Cazenovia Lake

27 inches, 5.8 pound walleye from Caz lake. His sad face here was nothing like what it was when e pulled this fish into the canoe.

Last week I went fishing with Alex (my 4 year old boy). We headed up to the road to the Cazenovia Lake, like we do just about any time we want to fish. I had been up there the night before with Grace cutting worms in half and throwing bobbers in the shallow water just to get her a few sunnies. The lake seems full of panfish and largemouth bass so throwing the canoe in at the state land on the north side of the lake on East Lake road always amounts to a few hours of fun for both of us.

Alex seemed stuck on catching a "big one" and he started making up songs about grilling a shark in the front of the canoe. He thought Mom would really be surprised to see a big fish come home in the 5 gallon bucket we usually bring along "just in case". In fact, in the 4 years since Grace caught her fish fish in the same lake, we've never brought a fish home from this lake and that bucket has served as a worm container and life jacket holder.

The previous night there was no end to the fun for Grace, but Alex was having no luck as we watched his bobber just sit on top for a while. I had gotten a few largemouth bass casting a floating Rapala and so Alex started to ask why he had to fish with a worm and not a "hook fish". Eventually I switched with him and started to teach him to cast the hook fish with his "Cars" fishing pole. He sort of surprised me by getting it right away and the fishing trip turned rapidly into a casting trip for Alex as he tried to beat his last distance with each cast.

While Alex threw the little lure I looked through the tiny tacklebox I usually bring along and chuckled as I flipped around the big lures that I thought were pretty much useless in this lake. There were a number of other boats up on the north side of the lake casting towards shore looking for largemouth, but I wondered if I might get some bigger fish if I tried jigging in the deeper water. The north side of the lake is hardly deep by any standard, only 10-20 feet in the middle of the lake, but still I might get a couple bigger bass that I could let Alex reel in.

After a few lost worms (sunfish tugging on the loose end I suspected) I tied two more hooks to my line above the jig head and hooked a worm with all three hooks in a makeshift work harness. As soon as I did this I started getting some bigger sunfish, so I rigged up Alex's line the same way. Alex and I started catching some bigger sunnies and he was enjoying himself and the talk of grilling a big fish for Mom started up again.

Just as it got a bit darker (9 pm) I hooked a bit larger fish. As I pulled it up, it started pulling out line. I hyped it up with Alex as I reeled it in and told him that this was the fish for Mom. In a few moments I flopped a nice walleye into the canoe and unhooked him. The fish started flopping around and Alex almost jumped overboard as it made its way towards him. I tried to put him in the 5 gallon bucket, but his tail stuck comically out of the top of it. He flopped around, toppled the bucket and almost managed to free himself over the side of the canoe. Alex could hardly believe his eyes.

When I paddled back to the state land where we put in I met a guy who said that there used to be walleye in the lake, but he hadn't caught one in the 10 years he had been fishing in it. I was surprised because Caz isn't stocked with walleye as far as I know any more. When I got it home I measured it at 27 inched and 5.8 pounds. A little searching around reveals that others are catching biggish walleye in here too.

I've been reluctant to put much "personal" stuff on my personal page, but I'm having a change of heart. When I was growing up, it seems that all we did on summer weekends was to go fishing on Oneida Lake. My parents had a 16 foot, fiberglass MFG boat whose open bow I became intimately familiar with over years of weekend fishing trips. Inevitably, this would mean hours and hours of sitting on one one side of the boat drifting east with the prevailing wind, facing the sun to the west with our faces catching the full effect of the sun, magnified by the reflection from the water. I remember intensely closing my eyes and being rocked by the waves with monofilament line wrapped around my index finger, waiting for the slow and steady tug of a walleye or the sudden jerk of a silver bass or yellow perch. The open bow seemed to shrink as I grew up and tried to make my space on the boat more comfortable by stuffing life preservers around me. I swore the seats got harder each year. I'm sure I must have complained a lot about the monotony. I forget...too much sun.

I also remember catching SO MANY fish. I suppose that if you have 7 lines hanging off the side of the boat (my parents occasionally would use two poles each) and spend an entire day on a lake drifting across productive areas, its hard to imagine NOT catching a lot of fish. However, I've never seen anyone else come out of that lake with fish like we did on Saturday nights. We would fill coolers full of perch and haul stringers of big walleye out of there every weekend. We reached our limit EVERY TIME. At least that's my story...and I'm sticking to it.

I recall doing this as a family. We all sat in the car for that hour long drive, we all fished, we all learned to put the worms on, take the fish off and hold them out for pictures (hold it out straight to the camera...so it looks BIGGER). It amazes me how our photo-shy family seems to have albums and albums of pictures of us behind fish...but little else. About the only thing we didn't all do was make the bologna sandwiches that sustained us. That was a job that mom did. She made sure we were all fed and slathered in sunscreen so that our pasty Irish skin wouldn't blister in the sun. We all ate at the same greasy spoons at night, too. For many years we ate at a bar at "Doug's-Rent-A-Boat" on the south shore. One year my parents bought me a t-shirt from Doug's that had a drawing of a big jumping walleye. I kept the shirt until just last year.

My family loves all of this. When we get together, I like to tell them if I've been fishing, where I went, what I tried and what I caught and I like to hear what fishing they've been up to too. I made one of my infrequent calls home last night after coming home from fishing with my 2 year old son, Alex. He wasn't home, so I left a message. I wanted to tell Dad about the 15 1/2 inch largemouth we caught off the shore of Cazenovia Lake. I wanted to tell about the little piece of state land that I never saw before on the east shore and how the sun reflected off the lake and onto Alex's face as the sun descended in the west.