Crappy and Sunnies in the Toad

A nice perch taken out of Peter Scott Swamp at the County Route 12 bridge.

Back in the early 19th century, when the only way to propel boats was by sail or oar, most of the shipping on Oneida Lake skirted the north shore, taking advantage of the protection the woods around Big Bay offered against the prevailing northwest winds. Ships used to anchor in Toad Harbor, alongside small commercial barges that tied-off on the huge metal drums that poked out of the middle of the lower cut for that purpose.



Today, Toad Harbor’s shoreline is almost completely undeveloped (there’s a small camp at the tip of the point at the entrance to the lower harbor) and the huge, rusting metal structures are all that remains of this colorful past. But safe harbor isn’t on people’s minds much in an age when bass boats can skim across the lake at 50 mph.



Crappie and sunnies sure are though.



And Toad Harbor is one of the best spots on Oneida Lake to bank-fish for both of these tasty critters. Like olden-day boats, they use the barrels for cover and anglers use them as targets for their bobbers.



Toad Harbor draws panfish from autumn through late spring. Icers get crappie and sunnies through the hard water. But the spot is most popular with the legions of cabin weary anglers who form a colorful ring around the place as soon as ice out.



The real action comes when the water warms to about 50 degrees. That’s when the panfish invade the place in massive numbers.



This year the weird weather put a damper on the action. You see, anglers have grown to expect the place to fill up with calicoes and bluegills sometime between late March and early May, and when they’re in, the action stays “hoppin’” for a couple weeks. This year the fish haven’t charged in all at once. Instead, they’re running in schools. And if you’re there when they are, you’ll load up on a limit in an hour or less.



I watched a guy get 15 keeper crappies running up to 11 inches on Sunday, April 25. He was walking along the shore and casting a tiny jighead baited with a small, scented plastic maggot.



That week, I stopped by the place a couple times and sunnies and crappies were in and out like a tide.



In addition, loads of pickerel and a few northerns were in.



Crappie are also hitting small minnows and the sunnies are taking worms and maggots. The toothy guys are hitting lures and minnows targeting crappie.



As the water warms up a few more degrees, calicoes’ll be hitting lures, primarily spinner baits like Beatle Spins. The sunnies will be taking Berkley Power wigglers and tiny jigs. Northerns and pickerel, having just finished spawning, will be famished and’ll hit just about anything that moves.



Oneida River



Forming the border between Onondaga and Oswego Counties, the Oneida River attests to our county being the most fisherman friendly in Central New York. Just drive along the roads bordering it and you’ll see 90% of the anglers fishing from our side.



A good place to try your luck for northerns and panfish right now is the County Route 12 bridge over the outlet of Peter Scott Swamp, about a mile east of Phoenix. The crappie will be available on and off for the first couple weeks of the month, while the sunnies and perch will be there all summer long. And the northerns will hang around to pick off the little guys.



The action at Caughdenoy Dam is starting to heat up. Word has it the catfish are biting above the floodgates. If the past is any guide, the walleyes will be down below. I’ll shoot for ‘em both this week and let you know how I do.

Shipping used to tie-off on the big metal drum poking out of the water on the left side of this photo.



Toad Harbor fishing scene.

Toad Harbor crappie.

Wild Gardens

Adders-tongues

Take loads of water, mix in fertile ground and you get the ideal conditions for a flower garden. Oswego County has so much of these ingredients it’s a botanist’s dream. And the best place to see its vivid landscapes is the Three Mile Bay/ Big Bay Wildlife Management Area on the northwestern shore of Oneida Lake.



Granted, my claim these WMAs are the best wild gardens is subjective…at best. But I feel I can get away with it because vast tracts of colorful flora line the roads in and around the place. You can take a color tour without ever stepping out of the car.



Toad Harbor Road (off NY 49, three miles east of Central Square’s I-81 exit 32) runs right down the middle of the WMAs, weaving through a patchwork of farms, forests, private residences, boat liveries and marshes. A squeaky-clean golf course straddles the road when you first get on, then the road dips just beyond the manicured lawns and makes a short jaunt through a painted swamp.



Late April punctuates this stretch of wetland with clusters of yellow flowers clinging to any dry land they can get a toe-hold on. Splashes of red and white trilliums wash the gentle slopes surrounding the lowland.



Climbing out of the swamp, turning left onto McCloud Road, runners of adders-tongues line the shoulders of the road up to the culvert that drains the swamp into the lake at the boat livery.



A few hundred feet beyond the boat livery and campground is the WMA’s golden gate (it’s closed at night in summer to protect the delicate habitat), where the real garden begins.



