Oneida Lake 7/19
Wind conditions weren’t looking good for us on Lake Ontario, so I met my buddy Terry at South Shore Park around 6:45 am. My gear was still in good order following the Champlain trip, so I was pretty psyched for more bass fishing. As I prepared to launch the boat I recognized BASS Pro Jason Quinn’s rig. He launched just before we did. Very nice guy and he told me that a lot of the (Elite Level) pros would be on Cayuga in mid-August for the open tournament. Oneida goes off limits for practice soon. Brent Chapman and Bradley Roy were also getting in some scouting.
We worked a combination of old and new areas. I’m still learning what parts of Oneida attract fish and why, and why some seemingly good looking areas don’t. Terry managed a couple solid walleyes on a jerkbait – a 20″er and an 18″. I landed a dink on a SuperFluke. We also hooked into and landed some solid smallmouths – no great numbers, but I landed one that was a fat fish and a shade under 19″. Terry also got one largemouth. Fish came on the Superflukes, Tube jigs (shad/alewife color,) Rat-L Traps, Jerkbaits and Beaver/Chigger Craw type baits. Didn’t see any surface action on seagulls or breaking fish. Plenty of drum were around and we had some follows. We also landed some beautiful panfish including a 9.5″ bluegill. We didn’t have time to check the deeper areas; we caught our fish from 2′ to 9′ FOW – pretty darn shallow.
Water temp reached 83. Fish are feeding on bait for the most part. We kept a couple smaller smallmouths (16″ers) and the legal walleyes so I was able to do a stomach check.