling him and me. The guy’d been there half the day, hadn’t caught anything, but he wasn’t complaining.

At Phillips Point, I watched Allen Handy of North Syracuse launch his kayak. He’d been there a couple times already this month and hadn’t caught anything…but he was optimistic.

Oneida Lake is alive after winter’s deep sleep; and the natural world is celebrating with a visual feast steeped in a cacophony of sound. But you better hurry, and get there before brush and trees shield nature’s miracles behind curtains of leaves--and before walleye season opens May 4, making you too busy to look for anything else.

Walleyes in the pockets.

Allan Handy, North Syracuse, kayak-fishing in Three Mile Bay.

Dave, a resident of Central Square, with a crappie taken at the THFAS.

Miracle of Constantia, 2013

By

Spider Rybaak

Blue heron waiting for a walleye dinner at the dam.

Up until around the turn of the century, the walleye was one of the culinary world’s best kept secrets. Anglers knew they tasted great and so did chefs; but the fishermen kept their mouths shut to protect their game and limit the competition; and native stocks were protected--still are--and couldn’t be sold, so there was no incentive for professional  cooks to rave about them.

The tournament angling craze that swept the country in the 1980s changed everything. “In-Fisherman,” the world’s most popular angling magazine even started a “Walleye Insider” edition, complete with recipes. Walleyes became the apple in the eyes of fish lovers everywhere. Now, everybody wants them.

Fortunately, NY anglers have had a love affair with the species since white men first set foot in the place. Indeed, the first hatchery on Oneida Lake was built on Frederick Creek in 1895. It proved insufficient in meeting the state’s needs and a new one was constructed a little east of here, on Scriba Creek, in 1942 (even war couldn’t put a dent in our love of walleyes). Completely overhauled in 1992, the Constantia hatchery is the world’s finest walleye rearing facility.

Each April, the operation collects between 200,000,000 to 300,000,000 eggs from adults it nets in the lake. Most are allowed to develop into fry and are released soon after into waters throughout the state. Roughly 400,000 are raised to 50-day-old fingerlings averaging two inches long; and 100,000 are reared to advanced walleye fingerlings ranging from four to six inches long.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation plans on launching the collection process this coming weekend.  Hatchery personnel hope to net 25,000 adults ranging from two to 10 pounds, and will strip them of their spawn back at the hatchery. The collection process is expected to take until April 15.

The first half of the month is the most exciting time to visit the facility, and it’ll be open from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., seven days a week from April 1 through September 30.

But there’s more.

Walleyes start ascending Scriba Creek to spawn right after ice-out. Still, the vast majority doesn’t start running until April. After checking out the common miracles performed at the hatchery, including the rearing tanks holding rare and unusual critters like paddlefish, sturgeon, mud puppies  and round whitefish, step outside to see the natural process going on in the creek.

If walleyes aren’t in the little tributary that runs under the hatchery, or in the creek running alongside the building, drive or walk upstream along Hatchery Road for a couple hundred yards to its intersection with the Oswego County Recreation Trail. Head east through the field to the creek and walk quietly, stealthily upstream to the dam. If you hit it just right, you’ll  see the floor carpeted in walleyes; and even if you’re a little too early or late, there should still be a few. But don’t wait too long; the peak run generally occurs in the second and third week of the month. Wear polarized sunglasses to see through the water’s glare.

Bear in mind, walleye season is closed and it is illegal to fish for them, even catch-and-release.  The season opens on the first Saturday in May (May 4) and runs until March 15.

For more information, call the hatchery: 315-623-7311.

Employee holding one of the hatchery's resident sturgeon.

Employee checking jars of eggs.

Flies and beads: Pathways to a steelie heart.

By Spider Rybaak

Rick Miick (L) and Stan Oullette with a 10-pound steelie taken on a orange bead in the corner Hole.

Global warming seems to have been put on hold again. At press time, March 22, more than half a foot  of snow clings to the banks of the Salmon River, and the weather forecast calls for more snow showers over the next few days.

But what’s bad for weather forecasters is great for Salmon River anglers. Currently, Brookfield Renewable Power is releasing about 900 cfs from the lower reservoir. Despite being more than twice the level it was just a week ago, the river is running at a pace steelies find easy and safe to negotiate; a flow anglers with average skills can ply productively.

Rob, one of the owners of Fat Nancy’s Tackle Shop on NY 13, just across from the Pulaski exit of I-81 (877-801-3474), says the water is still very cold but there’s a lot of fish in the river nonetheless.

All the usual suspects are producing: Egg sacs, 3-inch Berkley floating trout worms, beads, Streamers and Spey flies.

Trout worms and eggs sacs can be chuck- ‘n-ducked, but work best when float-fished. Spinning tackle will do, but centerpinning equipment is best.

If you’re still in the dark about centerpinning, it involves a single-action reel whose spool rides on a centerpin so it to spins effortlessly, allowing your float to keep in perfect time with the current. The rod can run anywhere from 10 to 15 feet. Its length allows you to keep the line off the water--and avoid drag--for great distances, a plus if you’re into “hero casts.”

