

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.