Photo by Ron Sinfelt

Is spring bass fishing an idea whose time has come? That's what New York Department of Environmental Conservation fisheries managers were wondering as this issue of New York Game & Fish was going to press. They planned to put the question before anglers at a series of public hearings, and then adjust regulations accordingly, effective Oct. 1, 2006.

For decades, the state bass season has opened on the third Saturday in June and ended on Nov. 30. The late-June start was designed to protect spring-spawning bass from hook-and-line exploitation. Between seasons, no bass fishing was allowed, even on a no-kill basis.

But in 1994, DEC Region 9 biologists launched an experimental spring season on Lake Erie. From the first Saturday in May through the day before the opening of the regular season, Erie anglers were permitted to keep one bass of 15 inches or better per day. The test resulted in a string of new state-record smallmouths, legions of happy anglers, and no apparent harm to the resource.

Region 8 officials followed the Lake Erie lead in 2001 by authorizing a catch-and-release spring season on seven of the Finger Lakes. That trial has also been popular with fishermen, although its biological impacts are unknown.

Just as the spring season concept was on the verge of going statewide, a foreign invader threatened to gum up the works. Bass readily eat the round goby, a small but amazingly prolific fish that has spread through Lake Erie and Lake Ontario since the 1990s, but it gets even.

"Lake Erie smallmouths prey heavily on gobies and have excellent growth rates since they got here," said Don Einhouse, a biologist with the DEC's Lake Erie unit. "The worry is at the other end of the food chain. Gobies are voracious egg eaters, and nobody knows yet what that will mean for Erie bass."

Since the goby arrived, Lake Erie smallmouths have had lackluster reproductive seasons. Is that merely a coincidence?

"We're concerned enough that we've decided that, when the rest of the state goes to a catch-and-release spring season, we're going to drop our one-bass-a-day limit and make our spring season no-kill, too," Einhouse said.

Here's a region-by-region report on recent bass management initiatives, along with biologists' recommendations for prime places to pitch a lure during the coming season.

SOUTHEASTERN REGION
More than a narrow band of salt water separates Long Island from the rest of the state. The island's climate is more moderate than that of upstate counties, so bass fisherman in Nassau and Suffolk counties don't have to go as long between seasons.

"Bass season here starts the first Saturday in June instead of on the third Saturday," noted Charles "Chart" Guthrie, the DEC's Region 1 fisheries manager. "That's because the majority of our bass have finished spawning by then."

Anglers new to the island should carefully review the "Special Regulations by County" section of the 2004-2006 New York Freshwater Fishing Regulations Guide, for local bass rules vary significantly from those in force in the rest of the state.

In Nassau County, bass fishing in all waters is on a catch-and-release basis. The season in the county runs from the first Saturday in June through March 15, except in Hempstead Lake, where bass anglers can do their thing year 'round.

"Catch-and-release has been in effect in county waters since 2000, and recently we've really started to see a payoff from that," Guthrie said. "It used to be that when a bass reached 12 inches in the county, it was quickly removed by angling -- grown and gone, you might say. Now, we're getting lots of reports from people who catch nice-sized bass in local lakes."