Off to the right the land dips gently towards Oneida Lake. Etched in a tangled web of rutted access roads, its wild shoreline bears the scars of heavy storms and logger’s axes. The place is littered by huge trunks and windfalls, with monster boulders strewn around like some mythological giant had a tantrum. A variety of ferns and other wetland plants thrive here. Next month, yellow iris will punctuate the mangled landscape, and later still bullhead–lilies will bob in the shallow waves just off shore.



On the high side to the left, the openings are carpeted in a sculptured rug of grape hyacinths, daffodils, adders-tongues and tiny white anemone-like wonders. As the woods gets thicker, the floor yellows in adders-tongues.



The textures and colors of the forest floor constantly change throughout the warm weather months. As summer ages, an incredible explosion of yellow and orange touch-me-nots will cover the entire area and cardinal flowers will peak out of the muddy shoreline.



The nicest thing about an area blessed with such a marvelous mix of marsh, forest, fields and water’s edge habitats is there’s always something coming up. And if you look close enough, over the skunk cabbage and through the violets, you might catch a jack-in-the-pulpit staring back at you or a lady’s-slipper in the shade.

Wood anemones blanketing the forest floor.



Woodland carpeted in Yellow Blossoms

Derby Hill Bird Observatory -- Ground Control of the Bird Path

Kiosk at Derbt Hill Bird Observatory

Kids are taught early about the law of gravity: what goes up must come down. With that lesson, the smarter children also learn to question authority. After all, the next bird the youngster watches land and take off again, kind’a upsets the cart.



As adults we realize life isn’t simple; up and down…down and up…round and round…full of wonderful mystery, and all you have to do to see it is look.



One of the greatest examples of nature’s common miracles is annual bird migrations. Just about everyone has seen chevrons of geese flying over the neighborhood in the fall and spring. But raptors and scavengers are a different story. Stealthier, ruggedly individualistic, these fowl do their own thing and don’t usually follow the crowd. Indeed, when they’re migrating most lowly humans don’t even know it. However, Oswego County is blessed with one of the best classrooms in the world to see them in action: Derby Hill Bird Observatory.



Located in the southeastern corner of Lake Ontario, a little west of where the shoreline curves sharply north, DHBO is below the bottleneck in the flyway this class of birds takes to avoid flying directly over the 50-mile wide body of water. You see, the group, which includes, hawks, eagles, crows and vultures, are talon-footed, and they don’t tread water very well.



I decided to go up last week and see how this year’s migrations were going.



I ran into Seth Cutright, the professional hawk counter for Onondaga Audubon, the organization that runs DHBO. He pointed out “around 40,000 raptors fly over each year.”



“March was slow,” he continued, “but the first three days of April were great.”



Indeed, Bill Purcell, an amateur ornithologist who would rather be counting birds than just about anything else this time of year, added “On April 2, the birds came over in squadrons. Counting them was exhausting.”



The day after April Fool’s saw eight golden eagles, 18 ospreys, 2,238 turkey vultures, 188 sharp-skinned hawks, 42 red-shouldered hawks, 712 red-tailed hawks and smaller quantities of other raptors.



As of April 6, the bird count was 13,359. That means 26,641 still need to fly over to make the average. Most of them will make the flight this month.



“What I admire most about being a hawk counter is I never know what I’m going to see,” claims Mr. Cutright. He’s already counted two black vultures, a rare sight this far north.



Who knows, if you go up within the next couple of weeks, you might see one, too, or at least a bald eagle. But be warned “the first time I came up here in 1984, I thought identifications were close to magic,” says Purcell, hinting that it takes years of practice to identify birds whipping by so high in the sky.



But hey, nothing worthwhile is ever easy; and raptor counting sure is fun.



DHBO is located off Sage Creek Drive. Get there from the hamlet of Texas by heading east on NY 104B for about a mile. DHBO offers three observation posts, two right off Sage Creek Drive, and one atop a bluff overlooking the lake. Get to the bluff site by turning east at the end of Sage Creek Drive and climbing the hill to the pull-off on the right.



For more info, go to www.visitoswegocounty.com/tn/morefun/birding.aspx.

This year's tally as of April 6.



Seth Cutright (red) & Bill Purcell counting birds.

Ox Creek Sunnies

Trinidad Martinez's turn on Ox Creek

Driving back from Derby Hill last Thursday, I decided to take the long way and took NY 48 out of Oswego. Just south of Fulton, I saw a few guys fishing in Ox Creek right at the bridge. I’m always interested in panfish bites so I turned around, pulled into the parking lot of the bar on the east side of the road (the locals tell me it’s OK to park at the north end of the lot if you’re going fishing) and went to see what was biting.


The men had one five-gallon bucket half full of seven-inch bluegills. Now that might not sound very big but a sunny that size pours out of the sides of a big man’s palm, they’re easy to fillet and it only takes two to feed ya.


They were using worms suspended a couple feet below tiny bobbers. The school of sunnies was a big one because anywhere they cast, so long as it was close to shore, produced a bite almost immediately, but always within a couple minutes.


