Another Labor Day has passed, another summer season is winding down, but this season in WNY will be forever remembered as the “Year of the Walleye,” as the bite on Lake Erie continues its mind-boggling frenzy that seems to have been sustained since the walleye opener on May 1.

The 2025 season started as they all have in the past, with a solid night bite in the shallows, with a twist – usually these post spawn feeding areas have defined sections, such as from Woodlawn to Wanakah, or Barcelona to the PA line.  Little did the night anglers know the stage was being set, with fast limits and consistent action evening to evening.  Even the Upper Niagara River saw a night bite accessible from shore from places like Freedom Park and the foot of Ontario Street’s Black Rock Park.  As May progressed into June, and the night bite gave way to the daytime activity, the walleye fishing seemed to only improve.

Catch rates this year seem to have remained consistent and steady, cross the NY waters of the Eastern Basin, and according to DEC Lake Erie Fisheries Unit personnel, this year’s catch rate has broken every record since records have been kept.  Anglers have been taking to social media, charter captains and hobbyists alike, showing off the photos of limit catches achieved in 2 hours of fishing, or less.  This June success continued – throughout July, throughout August, and now into September, the action has not slowed down.

Historically, the eastern basin of Lake Erie has truly relied upon the annual migration of western basin walleye that follow the baitfish each summer as they move to the cooler, deeper waters the east side of this Great Lake offers.  Historically, the eastern basin has had low levels of resident walleye, and if you were fortunate to find an active school of “resident” fish, it was somewhat normal to see trophy class fish, but very few smaller walleye, until the migrating fish arrived.  Limits were nowhere near as common, until those western fish arrived as well.  Once summertime hit it stride, and our local waters warmed, many of the fish found near Buffalo would move to deeper waters offered further west, from Sturgeon Point to Barcelona.  Some years anglers would need to work west of Sunset Bay to find good fishing from mid-July – end of August. 

It would appear the eastern basin resident walleye numbers have exploded, and if the DEC telemetry studies inform us, these fish that call the WNY waters home remain in the eastern basin; they do not migrate west!  It seems that spawning success on the eastern basin has improved tremendously, as it has across the entire lake, which, to me, indicates the lake’s health from the days Erie was declared dead, continues to improve, with additional cleanup projects and remediation of old toxic sludge and habitat restoration, has brought a more stable and healthy spawn into play.  Over the past 15 years or so, based on trawl surveys conducted each fall, the annual spawn is appearing more consistent.  Gone seem to be the days when anglers and biologists would see a great spawn year, followed by several year of low production, then another spike.  This condition appears to be giving way to more consistent annual spawning success, and the walleye population estimates, which are truly based on western basin observations, continues to show growth and stability.  The result is a great mix of fish, as multiple year classes of fish are now present.  Throughout the 2025 season, anglers have reported all sizes being caught, but very few of those double-digit wall hangers, which is a more normal condition for a well-balanced, healthy fish population.

As mentioned earlier, this year’s catch rates have broken all records.  Where it once was normal to expect an average catch rate of just under 1 fish an hour – a high-quality fishery by any measure – seems like many boats are experiencing just over 1 fish every 10 minutes!  Participants of the Sunset Bay Walleye Shootout and the Northern Chautauqua Conservation Club Walleye Derby this year reported each day bringing nearly 100 fish caught, with many reporting putting well over 30 on the deck (with most released, due to the 6 fish per man daily possession limit.)  And the action continues, despite the cooling waters and the usual late-summer lull that comes with the western basin fish making their return journey back to Ohio waters.

This bodes well for our region, as walleye is the 2^nd most popular freshwater gamefish in the USA, behind black bass.  Regional tourism, despite taking some hits with cross-border visitors due to the weakened Canadian dollar, has been buoyed by the lure of Lake Erie and the mind-boggling walleye fishing.  Many states’ license plates are represented in the launch parking lots, from Sturgeon Point to Barcelona.  I believe a good 30 of the 50 states were represented at this year’s Sunset Bay Shootout.  Sportfishing tourism in WNY continues to rise, a testament to the marketing efforts of the Eastern Lake Erie Charter Boat Association and their “Come Fish Lake Erie” promotion.  Word of mouth is doing the rest, and with the National Walleye Tour making another stop in Dunkirk this past August, the area can expect more good reports delivered to friends and family back home.  Add this to the incredible bass fishery found nearshore in close proximity to Buffalo, and this region has a one-two punch for traveling anglers to capitalize on.  The private sector is making the most of this opportunity and millions of dollars of economic impact and thousands of jobs for our residents is the result.

The good old days are right now, with a fishery large and healthy enough to share with those from other parts of the country who do not have such quality walleye fisheries back home.  When the fishing is this good, and we show and promote this gift, the entire region rises, increased funding for continued restoration programs and fisheries monitoring through increased non-NY resident fishing license sales, and the many secondary businesses, like restaurants, hotels, B&Bs and campgrounds have all seen this significant uptick in business; and the future is looking very bright indeed.

