Canandaigua Lake out of Woodville 10/30
After getting some truck maintenance done at LeBrun Toyota in Canandaigua, I headed down to Woodville around 9:30 am. Despite living 60 miles away from my dealership, I still get my truck work done there, so I have a good excuse to tow the boat over to Canandaigua. My good clients the Hermans have a place nearby and they told me that they’d like to fish the lake, so I arranged to meet them at 12:30pm
The lake conditions were downright nasty, with very strong south winds – probably blowing a straight 20 mph and gusting into the 30s. Tight 2′ to 3′ + waves and whitecaps right on the south end. I checked a few areas for smallmouths and really liked what I found. I had a lot of follows on jerkbaits incl. a school of nice fish. I made sure I only stung one (a 17″+ fish) since I was pre-fishing for the guide trip. H2O was around 54.
I called the Hermans to suggest cancelling the trip, since the winds were so strong, but they’ve “turned a new leaf” and decided to start fishing some more trying conditions (dramamine also helps!) Unfortunately for whatever reason, the smallies weren’t to be found. The wind shifted slightly and the sun disappeared, which apparently made a difference. They landed some nice perch and dropped a bass or two, but there was no sign of the large numbers of fish I’d seen earlier. We tried a few other areas w/o luck. The nice thing about this lake is that there are still plenty of lush green weeds around. Despite the strong wind, John managed to land a beautiful 18″+ largemouth on a spinnerbait near the south end. All in all a very tough day, but we made the best of it. An earlier start would have really made a huge difference in the smallmouth fishing – there were a lot of bass around! Calmer conditions would have allowed for some laker jigging – I marked some of those too.
After the trip we met for dinner over at Poor Richards – basically a stone’s throw from the Woodville launch. I was knocked out by the food, the service and the prices. It’s a perfect place to eat after a full (or half) day on the water. The food is traditional American stuff, nothing fancy (casual dining a step up from a diner) – I had roasted turkey with mashed potatoes and stuffing. I subbed some NE Clam chowder for my salad and had my fill of coffee and a choc. shake – all for an incredibly reasonable price. I highly recommend this place!