Lake Ontario out of Oswego 5/6
Got back out to Oswego again today for another solo trip. Hit my pizza place again (it’s the one in Cato – not Weedsport fwiw.) Had completely different conditions today on the lake – this time winds were calm, the lake was flat and the sun was shining brightly. No fog. Water was cold – pretty much 40 degrees all the way down, though my surface temp reading was in the low to mid 50s. Harbor temp reached 56/57 today.
I worked a bunch of different depths right out to 140’+ today. Had a few marks here and there that were most likely lake trout. I marked very little bait. Had zero fish moving for my jigs. I worked back in towards the harbor and marked some fish in around 65′ to 75′. Dropped my jig and reeled it up and felt the rod load up! Wound up reeling in a nice 25″ brown. It was in fair condition and had a lamprey scar. I let it go after a quick photo. First brown I’ve ever jigged up there in flat glassy conditions during the middle of the day. I do believe the fish in Lake Ontario are very hungry now. Usually when I’ve jigged browns on the lake it’s been early AM and there’s some chop and maybe some cloud cover. That was a first for me.
I worked a favorite harbor area for smallmouths and landed three – two of which were real pigs. The bass bite in the harbor wasn’t nearly as good this time around as it was last week. Maybe someone stung a bunch before me, or more likely the fished moved – possibly into the warm river water. I checked back out on the lake before I called it quits. Marked a fair amount of bait (compared to what I’d seen previously) but no fish. Overall I was happy with my brown and a few bass, all of which were taken between 12:30 and 5:30 pm. It’s probably the first time I’ve hit paydirt on trout and salmon on three consecutive casting/jigging trips up there ever. We’ll see if it keeps up. Next on the docket will likely be Cayuga for some salmon/brown fly-casting, Skaneateles for a crack at some walleyes/perch or perhaps Owasco or Seneca for northerns (and salmon on Seneca.) We have a lot of options here in Central NY! I wouldn’t mind hitting some old haunts like Irondequoit Bay or Conesus Lake either for drum/gar or walleyes respectively. Time will tell.