On August 26, 2025, NY Governor Hochul signed the overwhelmingly supported NY Crossbow Bill into law, marking the end of a decades long battle to include the crossbow as a choice for NY hunters, without special medical restrictions or modification.  I would like to applaud the Governor for hearing the will of the people and enacting this bill into law, which has taken effect immediately.

 Let’s take a moment to review some of the changes this law brings with it.  First, the restrictions placed on a legal crossbow, including maximum draw weight of 200 lbs., and minimum limb width of 17 inches have ben removed.  NY hunter may now use any modern crossbow regardless of draw weight (still must meet a minimum draw weight of 100 lbs.) and limb width.

 Second, the new law allows crossbow use throughout any early archery season.  This replaced the permissible timing during early archery season, which, in NY southern zone for example, was limited to the final 14 days of early archery.

 Third, and perhaps most importantly, crossbow use now requires hunters to successfully complete the bowhunter safety course, moving crossbow away from the muzzleloader privilege.  This means, effective immediately, if a hunter in NY wishes to use the crossbow – regardless of whether it is chosen during early archery, regular season, or extended season and holiday hunt (S. Zone only), or for it to be used in pursuit of small game and wild turkey, the hunter must now take the bowhunter safety course.  If you have been using the crossbow in its limited form under the ML privilege, but have never taken the bowhunting course, you will now have to.

 This law addresses some shortcomings of the old law, eliminating any confusion as to whether your crossbow is “legal,” and, perhaps most importantly, proper education on how the bolt lethality works, which is identical to the broadhead on an arrow, requiring the hunter to give more time before recovery efforts, most effective shot placement and blood tracking skills not taught in the basic hunter’s safety course.  Over the past several seasons, Deer Search, Inc. has tracked massive increases in calls during those last 2 weeks of early archery, as crossbow hunters, as it stood prior to 8/26/2025, relied upon what was taught in terms of safe and effective firearms use, but may be unaware of the different demands a successful archery harvest and recovery carries.

 As for its use and who really benefits most from this new law, although benefits are attached to crossbow in recruiting women and youth hunters to these critical conservation activities, the biggest winners are senior bowhunters who, through attrition of time, can no longer draw and hold a vertical bow effectively for an ethical kill.  These experienced bowhunters, having opportunity to return to the early archery woods, brings with it the hands-on mentoring of the new generation, imparting not just the skills needed to be an effective and successful bowhunter, but also passing on the knowledge required to become a woodsman, not just a hunter.  Returning these hunters to the woods will deliver profound benefit to the next generations, something not readily measurable, but will be noticed as increased harvest and reduced calls for deer recovery help.

 This is a very positive moment for hunting in NYS, something that would not have happened without the dedication to this effort from New York State Conservation Council, New York Crossbow Coalition, and the overwhelming majority of County Federations, like Erie County, not giving up and presenting facts, harvest history and recruitment insights gleaned from past ML stamp sales.

 Since this act was written to take effect “immediately upon enactment”, the new law starts THIS season.  Although the enactment happened after the deadline for updating the print version of the hunting regulations guide book, you will be able to get the updated regulations from the DEC website, as they will be able to update the online PDF of the booklet rather quickly.  In fact, I’m sure it is already completed and ready to roll out.  For more information, check the DEC website in the coming days to read and familiarize yourself with the new rules for crossbow use starting in 2025.

 We’re a little over 30 days from early archery opener in the Southern Zone, less than 30 days for northern zone early archery.  Hunters still have time to pick up a crossbow, bolts, broadheads, and practice bolts, get familiar with the operation and marksmanship before hitting the woods, if you so choose to use a crossbow.  Remember, you aren’t required to use a crossbow – it’s your choice.  But it’s a choice long overdue in New York. 

We applaud the Governor for the action and wish to recognize and thank the NYS DEC for their quick response and implementation.

On June 20, 2025, the NYSDEC released for public comment, a handful of regulatory changes impacting the Big Game hunting rules, stating with the 2025 season.  Below are the proposals, and my take on these actions.  

Move to e-Carcass tagging:  dove-tailing on last year’s change to the issuing of carcass tags, the DEC is proposing elimination of the need to physically “tag” your harvest, provided you report your filled tag using the HuntFishNY App.  Exceptions to this requirement (when you do need to affix a carcass tag to the animal) include when you are not in immediate possession of the harvest, when the harvest is dropped off to a deer processor, or taxidermist.  Hunters will still be able to print out the issued carcass tags through your web portal, which began last season. 

Within this proposed change, some other changes are parts of this proposal, including the change in required reporting time from 7 days to 48 hours.  DEC claims you can use the HuntFishNY App to report your harvest, even if you have no cell service, and the report that you have completed will transmit to DEC once cell service is restored. 

