Black Lake, NY Forum

You all are fortunate to have such a great variety of freshwater gamefish. I live in Florida and the only freshwater gamefish I fish for on a regular basis is Largemouth. When I lived in NY, I loved trying to guess what was on the other end of the line. Besides the smb, lmb, northerns, and walleye you all enjoy in Black Lake, you have a short trip to catch trout, steelhead, salmon, pickerel and sauger. Sure hope those walleye make a comeback in Black Lake. If the habitat gets restored, they should rebound. Habitat restoration is far more effective than stocking. Check with DEC about survival rates of stocking, it can be less than 1%, so if they stock 100,000, it's possible only 1,000 or less will survive. They would have to stock 1,000,000 just to have more than one walleye per surface acre survive on Black Lake. Without good spawning habitat, they would have to stock large amounts every year just to sustain a viable fishery for walleye. With good spawning habitat, the walleye fishing will improve.
Hope to read some fishing reports soon.