Do you realize that we live in an area that is the best, most diverse freshwater fishery in United States? Within 100 miles of Buffalo you can find superb Crappie fishing on Chautauqua lake.  You can then hop in your car and drive up to Lake Ontario or the lower Niagara River and fish for trophy Salmon and Trout.  You also have the option to go over to Lake Erie and fish for trophy Walleyes or Perch. Walleyes at 5-10 lbs are not uncommon in Lake Erie. If your more of a small lake fisherman an option could be Silver Lake for Northern Pike or Lime Lake for Norlunge.  Lake Alice and Oak Orchard Creek in Orleans County also offers superb multi species fishing and in many areas a boat is not required. Muskies in excess of 50”can be caught in the small boat harbor/Niagara River or in Chautauqua Lake. No place else in the USA do you have so many options so I guess we truly live in a “fishy place”…

Shore fishing in Buffalo Harbor is very good especially in the spring when the Bass are spawning but this is Catch and Release fishing .The Upper Niagara River shore fishing can also be productive for many species of fish. Other areas where shore fishing is productive are the Erie Barge Canal, Tonawanda Creek, Ellicott Creek, Cayuga Creek,18 mile creek and Cattaraugus Creek etc.  I would suggest picking up one the local Hot Spot fishing maps which are available at fishing stores and local fishing clinics run by the Erie County Federation of Sportsmen (ECFSC) or its member clubs. Check the ECFSC website for the latest information on the upcoming fishing clinics.

Fishing at Como Park can be good especially after the DEC annual spring Trout stocking!  I personally enjoyed shore Northern Pike fishing at Ransom ,Tonawanda and Ellicott Creeks. This is grass roots fishing and does not require very expensive poles, reels etc, a good old Zebco 33 is a good solid pole and reel for this kind of fishing. Usually you have a lot of action shore fishing and that’s what kids especially like! Keep an eye out for W.Hilts Jr fishing column in the Buffalo News or listen to his weekly fishing forecast on WBEN radio on Saturday morning for the latest fishing information and upcoming fishing clinics.

More fishing licenses are sold in Erie County than any other county in New York State and the reason is that fishing opportunities are abundant and excellent.!!

Joseph Fischer

It is now 2024 and I would like to tell our readers with young children why they should put attending one the Erie County Federation of Sportsmen’s (ECFSC) annual fishing clinics at Tifft Nature preserve and Chestnut Ridge Park in June. ECFSC members also assist at many other club fishing clinics when requested. The ECFSC clinics are unlike many fishing clinics which quite often amount to giving a child a fishing pole and letting them fish in a nearby body of water and walking around and helping them fish.

When you check into an ECFSC clinic the child is given a punch card. These punch cards have words like “casting” or “where to fish” written on them These are the various learning stations the child and his parent or guardian must go through before they fish. These cards are punched as the child goes through these learning stations. These stations are manned by fishing experts and many of these experts are members of the New York State Outdoorsman Hall of Fame. When the child finishes the learning stations, he then can obtain fishing equipment or use his own to fish. ECFSC members will be walking the shore and assisting the children in fishing where needed.

When the fishing is completed in one to three hours children will be given prizes based on their age. The ECFSC would like to extend many thanks to our sponsors like Cabela’s, Fraternal Order of Eagles Depew chapter, Erie County and of course many of the clubs and volunteers for their annual donations and help in making these events successful. These are great events, come to one you won’t be disappointed. I wish we had these types of events when I was young back in the depression!!

See you there!!!

Joseph Fischer

We have come to the end of 2023 and the Erie County Federation of Sportsmen (ECFSC) has accomplished a lot!! We finished off the year by awarding 12 lifetime sportsmen licenses to Erie County children. They can choose between hunting, fishing, trapping etc.  The federation has given away over 70 of these licenses in the last few years!! The ECFSC has also supported many of the trap shooting school programs throughout the county.

The ECFSC hosted 2 children’s fishing clinics, one at the Tifft Nature Preserve and the other at Chestnut Ridge Park and assisted many federation clubs in setting up and running fishing clinics throughout the county. The ECFSC puts a lot of time and effort in promoting these children’s clinics as they are the sportsmen of tomorrow and you need to reach these children before they become teenagers!!

Our webmaster Joe McAdams has created a great informative website, and we are receiving thousands of hits to the site every month, incidentally if you or your club wants to advertise or promote one of your upcoming functions contact Joe and he will advertise it on the website.

2024 is around the corner and it promises to be a a tumultuous year topped off by a presidential election in November. I am sure more anti-gun legislation will be coming so we must be vigilant and involved. The days of sitting in your hunting cabin and ignoring what’s going on are over. I know most people want to ignore politics but as once was said,” If you ignore politics, you will be ruled by your inferiors”; and as stated in a previous column, VOTE!!  (The sportsmen have been terrible in this regard.)

