lumberjohn

Fished 2-6:60 PM. Set up in 100 fow and worked out to 150, concentrated 110-130 for hour & half. Picked up 6 lbs Brown 80/110 on Carbon 14. Shot out to 650 and fished way back in. Fished in temp down 160 back into 100-130 range. Greatest concentration of Mark's was 110-130.

Not sure exactly. I guess about 7 mi.

Fished from 2:30 - 8:30 PM, 1 rigger, 2 rods Carbon 14 spoons. Shot out to 400 to setup. Dropped the rigger down spaced 15 apart down 75. Water temp at ball 72. Yuck. Dropped ball to 125 temp 52. At 125/425 1st Steelhead. Trolled to 600. Picked up 2nd Steelie 180/550 down temp 42. Trolled into 300 and 200, pretty barren. Went into 130-100 began marking fish 55-100. Set up 80 down out of temp. 3rd Steelhead 80/130. Had 2 big rips 60 and 80 down over 110ish. Fishing alone, circus trying to get other line in and rigger up. Lost both.

Got out for a little bit tonight from 6:00-7:30. Trolled 55 and 65 foot down over 70 and picked up a 3-pound rainbow on a black and silver J-11 Rapala 55 down. Water temperature 61F at 65 foot down trolling speed 2.3 mph.

I couldn't say for certain other than to tell you that the few times I've fished estuaries of Lake Ontario including the Genesee and at Fairhaven I have used casting spoons. Heavy weighted spoons like cast Masters and little Cleo's in combinations of silver and blue or silver and green. Typically when I did that it was in the springtime targeting brown trout.

Fished out of Genesee River on 9/10 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. and on 9/11 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 pm. Didn't get a single bite. Threw the kitchen sink at them from the spoons to Dodgers and flashers with flies or spoons and stick baits. Covered water from 70 ft deep out to 400. Everywhere seem to be 70 degrees from the surface down to a hundred. Marked a few fish here and there mostly in the 90 to 135 foot of water range. Waves were two to four, not many boats out there.

I'm on Owasco and have done my share of late evening fishing. The salmonid bite seems to shut down around 8 these days. I have trolled at night for walleye around Burtis Point using Rappals with some success.

Got out with a crew of boys for an hour and a half troll from Long Point to Burtis Point 7-8 this evening. Hooked up on a 6-pound walleye at Burtis Point 35 down / 60. Mag silver spoon with purple and black tape.

Billy, that's right, east of the chute. We hit it last sunday and that is where we had and dropped our only hit of the day on a green monkey puke spoon. Last night we hit it again, coming in toward shore the depth goes from 80-60 fairly quick, then flattens out at 60 for quite awhile. It then drops into a bowl that was 80 at it's deepest before rising back to 60 for a bit then 50 and shallower. All our fish came on NK spoons that contained green out of this bowl. From offshore heading inshore it's roughly in front of the first bluff east of the swimming beach and somewhere between the western third of that bluff and just west of the end of that bluff. Question for you. I've yet to have success using dipsey's and must be doing something wrong. How much leader behind the rubber snubber. I've tried 4' leaders with a spoon or fly, 4' leaders w/ a dodger and fly, recently my summer camp neighbor from PA who fishes a lot out of Fair Haven said you have to use a 10-14' leader so I've been trying that. Nada.

