Heavy snowpack and slush-covered black (solid) ice on most inland lakes have made travel

trouble for walkers and machine runners on New York State inland lakes and ponds. But lake

surfaces north of Toronto received less than 10 inches of snow during this past week's snow

fest.

Ice/snow goings

Lake Simcoe is the place to go for good ice access and fair fishing prospects.

Leona Creber at Casey's Fish Huts had moved her huts out a mile and set up over 30-foot

depths before the snowfall. "They're about a mile out and all the driving lanes are down to

ice and open to quads," Creber said of conditions off Port Bolster and the Pefferlaw River

area.

Simcoe's perch numbers are way up, but most anglers have to pick through runs of runt perch

before bringing in a bucket of fillet-worthy fish. A lift off bottom or a slow drop to bottom

with jig rigs may pull a few nicer ringbacks from the pack, but several recent year classes of

yellow perch have yet to be thinned by larger predators and the sonar or video screen often

looks more like a bait tank than a good fishing spot/hole.

A line given time well off bottom also has fair odds for the odd whitefish. Numbers had

been down before the snow storm and anglers didn't do all that well on Sunday with white ones,

but a few two-fish limits had been logged last week, Creber said.

Chautauqua Lake got hit with heavy snow, but the perch bite continues, walleye numbers have

jumped slightly on both sides of the North Basin, and the crappie night bite is alright.

"Some anglers at Mayville have gotten a limit (25) of crappie after dark," said Lisa Green

at Happy Hooker Bait & Tackle in Ashville. She added, "It's ugly out there, but they're

going." Snowpack and slush, more than a foot deep in places, make moving rough, but the bite

makes thing right.

Silver Lake dodged the snow bullet and still has more than a foot of solid ice under less

than six inches of slush. Perch and walleye action has been slow; crappie and bluegill

activity accelerates.

Most of the better "calico" and 'gill schooling has been deeper, well off weed edges at the

south end. Most jiggers set up with light lines and heads, flies, or tiny spoon blades with a

grub attached over 15-foot depths. If sights and bites are slight, a move out to 20-foot

depths on either side of the mid to south section still produces more panfish than perch

pecks.

Honeoye Lake also saw less snow than water bodies closer to the Great Lakes. Ice more than

a foot thick holds a slushy surface of less than a half foot. The walleye bite is erratic, if

that.

"They're seeing a better number of perch," Dan Sharpe at Honeoye Bait & Tackle said of the

panfish runners working deeper drop-offs around the lake. Even bluegills, typically weed-edge

huggers, have moved out to deeper waters, Sharpe said.

Twenty-foot water has been a good start for assorted panfish successes. Smaller 'gill are

schooling in and around weeds. But the bigger, bull-sized bluegills have gone deeper.

Lakewide, ice anglers have seen a sharp jump in chain pickerel numbers this season.

Irondequoit Bay perch have sounded. Destrey Chesboro at Bayside Boat and Tackle in

Rochester has seen some nice sizes of perch coming from the deep, 40-foot spine well out in

the bay.

"The solid ice is about 7 inches now and the slush and snow cover is deep, but the perch

are biting and the guys are heading out as long as they can," Chesboro said of the bay's

fishery.

h Lower Niagara

Drift fishing at Devil's Hole and Lewiston has been consistently good for boaters. Shore

anglers do well also.

Jason Henning of Franklinville won the Niagara River Anglers Association Winter Steelhead

Contest with a 12.6-pound steelie taken at Artpark. Second place went to John Moriarty of

Sloatsburg who drifted the lower river for a 11.65-pound entry. Derek Zimmerman of Niagara

Falls fished Burt Dam for an 11.47-pound trout.

Capt. Frank Campbell has seen a nice mix of steelies and browns along river drifts. Action

had been good on the Niagara Bar, but steady east and north winds have barred access to the

bar so far this week.

Fish photo finds

Anglers with good shots of great fishing catches-on open water or on ice-can have their

trophy photos displayed on the Fishing Page of the News Web site

(www.buffalonews.com/fishing).

New photos will be added as they are received. To get your photo published, e-mail it along

with a brief description of the catch, including the name and home (city, town or village) of

the angler, the location of the catch and how the fish was caught to the email address listed

below.

Correction

The Niagara Region 2010 Winter 3-D League shoot scheduled for March 7 at Double T Archery

has been moved to Active Bowhunters in Holland. For shoot details, call John Peters at (585)

496-5819. The April 11 shoot will be held at Wilson Conservation Club and the awards banquet

set for April 24 will be held April 17. For league details, call Paul Salzyn (880-6420).