Canandaigua Canandiagua still producing impressive trout... this weekend's derby Grand Prize winner was a 21.16 LT. Solid fish in all catagories!

[salmoseine]

Edited June 1, 2025 by salmoseine

[JBoock]

 

Congratulations to Paul Yacuzzo on a GREAT fish.

[GAMBLER]

Anyone know what he caught it on?

[Gator]

Gator rig lol.

[AnglingAddict]

20 years ago early May was fishing solo out of a tin tiller boat on Canandaigua pulling an inline offshore planer on each side of the boat on the east side just south of Thendara.  Hooked and landed a giant brown - to date still my largest BT.  We have handled a ton of high high teens fish and a couple kissing 20 pounds on lake ontario over the years and that BT out of Canandaigua was bigger.  I didn't weigh it but released it and was confident at the time it was over 20 as it swam away.  Before the days of camera phones, goPro's and everything else.  I still have the old Orange/gold Jr. Thunderstick hanging in the garage that fish took and chewed on.

   

[Sk8man]

Although Canandaigua Lake has produced some impressive trout over the years they are few and far between. The number of fish caught and present in Canandaigua Lake has been constantly reducing for many years now. I have fished it since the late 1960"s and the amount of bait present, the number of fish present has radically diminished. In the seventies and eighties bait could be seen stacked up over a hundred feet high for hundreds of yards. There were also large schools of Rainbow Smelt present in addition to the sawbellies. On the graph many fish were noted both on bottom , suspended, and mixed in or near huge bait pods. Now days bait pods are very much scattered and much smaller although there is still noticeable bait present in some areas. There is still a strong contingent of naturally produced rainbows present and strong year classes of smaller ones quite active. In the 1960's through the early 2000's there were a lot of Lake Trout across the range of sizes. Lately, there seems to be the occasional large one caught, but nowhere near the presence of small to medium sized ones that used to be caught. Although the occasional large Brown Trout is caught and mostly during derbies routine trolling does not turn up many and some of this is related to their habits which used to be exploited by night fishing for them and which is seldom seen anymore.

 Canandaigua Lake is VERY heavily used recreationally (e.g. ski boats, cigar boats, sailboats, and jet skiis) so during the summer given the crowded congested launch and parking lot, narrow navigation channel, and heavy concentration of people unfamiliar with fishing concerns or even boating courtesy it can be daunting. Luckily, the derby is early in the season when recreational boat traffic is lighter. 

The folks that caught winning fish in this years derby really earned them as the wind and weather was pretty brutal for trollers as you had very little control of speed/direction etc. because of the extreme WNW wind.

[Trouthunter]

You maybe true in what you are saying but for numbers of large fish caught this lake is a great producer as it has all the needs these trout want long live this lake have been fishing it for over 40 years.. 

[T-Rok]

That board blows away the seneca tournament board. 

[spoonfed-1]

On 6/3/2025 at 7:23 AM, Sk8man said:

Although Canandaigua Lake has produced some impressive trout over the years they are few and far between. The number of fish caught and present in Canandaigua Lake has been constantly reducing for many years now. I have fished it since the late 1960"s and the amount of bait present, the number of fish present has radically diminished. In the seventies and eighties bait could be seen stacked up over a hundred feet high for hundreds of yards. There were also large schools of Rainbow Smelt present in addition to the sawbellies. On the graph many fish were noted both on bottom , suspended, and mixed in or near huge bait pods. Now days bait pods are very much scattered and much smaller although there is still noticeable bait present in some areas. There is still a strong contingent of naturally produced rainbows present and strong year classes of smaller ones quite active. In the 1960's through the early 2000's there were a lot of Lake Trout across the range of sizes. Lately, there seems to be the occasional large one caught, but nowhere near the presence of small to medium sized ones that used to be caught. Although the occasional large Brown Trout is caught and mostly during derbies routine trolling does not turn up many and some of this is related to their habits which used to be exploited by night fishing for them and which is seldom seen anymore.

 Canandaigua Lake is VERY heavily used recreationally (e.g. ski boats, cigar boats, sailboats, and jet skiis) so during the summer given the crowded congested launch and parking lot, narrow navigation channel, and heavy concentration of people unfamiliar with fishing concerns or even boating courtesy it can be daunting. Luckily, the derby is early in the season when recreational boat traffic is lighter. 

The folks that caught winning fish in this years derby really earned them as the wind and weather was pretty brutal for trollers as you had very little control of speed/direction etc. because of the extreme WNW wind.

Did you look at the weights on that board? Few and far between is not what thats showing.

Edited June 6, 2025 by spoonfed-1

[Nautitroller]

Fishing was fantastic for us we spent 3.5 days fishing with a total of over 100 fish landed. The water temps were behind,  the weather sucked, but of you were in the fish they were plentiful.   Our tally was 3 browns,  60 plus bows and the remainder lakers. The best laketrout we caught was 9-14. It was a grind but i love fishing that lake!!

[Sk8man]

Spoonfed - the data in derbies is radically skewed and not truly representative of the usual fishing conditions. With hundreds of fishermen running many more hundreds of lines and lures an unusual number of fish will be caught including big ones, but that does not represent the usual situation I was referring to . Normally, there may be only 5-10 guys (or less) out fishing for trout on a given day here. Most of the trailers at the launches are rec boaters and perch and bass folks. I based my comments on 35 years of keeping DEC Angler Diaries and sixty plus years of fishing here,. My intention was not to be critical of the lake but to alert potential people who may travel long distances to fish the lake that they may not be getting the results of the derby leader board; avoiding disappointment and the feeling that they were being unintentionally mislead by the derby data. John's results on the rainbows to laker ratio were about the same for us about 7 to 1 and most were in the 15to 18 inch class boding well for the fishery. We had one Rainbow about 6 or 7 lbs to the surface that got off but most seemed to be in the younger year classes.

Edited June 7, 2025 by Sk8man