lyk2fish

Yeah, hadn't taken any vacation this year and had some roll over days......glad i took it, the weather has been not the best since. Was on that water at 6:30AM and we came off at 9PM. Made the most of it for sure. Things starting to heat up with the water temps. Look forward to getting out next weekend.......but.......another cold front comes in on Friday.......no surprise

Was able to take advantage of a beautiful day we had Wednesday and get the cob webs off the fishing boat. After a long winter of walleye fishing, Justin joined me in the daylight to splashdown in my favorite finger lake. Got on the water at 6:30 and built a speard of cores and boards and wasn't long we had our first screaming drag.....good brown that shook us......followed by a bouncing core rod that held the first bow of the season. Found that both sides of the lake provided plenty of eater sized browns that kept our boards busy. Lakers, another nice bow and some non targeted toothy critters found the spread appealing. Just a great day with a great friend fishing. Water temps from low 40's to low 50's and as always in spring fishing, temp breaks and color helped bites. Sticks matching time of the year bait worked well for us, with blk/slvr being best, speeds around 2 did best, great mix of fish. Tight lines.

55-60 down, sorry about that.

Finally got some vacation time to put on the water. The column has been loaded with stocked browns and rainbows for a few months now. Has been tough setting a spread without having a couple small ones bouncing on the rods every few minutes. Should be real good with this class of fish in a couple years. Lakers have come up out of the column to take advantage and I am catching them 2-1 over bows right now. Coppers, cores, and riggers have been good, with coppers taking the most. Every day is different, as the wind has been shifting the temps, but it's starting to pick up. Look for the smooth water, deal with the weeds and you will get fish. Best depth between 55 and 60 for me. Bright colors and a lot of zig zagging to speed up and slow down lures has triggered strikes, running 2.0-2.5. Dealing with the little ones has been tough this year but the fleas are gone and it's getting good. Some pics from the last 2 weeks, sorry for the orientation on some of them. Tight lines.

Finally got on the water to start figuring out some silver. Finishing up with the arrowheads as the corn is getting high. Not near enough rain but found some nice last minute ones to share....now to the fishing.....well....I'm trying to get them figured out, temp is setting up nice and targeting out of the column is key but one thing has hampered things a bit......an over abundance of stocked rainbows and browns. Can't keep them of my spread and the lakers have come up a little higher than normal to take advantage of them. Over the last week, I bet I caught about 20 that had bite marks on their bodies.......wouldn't want to be one of those! Good news is lots of fish, but smaller sizes so far....did manage a couple nice ones to share and lost some screamers to boot. Thanks Mike for the Intel, it gave me a good head start. Had good temp at 50-55, speed 2.6, and didn't matter what color, the little ones are ravenous! Cores were quiet, rigger took some but had to manage fleas, Copper was king. Lake is continuing to develop and I think it will be a great summer on Owasco. Tight lines.

Love the smile on that young man. He is hooked for life. My oldest is 23, and fishes with me a little.....but one season he doesn’t miss is the night eye bite......he loves seeing those glow rod tips reef over with a big eye on. My youngest loves it too, but has been busy with his last year of college......can’t wait to get him out too......congratulations on that awesome eye. Sent ya a PM with my number.

Finally got out last couple nights for some Gold. Suprised water temps on shore in the 50's. Traveled shoreline looking for active pods of eyes and browns. Bait already showing up. Took us a few hours on first night but we finally found them and picked a limit. Next night the same, running blk/Silver and blue were doing great. Boards got best result. No browns yet but some bowfin and drum to make dusk bite fun. Fish were hungry and hit aggressive when you found them. Mostly males as to be expected. Great to be back on em. Tight lines.

