Onondaga Lake 6/17
Got out on Onondaga Lake for the first time this season with my buddy Terry. We started fishing at around 11:30 am and fished until around 6:30 pm. Water temperatures over there ran from 68 to 71 degrees on the course of the day.
Our bass fishing was pretty slow today. Fish are still guarding nests and fry. They are in a neutral to negative mood. We did land one smallmouth (Terry) and a handful of largemouths. I took a couple good largemouths on senkos and Terry took his with spinnerbaits and squarebills.
We found gar but they were not very active with the relatively cold water. 70 degrees is the minimum for good gar activity and we were right around 69 to 70. A week of hot weather will turn them on big time. Terry caught one on a rope lure (weighted rope-fly.) Funny thing is he had a large Tiger Musky follow in his rope fly! People spend $20 or more on musky lures at times and this big stout tiger came in after some nylon rope. That being said, the rope flies do have a great action and I’ve had bass hit them too. Terry wound up landing a nice Tiger around 30″ give or take on a spinnerbait late in the day. We saw one or two other muskies in various areas.
The lake is looking good with plenty of pondweed around. Bass fishing should pick up in a week or two. Right now I’d characterize the bass as being post-spawn. We did see a lot of bass today on beds guarding fry. As mentioned before, we are not into bed-fishing. We also saw a lot of big carp on this lake including some real mambos – fish in the 30lb+ range. We saw a few drum and quite a few panfish. Great day to be out with the abundant sunshine. Back to the clouds and rain for the foreseeable future.