Walleye Season Opens on Oneida Lake After Unprecedented Winter
Walleye season opens on Oneida Lake on May 1, 2024, marking the 15th consecutive month that Matt Gutchess has fished the lake from his boat. The record-breaking winter temperatures have all but obliterated ice fishing season, providing unprecedented access to open water.
“This is the first year I can remember in my lifetime that I was fishing Oneida Lake open water before the season closed on March 15,” said Gutchess, who lives on the lake and hosts The Awakening Angler YouTube channel.
Along with increasingly warmer winters and reduced ice cover, walleye have been spawning earlier and earlier each year. But in early March, more than the usual number of spawning walleye were running in Oneida Lake’s tributaries.
“The climate seems to be warming earlier in the spring, and we’ve seen fish coming in earlier,” said Bill Evans, manager of Oneida Fish Hatchery in Constantia. “This year was quite unexpected. I thought maybe a week early, but it was basically three weeks early. Which is incredible.”
It’s difficult to predict what effect, if any, the early spawn will have on walleye fishing next week. However, the upside to the virtually non-existent 2023-24 ice fishing season is that more walleye will be swimming around than usual.
“There weren’t as many ice fishermen out all winter, so at the very least there were less walleye taken out of the lake than normal,” Gutchess said. “Theoretically, those fish have and four to six months to kind of relax and not having any fishing pressure on them.”
The same can be said for perch, which should be more abundant. In any given year, half the annual perch harvest occurs during ice fishing season according to Cornell’s research.
“The limited ice time saved an abundance of perch,” said fishing guide, Capt. Tony Buffa. “The late walleye open water season during early March provided anglers with easy access to limit catches, but there’s no way to assess the size of the take.”
Last year’s season opener came after record-high warmth in April, which pushed water temperatures in Oneida Lake above 50 degrees. That’s not the case this year. Water temperatures in Oneida Lake right now are hovering in the mid to high 40′s, Buffa said.
“That should translate to a better inshore walleye bite compared to last year,” Gutchess said. “Most guys will start shallow, ten feet or less, and work their way out into the deeper water. In the spring the most food and forage is in shallow water, because that warms first, then everything gets drawn in there: bait, perch, you name it. That’s where the predators are going to be.”
In shallow water, Gutchess recommends using a small swimbait, or a stickbait such as a Rapala, Jr. Thunderstick, Smithwick, or Keitech swimbait on a 1/4-ounce head.
“That’s your search bait,” he said. “If you get them dialed in, then I’m going to a bucktail, just a plain bucktail jig, you don’t have to put a worm on it.”
Gutchess suggests making your first casts in emergent weeds in shallow bays, “especially windswept bays that have good sun penetration that will bring that bait in there. Those walleyes will be in there cruising.”
If you don’t hook up after a few casts, move on.
“You want to cover water until all of sudden you hit two or three fish in four casts,” Gutchess said. “That’s when I stop and pick things apart with that bucktail. And that hair jig in cold water is deadly.”
Don’t forget to register for WalleyeFest, which runs next weekend, May 4-5. Gutchess last year took over running the derby from the local Lions Clubs that operated it for 43 years.
