Lake Ontario out of Oswego Harbor 8/6
It’s felt great doing some serious fishing lately. The recent weather hasn’t been great for hitting the “Big Lake,” at least on days I’ve been off, so I was psyched to get out today on my own. I was on the water around 6:15 am and went searching for browns.
Temperatures weren’t what I needed for great brown trout action, but I did have a hold of a beauty on a jig. The fish hit me three times (in around 120′) and I finally hooked it momentarily. Probably a 10 to 12lb fish, but it got off. The fleet was out working 250′ to 350′ FOW. I tried out there for a little bit but didn’t see much. Salmon action was reportedly slow today, and has been slow much of the season according to the creel census guys. They blamed the poor weather/fishing conditions. The good fish are out there – the weather needs to cooperate!
Bass fishing was the highlight of the day. I had some terrific dropshotting with fish gobbling my Gulp Gobies on 5 or 6 drops in a row. I spent around 3 hours on the bass and landed 8 nice fish and lost a couple good ones. Best fish was 20″ and weighed 4lbs 9oz. I also had a few 18″ers. The quality of the fish off of Oswego was the best I’ve seen over the past decade. My fish came from 27′ to 37′ FOW. Fish range in depth from shallow to over 100′ FOW! The bite was hot when the wind was blowing.
I had a chance to talk to DEC folks doing the Lake Ontario Angler Survey. They report that bass action has been good out of Oswego, Henderson and Chaumont. Action has been slow west of Oswego. I would like to try a few key areas off of Sodus to see for myself. Goby numbers are definitely down and this may be making for better fishing. I had very few hits from gobies today. When I got bit, it was a bass more often than not!