The spots that were especially productive had some cover: sunken timber, low lying branches, boat dock, stuff like that.


Dave Karalunas, one of the three, said “the sunfish, and a few perch have been hitting good all day,” and claimed the spot was also a local favorite for crappie. They hadn’t caught any calicoes but were hoping to get some before dark.


I watched them for about 10 minutes. Each landed a couple of bruisers. Granted, sunfish aren’t as glamorous as game fish, but pound for pound they fight harder than fish twice their size. Their feistiness on the end of a line, mixed in with their delicious flavor makes them America’s most popular panfish.


But there’s more to them than that. One of the nicest things about fishing is it never ends. It’s an activity you enjoy while planning, actually fishing, and recalling the memories afterwards.


Think about it, who amongst us doesn’t have a sunfish story. In fact, the lowly, colorful, spiny sunny is usually the first fish a youngster pulls out of the water, and it’s often the last fish, too, before hanging up the rods for good.


As I was leaving, three other dudes showed up, and another carload pulled into the parking lot.


They’ll be biting good well into May, but as their numbers diminish and they get smarter, they’ll be a little tougher to catch. So if you’re looking for a fresh fish dinner, now’s the time to do it.


By the way, just about any creek-size Oswego River tributary’s mouth has fish in it right now. If tributaries are few near you, fish the eddies and pools in the rapids at Phoenix, Fulton, Minetto or Oswego.


For up-to-date fishing conditions go to http://www.visitoswegocounty.com/tn/FishingHunting/Fishing/FishingReport.aspx

Dave Karalunas showing Kahlue a bluegill.



Dick Edwards with a nice perch.

Ox Creek fishing scene.

The DSR Provides High Quality Fishing from Salmon River Estuary to Staircase

DSR's staircase to the river

A couple of happy DSR clients

Landing a steelie

Jason, DSR's river keeper, releasing an average-size chromer

Bordering roughly 2 ½ miles of the lower Salmon River, the Douglaston Salmon Run offers the highest quality salmon and trout fishing on this world-class stream. Two factors play equally important roles in contributing to this private fishing preserve’s enviable reputation: location and philosophy.

Any realtor will tell you, location is everything. Springing from the estuary, a mild-mannered series of slow moving channels slicing through low, marshy islands a few hundred yards upstream of the stream’s mouth, the DSR is the first wadeable spot on the river to see lake-run fish. In fact, its lower reaches introduce them to the first sets of rapids. Starting out as a series of lazy currents, undercut banks and fish-friendly pools, the DSR slowly accelerates into an exciting combination of ripples, mild whitewater, angler-friendly runs and large pools before ending in the “Staircase,” a highly productive stretch of pocketwater on Pulaski’s west side.

Dedicated to responsible stewardship of the valuable natural resources in its care, the DSR manages its share of the river by adhering to the traditions of fair play and sportsmanship spawned by American transcendentalists over 100 years ago. River keepers patrol the grounds, discouraging unethical and illegal fishing practices. Essentially, the DSR’s philosophy provides clients with the most natural, fast water fishing for trophy trout in the Northeast.

My Return
I generally fish in the village of Pulaski and haven’t waded the DSR in years. I decided to give it another shot while I still can (I’m pushing retirement age) and went there last Friday.

Pulling into the main entrance on Lake Street (County Rte 5), I was immediately greeted by Phil, the assistant manager. He told me about the water conditions, what species were in the river, what they were hitting … everything I needed to know to have a successful outing.

Making it to the river's edge on the DSR’s well- maintained trail, I descended the stairs to the water. I started just upstream of the first couple of guys I met.

In no time at all, one sets his hook hard, landing a nice six-pound chromer after a respectable battle. A few minutes later, his buddy did the same. They were center-pinning with ceramic beads.

Everywhere I went the story was pretty much the same: lots of guys fishing, but no crowded spots. Everyone boasted catching at least one steelie and claiming “this is a slow day.”

Really! I thought. Any day I get a steelie is a good one. I later learned DSR clients expect numerous hook-ups each trip.

I asked Jason, DSR’s head river keeper, if the fishing was indeed slow. He admitted it was, explaining: “The snow and ice melt are acting like ice cubes in a drink, cooling the water. The fish are in, but they’re not as active as they will be as soon as the snow cap melts and the water warms up a little bit.”


That should be after the first heavy rain. If rain doesn’t come, the warm weather we're experiencing this week’ll do it.

Imagine: the DSR loaded with aggressive, spawning steelies and famished drop-backs. It doesn’t get any better than that.

The DSR offers lodging, guides, you name it. Check it out at: http://www.douglastonsalmonrun.com/.

Early March Drive Up the Oswego River

Sandy Creek native, Colin Kehoe, showing a perch and the rig he got it on.

