Photo by Keith Benoist.

This year, the opening day of New York's bass season won't be nearly as important as it used to be.

Since last Oct. 1, it has been legal in most waters of the state to fish between seasons for largemouths and smallmouths on a catch-and-release, artificial-lures-only basis. Formerly, anyone who repeatedly reeled in springtime bass "while fishing for northern pike," or under some other pretense, ran the risk of a ticket from the local conservation officer and a fine from the local magistrate.

The rationale for the ban on out-of-season bass fishing was the belief, shared by many biologists, that bass needed to be protected during their late-spring, early-summer spawning period -- and to a lesser degree, while they were schooled in deep-water wintering areas.

Recent research dispelling these concerns, as well as a demand by avid bass anglers for catch-and-release opportunities, led to adoption of new regulations in 2006.

Now, between the end of one regular season on Nov. 30 and the start of the next season on the third Saturday in June, anglers in most waters can pull bass in and toss them back with impunity.

There are some notable exceptions, however.

In Oneida Lake, catch-and-release bass fishing will only be allowed from the first Saturday in May until the regular bass season starts. There will be no off-season bassin' in the Hudson River from the Troy dam downstream.

Lake Erie will have a one-bass limit and a minimum creel length of 20 inches during a revamped "trophy bass" season that starts on the first Saturday in May and runs until the statewide bass fest starts up.

Following the regular bass season, from Dec. 1 through the Friday before the first Saturday in May, catch-and-release bass fishing will be permitted in Erie.

In all inland waters of Hamilton, Jefferson, Franklin and St. Lawrence counties, as well as the St. Lawrence River, no off-season bass fishing will be tolerated.

Double-check the 2006-08 state fishing regulations guide for fishing opportunities prior to the third Saturday in June --June 19, this year.

Then consider a trip to one of the following bass waters, among the state's very best early-season spots:

LAKE ERIE
When anglers read about a minimum creel length of 20 inches for Lake Erie's "one a day" early bass season, their reaction is a chuckle or a sneer. Why would state bureaucrats bother with a 20-inch minimum, when so few bass get to be 20-inchers?

Well, it so happens that Lake Erie harbors plenty of 20-inch bass, most of them smallmouths. In fact, most spring tournaments on the lake produce at least a few bass in the 20-inch range. A spring-season bass from Lake Erie that weighed 8 pounds, 4 ounces has held the state smallmouth record since 1995.

But don't be surprised if an even bigger one is caught in the lake soon. Since round gobies became common in Lake Erie a couple of years ago, its smallmouths are adding ounces and inches at an unprecedented rate.

Don Einhouse, the biologist who monitors Erie's fish populations for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation's Great Lakes unit at Dunkirk, said smallmouth bass in the lake generally spawn later in the year and in deeper water than do the bass in many other New York waters.

In the last week of June, Lake Erie bass specialists often find hen bronzebacks with full egg skeins in depths of 20 to 25 feet and hundreds of yards offshore.