“Beads are the most productive baits in the pinhead’s arsenal,” raves Capt Rick Miick (www.TrophyDreamcatcher.com , 315-387-5920). The man taught me how to centerpin, and has produced a popular DVD on the subject.  “When you float fish beads, 30-hit days are common,” adds Miick.

Spey casting flies is a little less productive but so much fun, if you try it once, chances are you’ll be hooked for life.

Migell Wedderburn, a native of Pennellville, says: “I don’t do regular fishing anymore. It has to be Spey and nothing else. I have learned Spey fishing is beautiful and you can fish a rocky bottom easily and not get hung up.”

He’s even developed his own nymph he calls the Death Ray.

 “Spey casting instructor and fly-fishing guide Pat Miura (315-777-3570; pmiura@aol.com), an angler respected by his peers and clients alike, says” the drug is the tug.”

And he’s right. Even a 6-inch Fallfish feels like a trophy trout when it strikes a fly swung across the current on Spey casting gear.

But you don’t need a double-handed rod to Spey cast. A regular 8-wt. reel loaded with floating fly line and a sinking leader, and a 9-foot fly rod will do in a pinch.  Simply roll cast a brown or olive wooly bugger across the current and let it swing downstream.  When  the bow in the line starts straightening out… hold on.

Migell Wedderburn's Death Ray

Migell Wedderburn, a nice steelie, and the Death Ray hanging from the roof of its mouth.

Last Call for Winter steelies

By Spider Rybaak

Sue and Tiny with the day's nicest steelie.

A famous journalist wasn’t getting the attention he felt he deserved from his Salmon River guide so he asks:  “Is the weather always this poor around here?”

“Nope,” responds the guide, “it changes sometimes.”

The noble writer turns red.

Since they hadn’t had a hit in about 30 minutes, the humble guide figures that’s the cause of his client’s antsiness and tries remedying the situation by announcing: “We’re movin’ after this cast.”

“Where to next?” asks the wordsmith.

“Glass hole.”

The writer completely loses it. “A guide’s never called me that before.  Take me back to shore this very instant,” he demands with such authoritative anger the river stops running for a split second.

So the guide takes him to the take out, passing several anglers battling steelies along the way.

Moral of the story: Listen to your guide or, don’t let the weather stop ya.

Last Sunday and Tuesday brought both points home.

February 24th found me Spey casting wooly buggers in the pool below the bridge in Pineville. Snow came and went at 10 minute intervals. An hour after starting I’m fishless and ready to leave. Seeing a guy entering the river on the other side holds me back. After all, I need affirmation that my decision to quit is a good one.

But he catches chrome.  And it didn’t take him more than 10 minutes. The most irritating thing about it is he’s Spey casting, too. But he’s using a marabou streamer and he’s hitting a seam I can’t reach from my side.

As tempted as I am to cross the bridge and fish next to him, I like my space too much and decide to go elsewhere, namely the stretch of river between the Short Bridge Pool and Long Bridge Pool in Pulaski.

Fish were there (I know because I watched a pin-head catch one floatfishing an egg sac) but they ignored my streamers.

Tuesday finds me in a drift boat with Captain Ryan “Tiny” Gilbert (One More Fish Guide Service; 315-529-6427) and Sue Bookhout, an Outdoor Communicator and Online Visibility Expert with Sue B Media (315-378-7738), a company she owns.

Launching in Pineville, our first stop is a no-name pool a couple hundred yards downstream of the first bend.

Tiny and Sue are floatfishing with beads; I’m Spey casting a wooly bugger.  Tiny suggests I floatfish, too, but I know better and keep whipping my fly.

Before long, they’re getting all kinds of action—and I can’t buy a hit. The sun’s high in an azure sky, so I whip out my cameras and, thinking I’ll show them, make like a photographer. I get some pretty good shots of an insect hatch and ice formations…but no fish.

If, as the book of fishy wisdom says, the proof is in the catch, I re-learned a valuable lesson: I don’t know it all. But the rebel in me argues: having fun Spey casting and making memories with great photos is every bit as valuable?

With an attitude like that you can’t lose, eh?

Currently, loads of overwintering steelhead are spread throughout the stream. The water’s running less than 200 cfs, a very fish-friendly rate. While the majority is enjoying success floatfishing  with beads and egg sacs, guys throwing inline spinners and streamers are catching rainbows, too.

Steelie in the snow.

Fishing from ship and shore.

Last ice.

Spots in the snow: winter hatch.

Icing Around

By Spider Rybaak

Dan and Kaytee of Constantia and part of their catch.

Cousin Staash called last Saturday morning to report: “Global warming’s on hold. The ice on Oneida Lake is anywhere from 7 to 11 inches thick and the place looks like tent city, man. Wanna go ice some perch, maybe a few walleye?” he asked.

Syracuse wouldn’t be playing Villanova for another three hours so I figured why not.  I met him at the Cleveland Docks fishing access site and we walked out onto the water. 

An hour later, we’re fishless. Another hour goes by and all we got to show for it is the memory of a couple runts we released. I decide to go home and watch the game.

