Reports

Guided back-to-back half-days on Saturday and then a morning half-day today (Sunday.)  Thus far, the algae is holding off.  Visibility in the lake is down notably from last week.  We probably have around 3′ of clarity, maybe 4′.  The harbor area at Long Point State Park was completely cloudy today.  This may have been due to south winds blowing in murky or algae-laden water, although I didn’t notice algae in it.  You could not see the bottom in the marina area.

The thermocline is established and some waterfleas are around.  They weren’t bad, but we did get a few.  Thankfully for the trollers, I haven’t seen any signs of floating weedmats yet.  My best guess is that lake will be blooming and featuring very low visibility after this week’s forecasted heat wave or maybe by Wednesday.  If not, I’ll be thrilled!  I’d love to not see any bloom this year, but I think that’s a pipedream.  Small particulates are pretty much everywhere now – from the power plant area up to the crescent (northern deep portions of the lake.)  It’s coming…

6/15 AM:  Guided Tyler, his dad Glenn and brother in-law Mitchell starting at 7 am.  We started out getting into a few nice lakers in fairly short order in around 80 FOW.  A lot of boats were working the area we were fishing.  We ran to the other side of the lake and conditions changed.  Fish started hitting better.  Glenn had the hot hand first thing in the morning, then Mitchell, but Tyler was not to be outdone!  He told us all, that he was after big fish.  Sure enough, he hooked up and I heard a familiar refrain, “my drag doesn’t seem to be working!”  I’ve heard it a couple times from people and it’s usually a big fish.  After a great fight, I slipped the net under a 34.5″ beast!  I’ve heard since that Tyler may be getting it mounted – we’ll see, but either way it was a solid and I believe it was the best fish to come onboard my boat thus far this season.  Tyler then landed one around 32″ if I remember correctly.  It was pretty insane and both came on a color I rarely ever use on this lake, although I don’t know if that was the factor.  Overall, the guys did very well today with a little lull around an hour before we wound up.  Just before we called it quits, Glenn hooked a couple more and landed one.  Solid double-digit day.

PM:  My PM trip was with Brandon, who referred Tyler to me.  Word-of-mouth referrals has been a lot of the key to my guiding success over the past 20 years!  With referrals, I really don’t need to advertise, so I thank everyone reading this who’s ever referred someone to me – whether you’ve ever booked a trip or not.  It’s greatly appreciated!  Brandon had his father Paul along for Father’s Day weekend, along with his brother Troy.  Neither one does much fishing.  Paul was a little impatient and skeptical to start – but not in an annoying way, just as someone who doesn’t fish much.  What made this afternoon special was seeing “the light” go on with both Paul and Troy.  They really had a great time today and hopefully are “hooked” on the sport.  It really gave me a thrill to watch the turnaround, and I’ve seen a lot in my years guiding, but today was really cool.  We had a solid day which was started with 5 big fish running mostly 28″ to 29″.  We hit the double-digits this afternoon as well.  We did deal with a lot of wave action, that’s for sure!  It was rough at times with 22 mph gusts out of the north during the middle part of the trip.

6/16 AM:  Today I guided Larry and his wife Jenn.  It’s always great seeing them!  Larry caught that tremendously beautiful northern pike last fall out of Owasco Lake.  Later this fall, we’ll try to get a tiger musky, but today was a “redemption day” for Larry after Jenn caught all the lake trout on a half-day earlier this season.   Fishing was definitely slower today and we worked the same areas I’d worked with Ron on Friday.  A lot of warm water had blown in where we were and we also dealt with a strong current.  All in all, today was a slow pick from our start at 7:30 am right up to our finish time.  That being said, it was slow and steady.  We never went long without a hit and Jenn had a nice follow from a good-sized silver fish.  In another area, Larry had on what had to be a good rainbow (or maybe salmon) that took his jig on the fall, then rocketed to the surface on the other side of the boat and threw the jig!  I’ve seen that happen a handful of times over the years.  Larry even snagged an alewife today.  Five nice fish were landed running around 22″ to 25″ or 26″.  No big bruisers today, but it was gorgeous out and downright chilly this morning.   I’ll try to keep that in mind with the heat indexes predicted for mid-week!  Fun day but definitely more challenging than the past three.