NPike

If the fish is injured (gill hooked and bleeding, belly up, etc) or if you just take a few odd fish each season “injured fish making up the major portion of theseâ€. This is what I try to encourage folks to do as we let by and far most of our Esox go, >>95%. It concerns me that on Conesus how many pike and tigers are keep. Look at the Facebook website and you will see how many people are yanking them out of that lake. A large % of these are not released (you can often tell by the photo) and I’m surprised the fishery still stands up to it to tell you the truth. Excuse me if I'm off topic

In what way would pike – musky’s caught while trolling for walleyes – trout, etc be more likely to suspect to higher mortality rates? Say a big pike or musky grabs a Sutton Spoon or a Rapala’s Taildancer, why would this be more injurious to the fish than if it were a trout or walleye. The only difference I could see if the fish were caught at a very great deep say like you were trolling for Lakers at 90+ FOW. Very few if any Esox are caught at these depths, so I don’t follow this line of logic. I troll very little (by choice), but the few Esox I’ve caught on downriggers did just fine as far as I could tell and were fished for the same way as one would trout or walleye. Generally between (15 to 40) FOW. The only difference is the use of higher test leaders. However this is basically the only way to catch them on Conesus once the lake heats to a certain point. Since you really can’t reach them casting until the water cools down. So I switch to fishing for LM_Bass until September-Oct. That is why I found it interesting that on Otisco a somewhat similar deeper water lake with ample alewives that one could cast for tigers in the 30’s†during this record hot summer.

That’s interesting. I wonder why they bite reality shallow on Otisco and not Conesus (say >= 16 to 17) FOW or less? They are both deep lakes with plenty of alewives. On Conesus BTT the surface temp reaches 75 degrees you can forget about casting for tigers.

I’m surprised people are catching Tigers anywhere during the course of the last month by Casting with this extreme heat. You won’t get them by casting on Conesus with surface water temps at 80 degrees. Conesus has deep water and they are getting a few (not may, BTW) by trolling 20+ FOW.

That looks like the biggest one I've ever seen a picture of Wow

What a great fish! Congrads

When I used to fish Hemlock the pickerel were 3 to 5 pounds, I thought this was the norm. Even up to 7+

Nice fish!! Man they are dark in the hills - mountains.

Although these are all from Conesus and were all caught before tis year. I thought you guys might find the color difference interesting. Sorry for posting last years pictures.

Thanks guys, it was my big fish of the year to date. It was actually hard to judge weight since it was wiggling in the net, I was conservative. About the bass Conesus is a LMB factory with many nice smallmouths as well. So far I've caught a 31" and 31.5" pike and a 32" tiger as well. But I fish there regularly.

caught this morning on a Jerkbait

Earlier this year on Conesus they were running rigs for walleyes well before the opener. It was obvious from the planer boards and downriggers they weren't fishing for early season (catch and release) bass.

I'm not interested in that kind of investment it's not that important to me

That's Bull I fish alone and release some big fish. Ever try to get a good shot of a big essox trashing while alone.

Be mid - late June for me can't wait! My guess is that unless it warms up a lot (the water) it may be slow. water was below 60 last weekend.