Fishing near East Schodak

[BlueSnow]

I'm heading out to the Albany area this weekend to visit with a cousin and we are planning to do some fishing.  He has only been on the hard water once on a prior visit where we visited Nassau Lake (they got a membership just for ice fishing).  Didn't have a shanty, didn't have the right gear and it was windy as hell....not a great experience.

I'm much better equipped this time around and plan on making a better day of it.

the question now is where to drop a line that is reasonably close to East Schodak?  It's quite a trek to just get there and I'd like to maximize time on the ice rather than driving all over the place.

Burden Lake looks good but looking at the maps I don't see where the access is on 2nd Dyke road.

There are a ton of small ponds / lakes in the area from Snyders lake in an arc over towards pikes pond...I just don't know which ones to even try and research. 

If you were going to be in Rensselaer County for a day of fishing and the goal was just just catch something while out for a couple of hours where would you target?  Dinks all day would be better than a keeper as we are just looking to go out and catch something.

Grafton Lakes look awesome but they are just going to be too far from our base of operations

Looking at all of the small water in this area is overwhelming...you guys are pretty lucky to have so much variety so close by.

Dinks_All_Day would be an awesome IS handle...

[butch76]

Burden or Glass Lake would probably be good places to try.  Not much parking on Glass so you would have to get there early.  For Burden you just park along the road on 2nd Dyke Road.

[BlueSnow]

Thanks Butch - for Burden it looks like get on the ice and head south.  Do you  typically go out to the 10-20' dropoff or fish pretty much wherever?

I'm pretty excited to get out and try another new spot in a part of the state I don't often visit.  A pretty lucky year for me in that regard!


Appreciate the help.

BS

[butch76]

I have only fished there a couple times so I don't have a lot of insight.  Probably fishing the dropoff is a good start.

[BlueSnow]

Looks like things are going to be firming up for the weekend.  I think we are going to be hitting up Snyders lake - looks like pretty easy on and off and it looks like there is a lot going on species wise.

I was surprised to see on the DEC listing that they have Eel in that lake - anyone ever hook into them?  I can imagine pulling one of those out of the hole as being as shocking as your first mud puppy!

[butch76]

Ice on Snyders looked ok yesterday afternoon when I drove by.  Going to be glare ice tomorrow.  I will probably fish there tomorrow morning for a while myself.

[BlueSnow]

Hit up Burton on Sunday.Walked down from Second Dyke road on some snow covered black ice - it was about 8" thick and creepers would have been a good idea.  We fished in a line out from the island heading east, probably drilled about 15-20 holes working from about 20 fow down until we hit the weeds at 9'.  We were out for 3 hours and didn't get a nibble or a mark on the finder.  Ended up at Burton because my cousin had heard through the grapevine it was the place to go...

There were a couple of sleds and wheelers out (including a 3 wheeler) and of the other guys out I didn't see anyone pull anything in.  Most seemed to be using tipups while we were equipped only for  jigging.