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April 2017

19

boatingonthehudson.com

amazingly in this day and age, the only car on the road, past big

farms and through small towns and villages—Richfield Springs,

Sangerfield, Cazenovia, Pompey—and finally into ultra-charming

Skaneateles. By the way, somewhere along the way it started

snowing: steady but light “lake effect” snow. Halfway between

Skaneateles and Auburn we reached our night’s lodging, Sue

Dove’s quiet, clean, comfortable Skaneateles Inn on 20.

A fewwords about Auburn and Cayuga County: Auburn—a great

decent-sized upstate city, a place I might like to live—is perched

right above, but not directly on Owasco Lake, the third (from the

east) of eleven Finger Lakes. A quick geography lesson: The Finger

Lakes, east to west: Otisco (small), Skaneateles, Owasco, Cayuga

(the longest—40 miles), Seneca, Keuka, Canandaigua, then the

much smaller, Honeoye, Canadice, Hemlock, and Conesus. All the

lakes flow north into Lake Ontario.

Cayuga County is named for the Cayuga—”people of the

wetlands”—Indian tribe, part of the Iroquois Federation. It has

more freshwater coastline than any

other New York State County.

Some name-dropping: Auburn was

once the home of William H. Seward,

co-founder of the Republican Party.

Abner Doubleday, baseball’s founder,

spent much of his life in Auburn.

Harriet Tubman settled in Auburn

after the Civil War. Millard Fillmore,

13th US President, was born near

the village of Moravia, just south of

Owasco Lake. Henry Wells, founder

of Wells Fargo and American Express,

began his career in Port Byron, just

north of Auburn.

Back to the Skaneateles Inn on 20:

we checked in, cleaned up—there

was plenty of nice hot water and nice

thick white towels— relaxed a bit,

then around 5:00 our Garmin led us to

the Hilton Garden Inn. As we walked

in, we ran into Chris, a fellow N.Y.

B.A.S.S. Federation angler, that Ralph

knew from the tournaments: good

start. The banquet room was nicely

set up, with a big table full of cheese,

crackers, and veggies.

There were three speakers, all with

different Bass-fishing slants: the

first speaker provided all kinds of

interesting facts and figures on how

big fishing was in New York State, and

howmany billions of dollars it brought

into the State’s economy. Next,

Joseph Sancho, from New Windsor, a

Pro whose career Ralph had followed,

elaborated on the pros—and cons—

of becoming a fishing “pro”. Finally

there was a taped video of a Skeeter

Boats sales rep, describing thousands

of dollars in incentives if you placed in

a tournament and used one of their

boats.

Then, after a nice, filling buffet dinner, awards were handed

out, and Kath and I beamed with pride as Ralph accepted the

nifty Non-Boater Lunker of the Year plaque and check from

Federation president Peter Knight. Pops woulda been sooo

proud.

There were raffle tables full of fishin’“stuff”on both sides of the

hall. Kath had bought some tickets, and the next thing we hear

is “46026”: that’s us! 46026 popped up several more times, and

we left the hall with about $300.00 worth of “swag”; Kath gave

most of it to RIII.

The 24 Hours of Daytona was on TV back at the cozy motel.

Later, I slept like a brick. We had a nice breakfast at the eat-

where-the-locals-eat Hunter’s Dinerant perched over the

Owasco River on Genesee Street in Auburn, then headed over

to the gigantic Bass Pro Shop on the other side of town. Finally

,we headed east on Route 20, but jumped on the Thruway

before the endless west Albany suburbs.

This Striper was caught up by

the Federal Dam across the

Hudson in Albany, in the 90’s.