Oneida Lake 6/27
Made it back onto Oneida Lake for another full day’s worth of fishing. Got a late start – around 9:30 am. Nice breeze to start, but things died rather quickly and the lake became as flat as glass. Fishing wasn’t easy. I worked totally different areas than last week for the most part. Hooked a good smallmouth on the South shore on a fluke, but after 15 seconds or so it got off. Fishing then became a grind. I did a bit of drop-shotting as well as casting some jigs and grubs. Eventually on the N. shore I landed a decent smallmouth on a black MTO hair jig. I figured the fish would think it was Bill Alexander fishing, and not me 😉
Pitching and short-casting a rubber casting jig with a plastic trailer nabbed me a largemouth and another decent smallmouth. Then I broke out the frog rod (around Big Bay) and connected with a shallow largemouth on some brush. I basically took the latter half of the day as a practice day and realized I was better and more accurate casting with my left hand than my right – so that was a very nice revelation!
I’m very happy with my Revo/Verdict pitching set-up, so when we do make it back to Champlain (or fish locally) for that matter, I’m in good shape. I’d recommend the Revo STX to anyone – I have 3 and they are all great. No problems right out of the box and after a year or two of good use.
That’s two days on Oneida with sun and flat calm conditions along with a fair algae bloom (esp. on the N. shore/Central portions of the lake.) So next time, I’m shooting for some overcast conditions with a bit of wind, or at least sun with some wind. The dead calm stuff with sun and algae isn’t a lot of fun to fish! Water temps are in the low to mid 70s and warmer in Big Bay. Pickerel were active, but not hitting as well as last week. I did see another bowfin as well as a large channel cat and a gar, so that was pretty cool. Loads of drum and carp shallow as usual. Plenty of drum on the mainlake shoals too.