Local conditions went south in 5 days. Ice is still there but access is not good.
Intuition and extreme caution is necessary. I'm going to catch up on the backlog of house duties I've neglected in past four months tomorrow instead of doing another 2 hrs drive to release lake trout. Maybe I'll be able to sleep past 4:30 am for a change and shoreline will tighten up.
I will pillage on Sunday. Love local sundays

Dead Sea today.
Beautiful weather, only handful fish wanted to play.

Hit the ice wall today.
15 week's straight, 30 plus days and well over 400 hrs, I'm toast.
Captured every species I targeted.
Walked new waters. But I gotta say, I'm tired.
Ready to start thinking farm and garden as well as pulling the Daisy out.
Could easily again put another year of 20 plus weeks in but the fat lady is starting to warm up the pipe

Can you imagine, almost 1/2 of our year there is walkable on top water to fish ? Incredible to me.
Not taking away from the year round open water but its just a different type that only happens in a time frame of weather conditions.
Gosh I could never leave that scenario

Week 17. Fished lake George today. Felt like the salmon river. Fish there but no bites.
Scenery was great, got a tour on the new can am ATV which was incredibly comfortable. No shortage of ice , 16 plus everywhere we traveled. My depth range was 50 to 150 foot water.
After a day on ice , its time to hit up some live music at local pub.

I finally fished some water I have  always want to Chaumont bay. We did ok on perch but not great. A front came through and shut the off and before we knew it it was a white out. Being 3 mile out I was a tad concerned, but GPS a compass a few friendly folks got us back. No walleyes today but saw a few beauties iced

My brother in law stayed on oneida last week in terrible conditions but said he'd go back. Lodging was to his liking.
I think I will check it out this summer and try to pre ice plan for 2019-20.

Hitting local panfish ice hard this weekend before it goes away. Sunny days on laker waters are still ahead

Clint S
I finally fished some water I have  always want to Chaumont bay. We did ok on perch but not great. A front came through and shut the off and before we knew it it was a white out. Being 3 mile out I was a tad concerned, but GPS a compass a few friendly folks got us back. No walleyes today but saw a few beauties iced

A friend who lives right on Sandy Pond, which he is heartbroken to not be fishing as it has been so bad, reported that he was doing well at Chaumont on perch, until about 2 weeks ago, when the action died back, and the locals said the fish moved into Black River Bay, not a particularly good place to go from a safety standpoint.  Crazy year along the big pond, some bays are hot and others, not so much.

Yes I as m a sandy pond regular but have not gone up this year due to the poor fishing up there. I think chaumont will be a new spot for me except for the drive is kinda long