I closed out the walleye season on Owasco and set my sights on Ontario. First forray sunday on the water at 7:30 AM. Forecast was for 1-2 and waves were good 2-3. Set up in 100 and headed north. Worked 120-140 for awhile, then 170-180, then back shallower, then into 60-80 for Browns. Some pods of baitfish in the 50-80 range scattered and few fish marks. Did hook into a solid fish in Brown territory on a NK Green Monkey Puke 60/80 but dropped it. Wrapped up at !:30. Was running E-chip Dodgers and Spinnys w/ flies mostly in Green combos w/ some white and some purple combos on riggers 65-100 down . Ran dipsies as well 2.5ish 225-300 back. Also always ran a spoon off rigger around 35 down for steelies. Tuesday got on the water 4:30 PM and set up in 120, dodgers/spin doctors w/ flies in green mostly down 72-82 w/ dipsey wire out and spoon on rigger at 35. Worked 130-140, moved out to as deep as 245. Mostly blank screen everywhere. Marked one pod baitfish all afternoon 65 down, few odd fish far and few between from 15 to 100, very few. Ran back into 120-140 for awhile. Picked up again and ran into 80 and set up a Brown program w/ all greenish NK spoons on riggers 35-60 down over 60-80. When we got into the bowl off the bluffs we started hitting them. First the green monkey puke fired 60/80, boated a 3# Brown. Then in the malay (sp?) while landing and netting and my 4 year old son steering the boat, we had another release on the rigger 60/50, junior had us going in circles. The fish jumped out of the water a few times way back, came to net a 4# pig of a smallmouth on a NK green/blue spoon. We no sooner got set up again in 60 fow and wham, wham a double. 50 and 60/60 on a green and an orange monkey puke. I dropped about a 7# Brown behind the boat at the net trying to land it one handed. Thus unencumbered I helped my partner landed a 5# Brown. Junior still having a ball driving the boat in circles. Looking at our trail on the GPS was a hoot. All this action came from 7:30-8:30PM. We stuck at it until 9:30 but it was over. By the way, again waves were more than forecast. Forecast was 2 foot or less and were actually 1-3 feet with more at the top end. It did subside some at dusk. Point being always be prepared for worst than expected. In my small boat it matters. I'll be watching the forecast for my next shot at it.

I run 20# coated wire on my dipsey rods w/ Daiwa 47LC's $95 bucks at Bass Pro last week. I bought 1000 feet wire, Mason Nylo Strand .024 dia. $45 Bass Pro, and strung two reels w/ no backer and still have wire left over. Filled them up. One reel bought last week and bought 1000 feet Mason uncoated Multistrand .015 dia. $43 bucks Bass Pro, then found left over coated wire from last year. Bass Pro has cheaper line counter reels from Daiwa & Okuma that run $50. Difference is cheaper ones have brass gears (read soft metal) vs, bronze, one piece composite body vs. aluminum, no bearing system vs. 2 bearing system. Drag systems are different too. Get what you pay for. I use one meidum and one heavy downrigger rod that I had busted the tips off, accidentaly. I bought the twilly tips and superglued them on the tips and voila, dipsey rods. Work fine. I just haven't figured out how to catch fish on the system yet. I also bought a Heartland downrigger rod last year based on rec of Billy V and for $25-$30 @ Bass Pro you cant go wrong. Nice feel to the rod, I like it. I hate Flea Flicker line. Not because it doesn't work, it works great. I've run the #20 test on Owasco and Ontario and it does the job. What I don't like is the way it ties knots. Understand it is oval shaped, thus sheds fleas. Stick it in a pinch pad and it slips out too easy along the flat face of the line. Hard to tension the rod w/out pullout. Try to splice it w/ blood knot to a leader and it is a ****, cuts into or slips from other line. Trilene knots can break. Some on this site rec #30 Trilene Big Game, usually charters. I prefer lighter #25 and working well. Get some fleas but shed easy when slap line aginst water before hits tip. Fleas not bad this year due to cooler water vs. some past years. If your running blades and spinnys w/ flies then there's no point in running a lighter weight leader. What's the point. The test on those flies have to be 50lbs. If your running spoons naked than sure, tie in 30 feet of 15-20 lbs flouro. Fleas don't stick to whats running horizontal.

Maybe I'm an old timer if you consider I've been on this lake 20 nyears now. My boat has caught one 'eye during the day since stocking, and that was at dusk. I catch all my 'eyes at night from 12-3 AM from early June - early August along the shore during the mooneye spawn. Get a mess of big smallies then too. Gotta find your spots.

I heard you were out there yesterday Billy. It was pretty lonely out there, I only saw four other boats all day. A buddy and I started out at 100 fow at 7:45 AM sunday and never ventured further than 160. We ran an all dodger/fly rig and went 4 for 4 w/ 3 kings and one steelhead. Our first hookups were a double of kings. Landing them in my 18 footer while getting tossed in those 4' waves was some trick. It was a chineese firedrill. Everything for us came on green 50-65 down on the riggers over 100-120 fow. Green e-chip and green fly and Mtn dew e-chip w/ hammer flies did the trick. We were marking fish throughout the day with the occassional baitfish. It was a good day for us. It was my buddies first time salmon fishing on Lake O and he was impressed but a little concerned as those big swells reared up behind the boat.