Finally for us weekend warriors some good weather! So much to do as we all have....but I wanted to fish and off to the lake I went. Got on water about 4:30 and surface temp in low 50's. Liked what I saw for pike and eyes. Fished till dark in my usual spots and only took a few small pike......thought to myself,...Ontario is only 45 minutes so I pulled the boat and headed out. Got to lake Ontario and was greeted by a big moon and light wind. Worked a few spots to no avail and then ran into a pod at about midnight. Doubled up and swung back for a third and back to owasco I went. Reflected on a risk and reward night happy with my luck and then BAM.....10 minutes from camp I hit a deer head on with boat in tow......no swerving, just had to commit. Minimal damage to the old Yukon but put a damper on the night. Anyway, today was next chance to get out with my oldest son......temp left and water was cold again....traveled a bit and found mid 50's and it wasn't long and board went screaming with a nice breach. Got a real nice brown to the net. Couple more small lakers and eater browns then the core goes screaming. Thought another brown, ended up being a PB laker for my son. Finished off back with some small pike and pre spawn perch. Mid 50's was best, bait showing up. Boards did damage with sticks in blk/silver. Core fired once with stinger yellow jacket, but was big fish of weekend. Was nice to see the sun agian!!

Great job J Fish n!!!!!! Looks like you are doing the right things. Love the bow!

Got the boat out this week and set off to find some spring silver and stripes. Friday was brutal, but I launched anyway to fish a mudline that was present. Debris was a disaster and I could only troll south due to the strong NW wind. Work was endless clearing debris but was rewarded with a quality brown that took a short core. Had one other board rip but it came unglued. Finished the night about 2 inches shorter from getting pounded with waves, but had a plan for Saturday. Was joined by a friend and we set out to find him some action. Stopped and took some stripes per his request and we set out back into the mud for a chance at another quality brown. Core was quiet today but on the first pass a board went screaming followed by a leaping fish. Knew this was a great one, and we worked the boat and the fish, so I could clear the lines. I didnt say anything but I new this was a very large brown. With lines clear the battle began, and I told my friend to be patient and play the fish with the drag set right. He did a fantastic job and I was able to get his biggest brown ever caught to the net! No official weight, just the bogo scale between 15 and 16lbs. Not official but a good idea, a few quick pics, revival in the flowing live well and a great release of a great fish in that cold water. Doesn't get any better, just worked out right when it didn't have to.....very thankful. Great start to the season. Tight lines.

Got out for a few days this holiday weekend. All I can say....for me it was tough. Temps down, debris heavy and a type of flea I haven't encountered before. Couldn't even get them to slide down my line to peal them off, strange. Anyway worked the upper column looking for silver and went hours in between bites. Chased what bait I could find with hooks and circled. Cores never fired both days, rigger and coppers did what few quality fish we could get. Speed at 2.6 did it for me. Whites and blues did well for colors. Still many small stocked bows hitting and being dragged. Had one good rip and my friends fought the fish for a bit then gone.......thought it might be a slack line issue with the copper......brought the line in and had a stocked rainbow shredded but still alive.....assuming a good laker took a bite and we played tug of war for a while.....crazy... For as slow as it was we still got some quality bows for our efforts....not fast but focused, and rewarded for time put in. Tight lines.

Reel Doc, yeah I thought it was velvet coming off by the looks. Trouthunter, yes I was on Owasco.

Tom and Skip joined me this weekend for some late summer fishing, Friday met us with a cold front and a few storms so we started with a hardy "landfill" at Dugans and it gave us courage to go battle it out. Spread of copper, cores and riggers all produced at different times of the day but the weather was the king keeping good sized fish pinned down. Saturday we saw improvement and the guys once again saw each technique produce at certain times and saw that hunting for silver fish can be slower when it comes to bending rods. They soon saw how worth it and fun it is when you find some and they hit viciously. One great rip on the copper finally produced our first summer brown and we were on cloud nine. I would've said that was the highlight of the weekend until this morning. We were trolling through clearing fog when I saw somthing by the boat that looked a bit different....asked the guys if I was crazy.....and they confirmed.... that in the middle of a 170 foot of water was a big whitetail buck swimming by the boat.....I couldn't believe it and we watched him float and swim about 3 miles before getting back on shore.....was an incredible encounter, and a hell of a buck to boot! Fleas real bad this weekend, whites, and coppers were good colors, speed at 2.5 did the trick. Fun weekend. Will include a couple big bow pics from last Saturday. Too bad they weren't around this weekend. Tight lines.