My take:  Although the intention appears good with this proposal, and several other states have successfully moved to e-carcass tagging, like Ohio, we’re talking about NY.  Being an IT/ OT professional for nearly 30 years, and experiencing many initiatives pushed by NYS leveraging technical solutions, I can tell you with certainty this program will crash and burn due to insufficient quality assurance and product testing.  Let’s review the history.  2002 and the DECALS rollout – web servers crashed, making it impossible for license sales to occur, a problem that persisted for about a month after rollout.  Changes to the reporting methodology, from mail-in report card to harvest reporting via phone in system was difficult and non-intuitive and, coupled with a 24-hour reporting requirement, was the root cause of reporting compliance drops.  If a system doesn’t work out of the box, user confidence gets crushed.  To address the issues of reporting, DEC extended the reporting deadline to 7 days after harvest.  This seemed to improve reporting compliance, as many complained that while afield, no cellular service existed where they hunt.  Although the call-in HIP system worked, it wasn’t perfect, with some hunters not being presented with the right towns while leveraging the voice activated reporting.  Let’s also not forget recent history, when DEC cut over to eLicensing without first testing the HIP call in system and the mobile application, the NY Pocket Ranger, which wound up not working, the HIP call system was broken and a new app had to be developed, post rollout!  A better direction would be working this new approach in parallel with the physical tagging, as to assure all bugs are identified and corrected before pissing off the sporting community.   A larger concern in my mind, being a cybersecurity professional, is the claim you can report offline, and your harvest report will automatically upload upon restoration of cellular service.  How is authentication handled?  Does this pass a simple cookie to your phone, leveraging this as your token to securely connect to your account and transmit the proper data?  What if you have multiple accounts tied to your user ID?  This scenario exists with parents and their children.  My experience is the app will default to whatever account was last active.  How does one switch without authentication and verification?  What about the app itself?  Does this need to be running in the background to maintain session information?  If this is the case, what does this do to battery life?  If the phone shuts down the background application to conserve power, how does that report transmit “automatically”?  We should walk before we fly, and when it comes to NY and technology, well, they barely crawl. 

Youth Hunt additional permits – a commonly reported flaw in the special youth firearms hunt, held during Columbus Day weekend, is the youth hunter must use their regular season tag (antlered, or “buck” tag) if they successfully harvest a deer during the special youth firearms hunt.  If the youth did not secure a DMP, they are effectively locked out of the regular season deer hunt if they successfully filled their tag in October.  To address this, the DEC is proposing issuing a special regular season tag, for a deer of the opposite “sex” of that harvested during the youth hunt, but only to kids that did not receive a DMP.  How this would work is, upon reporting a harvest, DEC would examine whether the account has a valid DMP issued, and if not, a special regular season tag would be issued.  If the youth hunter harvested an antlered deer, the special permit would be for antlerless only.  If the youth harvested an antlerless deer during the youth hunt, an antlered deer tag would be issued.  This would preserve the opportunity for the parent to hunt with their child during regular season. 

My take:  Although the intentions are good, this proposal seems a bit over-complicated.  A wise man once told me to embrace the KISS method for best success – KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID!  Why would we want to introduce such complexity to this problem?  If the October harvest doesn’t successfully report, what happens?  If the youth hunter harvested a buck, would that antlerless only tag be valid statewide, or be WMU specific?  What would this do to the deer management program (antlerless harvests by WMU, not statewide)?  Seems to me, the best approach would be to ask the parent whether the qualifying youth will participate in the October youth hunt.  If yes, issue a special youth hunt deer tag, valid for a deer of either sex, but valid for the 3-day youth hunt ONLY.  This would eliminate the rigamarole, simplify the process, and assure the youth and the parent that, despite filling their tag during the youth hunt, that youth will still be able to hunt with dad or mom during the regular. 

DMAP Changes – eliminate the 4 DMAPs per hunter limit, and review DMAP program every 5 years, vs. 3 years. 

My take:  This move appears long overdue.  The deer management assistance program is geared to assist specific land owners that show negative deer damage, requiring additional antlerless deer management.  If this program is rolled out for a property, the property owner has a problem.  Getting hunters to voluntarily assist in removing overabundant numbers can sometimes be challenging, as time is what it is, can’t make more of it.  If a landowner has a successful hunter filling DMAPs, why limit that successful hunter to four (4) animals?  Reviewing the impacts of DMAP every 5 years makes more sense than the 3-year review, as getting a deer problem under “control” using DMAP is a longer process than 3 seasons affords. 

DEC is accepting comments on the proposed regulations through Aug. 18, 2025. Submit comments to wildliferegs@dec.ny.gov (subject: “e-tags and DMAP”) or to: NYSDEC, Attn: Deer Hunting Regs, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-4754.