Got set up in 100 fow at 7:15 AM and headed west with the rest of the pack. The waves were 1-mostly 3 feet but friendly rollers as opposed to whitecap breakers of saturday. After awhile we started marking pods of baitfish around 20-30 foot and some at 65 foot. I guess there was a brief round ofr action for some boats early but slowed as the morning wore on. We pulled up around noon and ran out to 200 and set up again. Worked 200-260 for awhile and marked one bait pod down 65. We trolled back into the chute and pulled the rods. One rod was peculiarly heavy and I thought a couple paddles had tangled. To my surprise there was a fairly large fish dragging behind the boat on the 65' down rigger off the ball w/ Mtn Dew Echip paddle and hammer fly. It was a 13 lbs Brown, pretty played out. No telling how far we'd been dragging him. From 220? or more likely over shallower water. The release was tripped but the line had gotten wrapped up on it somehow. A disappointing day but we still ended up w/ meat in the box.

Started out of Fair Haven around 9:30 AM. It was blowing pretty good from the NE and waves were a good 2-4' which is kinda tough in my boat. Set up in 100 fow and headed into the winds and waves. Didn't do a thing until we got out around 200 then had a hit on a white echip w/ a white glow fly down 95 on the rigger. Had the drag set too tight and it broke off. Lesson learned, dialed back all the drags on the rods. Continued through the day and the wind and waves settled to a more manageable 1-3 by late afternoon. Worked all the way out to about 320 but the few marks and bait pods we saw were in the 220-240 fow range down around 65'. Went back to that depth and that is where we picked up two Kings in the afternoon, a 19 lbs on a chartreuse echip w/ hammer fly and a 9 lbs on a white spin doc and bloody nose fly. Likely be out there on monday again.

In answer to your question, "Are all the finger lakes like this that hold trout/salmon?", the answer is, pretty much. Seneca is known for it's fantastic, and big Lake Trout. Cayuga has it all, w/ plenty of Atlantic Salmon, though not that big, w/ Rainbows and some really good size Browns. And the rest of the Fingers ain't too shabby either. All of the Finger Lakes and Lake Ontario originally had large populations of smelt as the natural forage. Alewives were introduced into almost all the Fingers and Lake O and they did extremely well, much to the detriment of the smelt and trout. Not only do they compete with the smelt for food, the smelt, and Rainbow Trout spawn sooner in the spring, and the Alewives feed on the baby smelt & trout fry. Alewives spawn from June to July in shallow and on Owasco the walleyes & smallmouths go on a feeding frenzy then starting around midnight and lasting until 3:00 AM in the shallow water. Hardly anyone fishes them then on this lake except me and a few other guys. Smelt populations have crashed in the Finger Lakes, much to the chagrin of any spring smelter. From my understanding the smelt prefer colder temps than Alewives so they tend to be at deeper depths. Alewives have a vey high oil/fat content in proportion to their weight. That's great for growing big fat predator fish. Problem is, you are what you eat. In my opinion, trout, and fish in general, taste better off a smelt forage base vs. alewife base, and stream caught trout that eat bugs and worms and such taste the best. Skaneateles does not have alewives and it is illegal to use them as bait there. Consequently, they have a great rainbow fishery as well as Atlantics and some Browns. The fish run a bit smaller but there are plenty of them. It is unlikely you could convince the NH fish & game dept to introduce alwives in the NH lakes. It's not always good to mess w/ mother nature. Introducing alwives will do a job on your native smelt pops. You are right about one thing, NY has been blessed with some awsome fisheries, thanks to the glaciers. I've lived in NJ, PA and Idaho and they have nothing on NY when it comes to lake fishing and the number of lakes and variety of fish available from them. Mamy other states, if they have lakes at all, they are dammed up rivers. Ya can't beat it.

felixjayce, Wow!! You did well. That was a very nice mixed bag of fish. Maybe I should skip going to Lake O. and put my boat back in my hoist and stay at home. I trailer it in Aug/Sept while I work the salmon. I went to Ontario out of Fair Haven sunday and struck out on the salmon. Fished 100-420 fow but the screen was pretty blank save for an occassional baitpod. On the way in we were marking fish and bait like crazy around 20 down over 80-50 fow. Dropped some B&S Rapalas and small Stingers to 18-20' and we got three very nice Smallmouth on the riggers. It was a small consollation to an otherwise unproductive day. Glad I could help you out and that you had success. Owasco is a great little lake with a little of everything to offer.