When nice weather finally broke winter’s spell late last week, I found myself sitting behind my desk feeling much like a kid in school on a warm spring day. Like a youngun,’ I couldn’t just leave my desk and take off for the great outdoors. Unlike a kid, however, I couldn’t day dream about it, either. So, being a mature, responsible adult, I worked furiously and finished with enough light left to take my favorite ride: up the Oswego River.

I launched my excursion from Three Rivers. There wasn’t any ice on the water nor were there people fishing from the bank.

So I continued north to Phoenix. At the bridge I saw a guy sitting on the wall below the lower lock, pole in hand. Parking my car, I climbed up a snow bank left by a plow at the outer edge of a beauty shop’s parking lot and slipped and slid my way down a slim trail through the aging snow. The middle of the canal channel was open directly below the lock but slipped under ice a couple hundred feet downstream. Mallards sat on the edge of the hard water on the west side, Colin Kehoe, a native of Sandy Creek, sat on the canal wall across from them.

In no time flat the guy was reeling in a nice eight-inch perch.

“That’s a pretty good size perch,” I hollered as I walked toward him.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s not as big as the ones we get in Sandy Pond, and I haven’t gotten as many as I do when I fish there. But the pond is slushy and sloppy, and you need an ATV to get around. Here I can walk from the car and fish open water.”

He was still-fishing fathead minnows on bottom and had at least a dozen perch running six to eight inches in his five-gallon bucket.

As tempted as I was to drop a line, I didn’t have any minnows, and there was only about an hour of light left. So I decided to continue on to Oswego to see what I could see.

A few minutes later I rounded the turn on NY 481 just south of town and the steam plant’s stacks popped into view. Shortly afterwards, I turned into the fishing access site parking lot just before the bridge crossing the lock at Leto Island. I noticed a drift boat anchored out in the river, at the downstream end of the middle wall, and reached for my camera.

Feeling really lucky just catching sight of a drift boat in action, I rested my elbow on the railing at the top of the lock stairs to steady my arm, focused, held my breath and started squeezing the shutter. Just then, the guy holding the rod decides to set the hook…hard. I mean, he whipped his arm back so forcefully I could hear his line slicing through the air. Next thing you know, a steelie explodes out of the water like it’s auditioning for a documentary NASA moon shots. I didn’t get him in flight, but I got him being netted.

From the looks of it, the weather we’re having is more fish-friendly than normal and the denizens of the drink are celebrating ice-out the most fisherman-friendly way imaginable: with their teeth. So don’t just sit there, get out and wet a line. The Oswego River’s full of hungry fish, and promises to provide one dynamite spring for anyone willing to venture out and wet a line.

Netting a steelie at the middle wall in Oswego.

Waiting for perch to bite... and ice-out

Deep Winter Chrome

John Kopy holding a 41", 18-something pound hen steelhead caught in the Salmon River

Seen from I-81, the Salmon River looks too shallow and fast for an average boater to pay it any mind. But in the eyes of a steelheader, especially this time of year, it’s heavenly; just the right speed and depth to float a driftboat.


You see, the river’s base flow in itself is enough to carry the thing. Kick in the run-off we’re getting and the stream turns into the ideal habitat for the fine art of back-trolling. One of the most effective ways to catch steelhead, the technique involves drifting downstream, dropping a couple lines rigged with lures like Kwik Fish, Hot N Tots, Hot Shots and Rapalas off the back of the boat, and gently rowing against the current just enough for the flow to give the lures some action.


“This way you cover the entire stretch of water. Better still, you’re over the fish constantly,” claims John Kopy, a local guide who has back-trolled clients to monster steelies from here to Alaska.


It’s about the most environmentally-friendly way you can fish for these chrome beauties. The only sound you hear is the gentle tapping of the oars on the water, the waves slapping the belly of the boat. Since resident wildlife don’t have any predators that attack from the water, the critters stand there undisturbed, watching as you float by. And although you’re moving at a pretty good clip, the sight, through leafless trees, of the last vestiges of snow and ice being swept off the countryside is mesmerizing to the point of mild intoxication.


Before you can indulge too deeply in the reverie however, Kopy reads something in an approaching rapid and instructs you to reel in or release some line, to raise or lower the lure respectively. Then you sit back and continue communing with nature.


Before long, a steelhead will hit, shaking you back to the thrilling reality at hand. It reacts to the cold steel piercing its mouth like someone struck a match under its anal fin. Next thing you know, it’s heading in one direction, you’re going in the other, and all the while Kopy’s watching to determine if he should keep rowing or drop anchor and land the fish.


There are a lot of different ways to catch steelies at the end of winter but none is so peaceful. Back-trolling down a speeding stream is the perfect send-off for the year’s quietest season.


And if you release the fish, it’ll go away, and maybe come back again next year…a little bigger and a whole lot smarter.