Lake Ontario/Oswego 9/26 + Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 9/27
Oswego 9/26: Arrived on my own at Wright’s Landing just before 7 and was on the water shortly thereafter. Fishing pressure is very low on the lake now, with the charter season basically over. The winds were calm this AM, which usually isn’t a good time to jig browns, but I wanted to see what was up. The thermocline remains deep, at 110′ to 115′ or so. A few browns were set up along it. I had one brown follow a jig to the surface and show itself by breaking the surface. Another rolled nearby as well. That was it for me on the AM brown bite.
I set up for bass and worked a familiar shoal for a little while in order to get a feel for the bite. In around 20′ FOW I had a light hit and set into a fish. It fought like a 10″ bass until it came up to the surface. Wow! It was closer to 4 1/2 to 5lbs! Then it got off. After a little more fishing around the shoal, I decided it was time to explore some other areas. A nearby point resulted in a couple decent bass landed – fish from 16″ to 17.5″. I’m learning a lot about Lake Ontario smallmouths in the goby-era and found out a few interesting things today.
The winds came up much more so than the predicted 5 mph and 1′ waves. Before long I was dealing with 1′ to 3′ waves. The browns set up heavily along the thermocline, but they just weren’t hitting or moving much for the jigs. Water temps on top were in the upper 60s.
Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 9/27: Had to do some scouting for upcoming pike trips on Seneca today. (Yes, this guide does his homework.) I also love to get out in late September/early October out of Watkins Glen when the milfoil and coontail is still lush and the pike are active. Met my old time fishing buddy and lake angling mentor Terry at the ramp around 6:30 am and we were underway and fishing before 7. It was a classic fall day with foggy mist coming off the lake and gorgeous colors along parts of the lakeshore. I absolutely love the fall in the FL Region (who doesn’t?)
Pike fishing started out slow for us, but Terry nailed a 22″ fish after about an hour. Then I clocked one at 37 1/2″. There are some nice pike in Seneca Lake this year and plenty of year classes. We each caught around 3 fish, including a 25″ pickerel and a couple more pike around 24″ to 25″.
I had my kind of day and we kept working up the lake, kind of like I used to do when I first began patterning the FLs. In one area I nailed a couple chunky 13″ to 14″ smallmouths on green pumpkin tube jigs. Later, I caught one dropshotting in 42′ FOW.
We set up for lakers way up the lake and missed a bunch of them. They weren’t committing well, but there were plenty of fish south of Lodi towards Valois. These fish are probably close to spawning. There were fish out deep over bait too. Thermocline was deep up there – 95′ to 100’+ for laker temps. We also had a couple smallish salmon messing with our jigs. Fun day and it was nice to get out before another long run of guiding. I’m doing more trips during the 1st two weeks of October than I had planned, but look forward to the nice colors and hopefully good to great fishing out on the lakes.