Lake Ontario out of Oswego 8/25 am
I was very excited to do my first guided trip out of Oswego. Nat was up from Tennessee and loves smallmouth bass. We did a couple mornings out on Skaneateles Lake with good fishing from bass in the 11″ to 15″ range. I was hoping we could find some better fish on the “big lake” and he was up for the challenge of being my first client (aka the old expression “guinea pig”) out of this port.
I’ve been fishing Oswego for bass since my pre-boat days, but it’s a different fishery now, with fish less widespread and more concentrated. To complicate matters, there was a small (15 boat or more) bass tournament going on today. They’d launched before we did (we met around 6:30 and got underway at 6:45.) I enjoy following B.A.S.S., but dealing with tournaments on weekends is a hassle for the non-tournament bass angler. There are boats in many of the obvious/popular spots and sometimes tournament anglers will fish closer than what I see as comfortable to other non-competitors, but the latter wasn’t a problem today. The former was; I usually fish Oswego on weekdays and have never seen more than 2 bass boats on the lake, so we experienced a bit of a culture shock today, since my “guaranteed” go-to areas were getting hammered.
We tried a popular shoal a few miles from the launch. Within 20 minutes or so, Nat landed a bass around 13″ on a tube. It felt like we were being haunted by Skaneateles-sized bass! I demonstrated a few subtleties of dropshotting and managed another bass on a lucky drop. Competitors were on the shoal in good numbers, so we had to find some new areas on the fly. That’s the stuff that really gets my blood pumping. In one area Nat managed a 17″er. He dropped a couple bass as well. I then managed to find a “new” (to me) area without any other boats around and Nat landed two more solid bass. No 18″ers today. We tried deep and he had a chunky bass follow him up in 70′ FOW! He also had a good hit from what was either a bass or a nice brown trout. So not a great day, but not terrible. We found our fish from 12′ to about 37′ deep today. But now I know what I have to do in terms of finding more productive areas that aren’t fished hard by other anglers. And I know the areas that get pounded with pressure. My work is cut out for me and I can’t wait to get back on the lake. Trollers report OK salmon fishing (4 to 5 a day) and some were targeting browns when the salmon bite slowed. Lots of boats were out on a picture-perfect day.