A Great Early Start To The Long Weekend in Schroon

Photo courtesy The Crossroads: Colin, Sydney, and Kerrianne with a nice Northern Pike from Schroon Lake.

Snow in Schroon!  More at Gore!! In fact a fresh four inches. That means the potential for a good weekend for skiers, for snow-mobilers and with the lake frozen solid:  great ice fishing this weekend.

One of our ice fishing buddies describes the conditions as almost perfect on Schroon.

“Ice will be super gloss this weekend.  Nice thin pooling Wednesday.  Great skating conditions!  I haven't got my hockey goal out yet.  Maybe next week”.

And according to John West, owner of The Crossroads, in Chestertown, one of the area’s most popular bait and tackle shops, “it’s been a terrific year so far” with some big land locked salmon and rainbow trout being pulled out of area lakes.

“It started early. We had people out on the smaller ponds around the third week of November and the bigger lakes like Schroon in late December,” John told Schroon Laker today from his store.

And The Crossroads is gearing up for a big weekend too, ordering extra supplies of bait.

So what’s the most popular to lure those big fish?

“Shiners, suckers, icicles and minnows. The trout and salmon go for icicles, perch and trout like suckers  and minnows are good for pike and perch.”

Besides Schroon, John says there has been plenty of action on Brant, Loon, Friends and Paradox Lakes.

So what has John caught this year? “Nothing. I’ve been too busy here!”.

This year The Crossroads celebrates their 60th anniversary, with John and his family having owned and operated the store for the last 14 years.

Where and When: Crossroads Outdoors Country Store and Sport Shop, 40 Dixon Road, Chestertown, NY 12817. Phone: (518) 494-3821Open 6: 30 am - 7:00 pm.