justtracytrolling

Opening day this year we were fighting a 24" 6lb eye and it got crushed while fighting it. We fought both fish for several minutes and eventually the walleye got loose and rocketted to surface and went airborne an easy 4 feet out if the water. That walleye out fought every smallmouth I've ever hooked hands down. The bite marks were wider than any tiger I've ever seen.

Brock ended up 3rd on the st Lawrence and fished largemouths all week. Unreal diversity!!!!

A friend of ours the boys fish with, Brock Mosely was in 5th after day 1. Amazing fishery you have there!

I run rigger leads 100 in daylight for walleye. 15-35 at night, and 8-10 feet for tigers. I run my boards as far out as the will track for the conditions. With long rigger setbacks you have to know what your doing or your board rods will get in them. The closer the bait is to the boat the deeper it has to be to catch. Outside boards can be firing down 12-14 and riggers riggers might have to be 23-24 to catch. The boat definitely moves the fish. Hook your graph to your tm transducer or mount one on your tm and compare where you mark the fish up front versus a stern transducer and you see exactly the effect. Twice in the last 10 days I've fired all nine rods at least once fishing 5 different setups.

Glad you are on em Kevin! Nice summer pattern here for me as well. Still haven't hit skaneatles yet but I'll be doing both lakes by next spring at the latest. My mate is doing very well over there.

We have deoxygenated water below the thermocline also here right now. That's why the bait is up high out of temp. For some reason the tigers can handle the lower levels of oxygen better than every other species. I do catch a few walleye, browns, and smallmouth just below the thermocline but any big dense mark deeper than that is a tiger. I've put baits down there 12 hours a day for a week straight for 1 bite down there and every single fish I've caught that deep ends up a tiger. You can tell very obviously that the fish go straight to the bottom after they hit up high because the board goes vertical then under. They stay on the bottom as you bring em in long enough that I see them on the imaging straight under the boat. Either way the most active fish here you can't mark with a rear mounted transducer. As the won't let you get over em when they are up that high and the cone isn't big enough.

Target those deep fish at the depth of the bait or less. It's easier to get bit down 12-18 over 60 fow with them on the bottom than down 5 feet over their them. 95% of the big off shore tigers I get are hooked above the thermocline. Unless you have a 9 rod spread I wouldn't have a single bait below the thermocline. I know I've said this before but you can't mark the active walleye. Most people fish too deep and fall in love with the inactive marks. I'm sure everyone has seen fish literally feeding on the surface in the day over deep water.

That's the first tiger I've caught on copper. The fish came up over 40 feet from the bottom to hit a spoon and immediately went back down. The young guy in the pic did a great job getting the fish back up to the surface and the fish didn't seem like it knew it was hooked till it was in the net. Fish was so fresh it literally destroyed my net. The blood run walleye copper was very productive today and has been my hottest setup so far trolling. Definitely the best fish of the year here that I know of or have heard about. Seems like the only fish below the thermocline are tigers which isn't uncommon.

Middle of the lake.....

Campground is the best run launch/marina on the lake no question. Fishing is pretty solid....1 good one from this morning....in fact very good!!!!

Launch is nearly done by the looks. I'll take a pic if I think of it. Keep in mind if you use that launch it has limited parking and if it's full there is no where to turn around without using the launch circle. It's not protected whatsoever and there will be a wicked cross wind on windy days. Not too mention the causeway draws an unsavory crowd to mess with your truck. No bathrooms and I'm sure the porta John will be clean and the trash cans will be emptied.

The Susquehanna river is an excellent option as well. That's where I started and PA has done a very good job getting pures stocked in Waverly and great bend. Now in the area between those towns there are excellent numbers of reproducing musky in both the chenango and Susquehanna. The Broome county area also has the odd natural tiger musky and some good pike. I don't guide on the river but it certainly isn't because the fishing isn't good.

I thought about fishing the owasco derby after the Otisco derby Saturday morning, but I'm not pulling the boat to deal with fleas! Not that it's impossible, but respooling to deal with fleas for 1 day of fishing isn't worth it to me. Last time I was there with my boat it was July 5 2013 and the fleas were absolutely horrible so this isn't new! Fished Cayuga for the 2 days prior and that morning...zero fleas. Had to dig thru my logs to get the date and based on my notes I gave up and headed back to Otisco. Fished 3 finger lakes that day!

Other than the last 10 days or so the walleye fishing has been awesome.

It's been tough! There are walleye in the usual shore spot, and trolling seems easier than casting. I found some good fishing Sunday night but it was more bass than walleye. As far as tigers go all I can say is I'm not seeing many compared to last year.