Reports

Whitney Point Spillway 10/2: I took my Cornell fishing class over to Whitney’s spillway. The water flow was minimal. Visibility was about 1′. 1/8th to 1/4 oz. jigheads with chartreuse twisters produced some smallmouths. Mostly undersized fish, but a couple were legal. I’d wait a couple weeks before fishing here.

Canandaigua Lake 10/3: I arrived at the State Launch around 10:30 am and was underway shortly thereafter. I think I saw one other boat fishing on the day! Foliage was looking good as I motored out. The goal was to fish some “alien areas”. I am finally getting a lot of this lake locked into my brain. It’s fairly similar to Skaneateles Lake structurally. Water temps were 63 on top. The winds were strong out of the west. I started on the west shore around an area I’d seen some smallmouths at last month. A few casts with a white X-rap produced a couple good hits. I set into a nice perch around 11″ in 10′ of water. I worked further up the lake and had 2 to 3 nice smallmouths come out for the stickbait in one area but I couldn’t get any grabs. One of the fish had the bait right up to its mouth. I tried tubes and other tactics to no avail. I motored across to the windy portion of the lake and worked the X-rap and a tube jig. In one area a school of around 8 or 9 nice smallmouths followed out the X-rap, but no hits! It was pretty wild. I kept covering water and as the wind started whipping I nailed a nice 18.5″ smallie on the X-rap. Another decent (15″) fish came on a tube. Rockbass and perch were also hitting and I managed another 3 good 10″ to 12″ perch. After a front blew through I had a tough time buying any hits. I switched to a jigworm and tried some other tactics. Hooked another couple (small) bass and that was about it. I kept the small smallmouth and all the perch. The bass and perch had crawfish in their stomachs. I wound the day up at 5:30 pm. The last 2 hours were very slow fishing. Most bass/perch came from 10′ to 20″ FWIW.

bass Canandaigua Lake yellow perch