bluecordfishermen 
This summer was a busy fishing season. Fishing is much more fun than blogging. I have a lot of lakes to catch up on in terms of reporting. So I attempt to build these in chronological order.
I drove cross country to get to Fort Drum NY in June 2020. My arrival started a two week quarantine in my apartment on Fort Drum. Bass season was not open yet when my quarantine ended.
My first few trips were local to Fort Drum, but I was ready to get the kayak into a lake in the North Country. There were so many to select from but I started with Hyde Lake since it had both musky and northern pike. Its shallow and better suited for pike and bass since it has warmer water.
I took off after work for the short ride to Hyde Lake that is just beyond Theresa. Being new to the North Country, the sites along the route were all new. The Amish farms and small villages were beautiful and reflected the rural nature of the North Country. That pretty much changes at the neighboring lakes.
Hyde Lake like so many is teaming with panfish and that makes for healthy sport fish like pike, bass and walleye. It also means your competition is stiff. You are competing with the abundance of panfish.
The lake is surrounded by summer homes and RVs are found on the Northern end near the launch. https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Campground/Wilsons-Hyde-Lake-Campsites-234241547058416/ Both ends are shallow and support bass and pike. The north end near the public launch was great for crappie and bass near the exposed stones. The south end was ideal for pike. The east shore is a rugged steep cliff which is characteristic of so many lakes in this area. The rocks were home to several small mouth bass.
https://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/87681.html
I had a fair start with several small mouth and large mouth bass, 2x crappie and 2x pike. Nothing was big, but it was a good evening.
The boat launch is easy to use and there is parking available.
My blue F150 with the Texas plates was in the parking area and it drew the attention of a game warden. This was during the civil strife period and I’m thinking about the looters not getting detained and now I’m entertaining a game warden asking some very specific questions about my fishing and quarantine procedures coming from Texas. The young warden was nice enough but let me know he was watching me closely. He asked me what brought me from Texas to the North Country and Fort Drum was a good answer. To his surprise, I produced a valid, out of state license for NY. This is when I got the class on targeting a species out of season. He mentioned that I was catching crappie so I was OK. I reminded him I was after Northern Pike. His response was, they all say that in June before bass opens. Yes, he had been watching me for some time. Lesson Learned, keep the license close by. The next guys coming in off the lake were not as lucky. I recall they had bass in the boat well.