We all know what we are dealing with in New York State, so we have to be aware and reactive if necessary. The recent ammunition bill is a good example of a bill that has forcing smaller gun shops to close because of the incredibly burdensome paperwork which is exactly what it intended to do! Join a sportsmen’s club and better yet attend some of the ECFS meetings, the dates and times are posted on the website.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!

Joseph Fischer

Since my last article I had another birthday, and I really am a old man now as all the trees on my street are younger than me. I believe the street also is younger than me!! Being old I tend to worry a lot. I worry about the sportsmen in our state as their rights are slowly being eroded by anti-sportsmen laws such as the latest one regarding the purchase of ammunition. This law is causing a lot of small gun dealers to go out of business which I think was the actual purpose of the law. Many sportsmen are going to Pennsylvania to purchase their ammo because of this law. More possible antigun laws are in the works such as forcing you to have liability insurance if you have a firearm, this one has been around for a long time and is back under consideration.

Years ago, the sportsmen fought back against this type of legislation through groups like the New York State Conservation Council (NYSCC). This organization at one time had an office downstate and every county in NY was a member. The NYSCC had a Legislative vice president who lobbied in Albany against anti sportsmen legislation and the NYSCC membership was at that time in the thousands. They actually passed resolutions which were supported by the DEC. Some of these resolutions successfully brought the sportsmen Sunday hunting, Rifle big game hunting in some counties, crossbow hunting just to name a few accomplishments. This large group of organized sportsmen was recognized by the NYSDEC and the DEC regularly attended the NYSCC annual convention and their spring meeting. Unfortunately, membership and with-it money declined to where it is today which is a small statewide organization with very little money struggling to survive. The good news is its still a viable organization which is on the upswing and truly deserve our support as the only statewide organization representing sportsmen which as you know, we need now!! Look up their website at https://www.nyscc.com and check them out!! I will have more on the NYSCC in a future article.

The Erie County Federation and all its members wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Joseph Fischer

Well the election season is over and its my turn to rant about it! First of all only 27% of the Erie County residents voted and that’s a disgrace to begin with, especially considering that the 3 term Erie much maligned by sportsmen county executive was on the ballot. After his poor judgement on COVID, 47 people dying in a recent blizzard, his veto of the proposed youth hunt in Erie County {one of only 2 counties out of 50 who vetoed it) etc. This was plenty of reasons to come out and vote him out but it didn’t even come close to happening! Sportsmen had 8 days of early voting plus election day and many of them still did not vote! It seems that sportsmen will not get off their butts to vote until it  effects them directly. I worked 3 days as a election inspector and seen a lot of young female voters but very few men. The only thing we have to fight back with is our vote!!

Did you know that at least 10 gun dealers in New York have closed shop due to the odious ammunition screening process? That is exactly what the bill was intended to do! Yet we continually elect democrats to most positions in New York and the complaint is that downstate controls the vote, this is not true as New York City has about 8 million people and New York State has 18 million people and as stated earlier  a lot of these people don’t vote!!!

I talked to a friend who works at Cabelas and he stated that last year on Black Friday they sold 175 guns, this year they will be lucky to sell 50 guns! This is all because of the new laws regarding purchasing a gun, ammunition etc. If this doesn’t wake up the sportsmen I don’t know what will!!

Joseph Fischer

I recently talked to Dr. Jason Robinson who heads up the Lake Erie Fisheries unit based in Dunkirk New York. We discussed at length the latest fall survey regarding the status of the warm water fishery in eastern Lake Erie. The preliminary results are as follows:

WALLEYES
This fishery, as most of you know, is in excellent shape with an abundant population estimated at over 100 million walleyes in the lake. The good news is that should continue as there appears to be an abundance of walleye fingerlings in the lake! I asked Dr. Robinson whether there was enough bait to feed these voracious eaters he felt that there doesn’t seem to be a problem as their average growth rate and weight is very good with a 3-year-old walleye already legal size. Great news for all you Lake Erie walleye fishermen. The other thing that is different from the earlier super walleye fishery in the 1980’s is that the earlier walleye fishery was predominately a deep water nomadic school of fish that required a larger offshore boat and planer boards etc. to catch these walleyes. The walleyes now are fish that live in the Buffalo harbor area and are shallow water fish.

BASS
The Smallmouth Bass fishery is stable and probably one of the best bass fisheries in North America with bass exceeding 4 lbs. common and some topping 6 lbs. Bass will be the target of a study to ascertain whether the early season bass fishery has a negative effect on spawning. A study recently showed that if a bass is removed from its spawning bed only for a short time the nest is quickly predated by gobies, I will have more on this in the future.

PERCH
The perch population in the Eastern basin of Lake Erie has been stable and continues to be in good shape now and projected to be so for the immediate future. This is great news. The western basin has seen a precipitous drop in perch recruitment in the last couple of years and at this time the reason has not been determined. There is a good population of mature perch (8-14”) in the lake now and as a DEC official told me recently “a great deal of these fish die of old age”. This fish is considered by many to be the best eating of all freshwater fish.

Joseph Fischer