After a couple of tough weeks of fishing, today the silver turned back on. Water was 76.8 last week and I was trying everything I could with minimal results, but today the program worked. Coppers and core each had their run but the rigger stayed quiet other than dink bows an fleas. Surface temp down to 73 and the rips were happening with good jumping action again. Speed back to 2.5, orange and white were great colors today, fleas back, but manageable. Copper back on top but the short cores played well. Gonna include some pics from the last 2 weeks too including another big laker that hit the scale at 14.7......cooler weather feels goid and it's waking them back up and keeping them out of the column a little longer. Shout out to John and Cam Joe. Tight lines.

Reel Doc......like any weekend warrior......love that water.....it's my therapy for sure. Anybody puts on enough time and they'll catch.....wife was with me and we had a party at 6......I didn't want to leave as I just found them it felt like, but......fortunately I was lucky enough to play the game for a bit. Sunday morning......they were gone..... Trouthunter.....most 5-7, bigger ones show later summer, you definitely get some bigger ones on Canandaigua.

Well the lake is setting up good temp and color. Started where I was last weekend and 2 hours of nada.....as is so common, picked up and moved a bit. Put out full spread copper, core and rigger. Small bows and some lakers came to hand but I knew I was not where I needed to be. Started playing with leads, colors, and rigger depth, finally take a rip on a short core, burried the board and broke the line. Reset and rip again, this time nice bow. Went dead again, so I continued to work and over think like we all can. Finally at 3:30 I made an adjustment on the copper and off to the races with bows. Great jumps, and great runs, figured it out late.......but figured it out. Speedat 2.3 surface, color was still copper,orange, did get one on green/silver. Surface temp was 75, so it's warm. Copper took back the belt as the champion for the day, but caught fish on all programs. Fleas not bad, weeds better then last weekend. Good luck.

Sent ya a PM Mick.

Bstone, yes that’s where, north is good, less weed mats there now, coppers and cores work best for me. Riggers do ok, if fleas aren’t bad. Find you temp, set above, cover water, loud colors to trigger strikes, when you find one, don’t leave , start making big circles until bite stops, then continue your original direction on the troll, check temp regular to see where to set, not completely set up yet, be prepared to wash lures for a bit........I fished over 2 hours today before my first good rip......if you want lakers....different story, watch your finder, drop em below 60 and have some fun....good luck.

Tom, yes using boards.....and fleas are there but not horrible as they were.

Got a late start today with my wife. Set up out of the gate with heavy boat traffic and weed mats, manged through it, hit some clear water and started washing lures. Has been a bit slow waiting for the set up but we started to see it today. As usual a lot of slow time then BAM....board goes ripping back with a great jumper on the core. Fighting through that the rigger fires and starts bouncing, my wife gets the boat positioned with the wind and we were fighting double bows. I put mine in the holder to help with hers which was a good one. Got hers to the net and I finished mine. Chaos, but fun as my wife caught her PB rainbow. Marked the spot and did circles, bite lasted about an hour then died again. Lost a nice brown near the net, but a good batch of silver came out of the column to play for a bit. Short cores did the trick, shallow coppers only did lakers and small bows, reduced speed from 2.6 down to 2 and had all my action. Orange and copper colors were hot in that bright sun today......things are starting to set up it seems, fleas not too bad. Tight lines.

Morning marinecrafts, the fish was hooked deep in it throat, the surface temp was 72 degrees which makes it very difficult to release, and the young man wanted to mount the fish as it was the biggest laker he ever caught. All other lakers and trout we caught were released, but we had to recover 2 of those lakers cause they just kept floating back up. Tough time of year for long fights and quick releases. Stillwater and mako, fish was 39.5 inches, and he will mount it. I do fish taxidermy and have been teaching this young man.....he will form it, I will paint it for him. Thanks for all the kind words everyone.