Craig- Is the lack of ice on the lake usual, or is this an unusual year? Here in central NH our lakes are frozen with at least two feet of ice or more on them, including the "big" lake here, Lake Winnipesaukee.

Not from the recent airial pictures I saw yesterday. Still a large area of open water at the North end.

The larger finger lakes never freeze. I believe Seneca is 600 feet deep. So in a year like this all the shallow lakes including lake Erie freeze. So the birds head for open water. Seneca and Cayuga are lessor known than eastern shore but I bet they hold more birds.

having grown up around the finger lakes, the variations are tremendous, In my sports car days in the Glen Region SCCA, there were solo races on Waneta, and the small lake my parents live on has frozen to over two feet thick more than once. But even Keuka takes a special winter to freeze solid around the bluff.

There was a story in the paper during a bitter winter several years ago about a very elderly man who walked his great grandson across Seneca around Hector, as his great granddad had done with him we he was a lad. the lake had frozen shore to shore at the shallower southern end only twice in about hundred years.

I remember my father telling of some con artist who sold Seneca Lake water to folks in Corning for their radiators in the '20s- selling it on the fact that Seneca water never froze. :rotf: :rotf: :rotf:

there were plenty of birds in the little bays on Seneca when I ran down to see my parents during the recent cold snap.

Dean- The photos of the lake you refer to may not be accurate. The lake is pretty locked up with ice at this point from what I have seen and talked to folks about.

Very nice. We are in withdrawal down here with the end of the duck season. It was a great one though

That's a fair bunch of redheads for sure, probably sounded like a cat convention if you were standing at the end of the dock.

DLH

There were several large rafts of Red Heads and Cans at the north end of the Mackinaw bridge the first week of December. Other than a shipping lane i bet thats frozen now.

I used to enjoy hunting divers back in the day with a Browning A5 and lead shot.