Stopping at a couple shelters on the way, none admitted to having caught anything of significance. One voice in a lone shanty isolated from everyone else by several hundred feet of frigid emptiness on all sides claimed he hadn’t seen a fish all morning. Blood stains on the ice at two of his five tip-ups testified otherwise, especially since the footprints to and from the holes led to his Clam.

It was pretty obvious he had secrets he wasn’t going to reveal so I just kept walking towards shore and my appointment with Syracuse University basketball’s second disappointment of the season.

Sunday morning rose squeaky white, blue and cold. The loss to Villanova was only a heartbreaking memory and I resolved to forget about it and go on with my life. The first steps on the ice set things right again.

It was that quick because a couple that was coming in as I was going out had fish: two yellow perch about 11 inches each, and a white perch only slightly shorter but twice as broad. They got ‘em on minnows.

A little further out I’m at a crossroads: the group of shanties off to the right was a couple hundred yards closer than the one to the left, so, you guessed it, I went right.

Before long, I’m surrounded by a bustle of activity I haven’t seen on Oneida Lake since Labor Day weekend…if then. Dozens of colorful shelters punctuated the frozen waterscape, conversations of their tenants riding the frosty air. 

Snowmobiles and ATVs ran in every direction. Man-drawn sleds loaded with equipment moved back and forth over the sparkling setting. And everywhere in between, lone anglers sat out in the open, fishing minnows on Jigging Raps or spoons like Swedish Pimples, or insect larvae on tiny ice jigs like Someday Isle Tackle’s Water Puppets and Shimmerlings.

Seeing the entrance to one shelter open, I go over. A walleye is on the ice at the door. Inside, Jim McCarthy, a resident of Clinton, sits steely-eyed, focusing on a tip-up about 10 yards away.

Not realizing he’s having a hit, I commence to bugging the man with questions like how they hittin’?

“My flag just went up,” he responds and flies out of the tent with such blurring speed, I’m left wondering if he was ever really there.

I follow him to the tip-up and the reel’s spinning so fast I worried the friction would create so much heat it would undermine the ice below our feet. But Jim was faster and before you know it, he’s got a whopper of a perch on the ice.

A couple more stops revealed the action was similar everywhere. One lady described it perfectly: “They ain’t exactly jumping out of the holes to get our baits; they’re biting steady, just enough to keep the excitement flowing and to put dinner on the table tonight.”

 Like dancing on ice.

 Hot ice action: Oneida Lake.

Jim McCarthy with a nice walleye he took on a large buckeye in 18 feet of water.

McCaCarthy landing a whopper perch. 

Downtown Oswego’s Winter Wildlife

by Spider Rybaak

Nice brown taken behind Motel Row.

To average folks, fishing in winter is the realm of hardy types who sit around on the ice all day staring into holes at their feet and wishing for a fish to pop out…or something like that. Truth is, there’s another form of winter fishing: casting from ice into open water. And Oswego County offers the best opportunities in the East.

By best we mean the most productive and, since some are right in downtown Oswego, the safest and most convenient casting platforms imaginable.

You see, the Oswego River runs through the heart of the Port City. Linear parks paved in concrete and lined with wrought iron fences skirt both banks. Each winter, nature plants snow on the walkways and pedestrians pound an icy path through it. And although you might slip and slide a little, particularly while trying to maintain control during a trophy trout’s sizzling runs, the fencing is solid enough to prevent you from falling into the drink.

The water below each park has its own personality.

The western bank borders fast water. Spurred into agitation by tumbling over the dam and pouring out of the powerhouse’s turbines, it’s squeezed into a raging bottleneck by the Oswego Canal on the opposite shore, and by a couple of stone walls in the center of the river. 

The east side is much slower.  The locks jutting into the river below Bridge Street, and the abutment a little beyond, further divert the flow west, braking what’s left of the flow to a crawl that gently caresses the east bank.

This time of year sees water temperatures at their lowest. And while trout are classified as cold water fish, they slow right down when the water temperature drops into the low 30s. This is especially true of brown trout, the most warmwater tolerant of the breed.

Numbed by the cold, they’re lethargic, not into fighting rapids or chasing food, making the gently flowing east bank just what they’re looking for.

I went out behind Hotel Row last week to see if that formula still applied.

Sure did. Of the dozen or so anglers I ran into during the course of two days, four had big browns to show for their efforts.

A couple guys took one apiece on Berkley Twitchtail minnows jigged slowly-- at a crawl, actually—on bottom. 

A guy from Westchester County had three in a bag, including a ten-pounder. He caught them all on egg sacs still-fished on bottom.

The fourth guy tried hiding a nice brown but its tail poked out of the back of his jacket. I didn’t ask him too much…He just seemed like the type of guy who wasn’t into disclosing secrets.

The heat wave of the past couple days will raise the river’s level greatly, drawing massive quantities of browns and steelhead from the open lake. And the place they’ll focus on will be the relatively calm waters behind Hotel Row.

Still, a few of the steelies are sure to run the rapids on the west bank.

Ice row: Behind the power plant on the west bank.

Powerplant reminder to dummies: Rising wter can drown ya!