A Franklin County angler died after his utility-task-vehicle broke through the ice on Union Falls Pond, according to state police.
Gregory N. Manchester, 59, of Franklin drove his vehicle onto the ice on Sunday to go fishing. He was reported missing the following morning.
A state police helicopter flew over the area and spotted his UTV partially submerged. State forest rangers followed footprints to a seasonal cabin and found Manchester lying on the floor, suffering from severe hypothermia. He was unresponsive.
The Lake George Park Commission will hold a public hearing on its mandatory boat inspection program on March 30 in Bolton Landing.
The hearing, which will be held in the Town hall from 4 to 6 pm, is a necessary step in the process of making a two-year, pilot invasive species protection program a permanent one.
That program required all boats trailered to Lake George to be inspected for invasive plants and animals before being allowed to launch. » Continue Reading.
The 17th annual Ausable Two-Fly Challenge, a catch-and-release trout tournament, is taking place May 20-21 with a reintroduced a women’s division.
A portion of registrations will be donated to Casting for Recovery, which seeks to enhance the quality of life of women with breast cancer through a combination of education, support and fly fishing. Casting for Recovery’s retreats are open to breast cancer survivors of all ages, in all stages of treatment and recovery, and are free to participants.
The Two-Fly Challenge begins Friday, May 20, with a day of fishing followed by a Fly Tyer’s Reception where anglers can share the day’s experiences on the river while learning new fly tying skills, or taking part in the fly casting competition; the Seth Warden Duo will perform live music.
The American shad is a native fish of East Coast waters like the St. Lawrence and Hudson Rivers, and yet the largest shad population in the world is in the Columbia River on the West Coast, an east-to-west migration of three thousand miles. Humpback whales migrate the same distance in water each year, and caribou do so on land, but the shad of the late 1800s made the trip in style: they took the train. Accompanying them was a man who spent a decade as the leading fish culturist in the North Country.
Livingston Stone was born in 1836 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard with honors in 1857. He attended theological school and became a church pastor, but ongoing health issues resulted in an unusual prescription: spend as much time as possible in the outdoors.
A career change was in order, and in the late 1860s, Stone pursued his interest in all things fish. With the intelligence of a Harvard grad and a chess expert, he proved far more capable than most men in his field. In 1871, he helped found the American Fish Culturists Association (which later became the American Fisheries Society), commissioned by the government to restore America’s depleted rivers. » Continue Reading.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is proposing changes to the fishing regulations and is seeking public comments. Changes being considered to the current freshwater fishing regulations are now available here, and if approved, these regulation changes would take effect on April 1, 2017.
Regulation changes include adjusting creel and minimum size limits for walleye as part of DEC’s multi-year effort to establish walleye populations in candidate waters, as well as protecting walleye where they congregate during the spawning season. » Continue Reading.
A new store that caters to outdoor sports enthusiasts has opened in Wanakena, a tiny hamlet near Cranberry Lake with a population of less than 100.
The Trading Post at the Pine Cone Grill opened this winter to fill the gap created by the closing of the Wanakena General Store, which sold groceries and basic outdoor supplies.
Rick Kovacs, who owned the Wanakena General Store, shut down in October saying he couldn’t make enough money in the winter months. He had owned the store for about six years, and said one had been at that location for about 60 years. » Continue Reading.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and partner agencies collected 16.8 million eggs for the state’s fish hatcheries, the agency has announced. Each year, DEC staff collect eggs from wild and captive adult fish to rear at DEC fish hatcheries.
After the eggs are taken they are incubated at DEC’s state hatcheries. After hatching, they are fed and cared for by DEC hatchery staff until they reach target stocking sizes. Fish from New York hatcheries are stocked in lakes, ponds, streams, and rivers throughout the state, supporting the state’s recreational sport fishery. » Continue Reading.
Why do they call it Boreas Ponds? After all, if you look at an aerial photograph, such as the one at left, taken by Carl Heilman II, it’s just one water body. This fact is also evident from the 1999 USGS map below.
The reason is not mysterious. Like many Adirondack lakes, the water level of Boreas Ponds has been raised by a dam. As an 1895 map indicates (it’s shown farther below), Boreas Ponds used to be three ponds connected by narrow channels.
When the state acquires Boreas Ponds from the Adirondack Nature Conservancy, it must decide whether the concrete dam should be retained.
Sitting beside a small stream in the southwestern Adirondacks, Spencer Bruce clipped a tiny brook-trout fin and placed it in a small container. The fin is one of more than a thousand he has collected in recent years from waters in New York State for a genetic study.
Studying the genetic makeup of fish may provide clues to how resilient a population is to climate change and other environmental problems. In the Adirondack Park, several cold-water species of fish are thought to be at risk from climate change. Besides brook trout, they include lake trout and round whitefish. Other aquatic species, including amphibians and loons, also could be at risk. » Continue Reading.
New York Sea Grant, a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York, is hosting a webinar series on the logistics of starting and managing the boat inspection component of a water-based stewardship program.
The Fall 2015 Watercraft Inspection Steward Program Webinar Series schedule is as follows: » Continue Reading.
Hydrilla. Eurasian watermilfoil. Parrot feather. Yellow floating heart. I listened to the captivating and often funny Scott Kishbaugh of the Department Environmental Conservation go through 14 aquatic invasive plants at the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program’s Aquatic Invasive Plant Identification and Survey Techniques training. This past June, the Speculator Pavilion was packed with eager volunteers excited to survey their lakes for invasive plants that cause economic, ecologic, and societal harm. The four-hour workshop gave us the education we need to scope out invaders in ponds, rivers, and lakes. » Continue Reading.
Removal of the state’s boat launch docks will begin today as the boating season draws to a close, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced.
DEC manages 395 boat docks and fishing access facilities across the state in 57 of New York’s 62 counties, the majority which are located in the Adirondacks. » Continue Reading.
Invasive species have earned their bad reputations. English sparrows compete with native birds from Newfoundland to South America. Australian brown tree snakes are well on their way to exterminating every last bird from the forests of Guam. And I don’t think anyone can fully predict how Columbia’s rivers will change in response to drug lord Pablo Escobar’s escaped hippopotamus population.
While our climate protects us from rampaging hippos, the Northeast has plenty of exotic species in its waterways, including some that cause serious damage. Zebra mussels are possibly the most familiar of these. » Continue Reading.
A new kind of culvert is being installed on an Ausable River tributary in Wilmington. The project is part of a initiative led by the Ausable River Association (AsRA) and the Adirondack Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (the Conservancy) to improve stream connectivity, fish habitat, and community flood resilience in the Ausable watershed by replacing road-stream crossings with designs engineered to allow for natural stream pattern and flow. » Continue Reading.
Stream restoration work has begun at the popular Keene Town Beach on the Ausable River, across from Marcy Field. With storm recovery funds provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) the old wood and concrete weir, damaged by Tropical Storm Irene, is being removed and replaced.
In its place a natural rock weir and vane is expected to restore the stream’s hydrologic function, provide habitat for native fish, and improve the quality and safety of recreational opportunities. The new weir will maintain the long popular swimming hole. » Continue Reading.
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