Hello Fishermen, Fisherwomen, Fisherkids and Fisherfolks:

    First off, let's get our priorities straight, "A belated Happy Mothers Day" to all the understanding women who encourage their husbands to spend quality time on the water chasing the fish of their dreams.

    It's clearly time to address the first two weekends of walleye fishing from the perspective of Oneida lake. Although some fishermen boasted of mega walleye catches on opening weekend most struggled, including myself to boat a handful of "eyes". Undoubtedly the trollers outwitted those outfitted with jigs. Trolled stickbaits in 23 to 18 feet of water accounted for the top catches. The observant trollers targeted suspended walleyes holding at 12 feet in 23 to 18 feet of water whereas wishful jiggers noticed very few bottom oriented walleyes in the same depths and consequently boated a fraction of the what the trollers experienced.

    We did manage to boat six walleyes on opening Sat. and here is Don Ruzekowicz, retired OCC Mechanical Technologies professor  with the three largest. He did have one just shy of 21 inches. An orange and brown Burbout Jig tipped with a nightcrawler from Mad River Sports attracted the bottom hugging walleye in 23 feet.

Trollers continued to have success for three consecutive days on the west end of the lake particularly around Frenchmen and Dunham Island. On Sunday of opening weekend I met Ed Banevich Sr. and Jr. from PA at 6:00 P.M. at Fremac Waterfront where I keep my charter boat MY GAL CAL II.  Originally this was scheduled to be an early afternoon outing which I changed to later in the day in order to press into the evening bite if necessary. We did manage to boat two walleyes by 8:15 P.M.  Black and purple jigs tipped with nightcrawlers bounced in 10 feet at the Clark Bar brought those eyes to the net. By 8:30 P.M. I anchored in 5 feet at Dutchmen Island and from 8:35 P.M. to 8:55 P.M. we boated 7 more walleyes for our legal limit. The Bass Pro Shops XPS Lazer Eye Nitro Suspend Minnow and the new Storm Madflash Series stickbait made short sport of shoreline walleyes. That new Storm stick is as good an imitation of a "buckeye"  (emerald shiner) as you will ever buy. They are also available at Bass Pro Shops in Auburn, NY.

    Here is a picture of our evening limit of walleyes.

Our early season catches have not measured up to last season's standards. However that is about to change. Last season by April 7 spawning walleyes were basically done. This year hatchery operations buttoned up the spawning effort on April 17. Those 10 days on the front end of the season are equivalent to a millennium in walleye circles. I predict by this weekend you will see significant schooling of walleyes in deep water and limit catches for the drifters and jiggers.

"Eye"ll be sea ing you,

cap'n tony