Otisco Lake 10/10
Guided a half-day trip with Larry and his wife Jenn today, starting just after 8:15 am. Larry has wanted to catch a musky or pike for awhile. Last year, he caught that 41″ mambo northern pike on Owasco Lake. That fish was a lucky fish by many metrics: It was Larry’s first ever northern! On top of that, it hit on a bright sunny day just after the lake was flattening out. Pike can be very tough in those conditions.
Today was forecast to be relatively cold (compared to the weather of the last month,) potentially wet and windy. I give Jenn a lot of credit for making a go of the day. I don’t guide many women this time of year, especially when the weather is cold. All in all, the conditions were what I’d consider good to very good musky conditions. Nasty weather can go hand in hand with good musky fishing. Anyhow, I had them working spoons, which is my lure of choice – especially when clients don’t cast baitcasters. Using spinning gear generally rules out heavy lures and baits with a lot of resistance. Things started off well – Larry had follows from two decent muskies in the first 90 minutes of our trip! Only problem is that the fish didn’t hit! Mark had a similar situation last week over here, even when incorporating the “figure-8.” Larry didn’t do much “figure-eighting” or “turning the L” today, but either way, those were the only opportunities we had – at least that we could see.
It can be hard to keep focused as a day goes on with no more hits or follows. You can’t lose focus when musky fishing. One cast can make or break your trip.
Musky fishing can also be a physical endurance test. Jenn took a fair number of breaks to give her arm some rest. We all marveled at how Mark I. does such a great job casting a 10-weight fly-rod all day long at times – completely focused, oftentimes with very little encouragement from the fish! Anyway you break it down, that’s musky fishing. I considered the last couple trips we had to be decent musky days. We had shots at some very nice fish. Unfortunately we didn’t get the hook-ups. But when you look at last year’s luck, with Larry’s first northern pike being a 41″ monster on Owasco Lake, everything tends to even out.
After the trip was done, I spent another 4 hours on the lake casting blade-baits and I even scouted an area for musky that I don’t typically fish. I was talking to fellow guide Kurt Hoefig last night and he told me he was planning on giving the walleyes a good shot out here today, so I said, what the heck, I’ll stick it out and see what’s going on. I hadn’t fished on my own in a while! The lake temperature on the surface was 63 degrees. I fished from 10′ to around 40′ of water and landed three nice smallmouths up to around 17.5″. They were hard-hitting, good fighting fish. I lost one fish that I might have foul-hooked that fought pretty well for a few seconds. Overall, I’d say the fishing was fair for me. This lake has a modest smallmouth bass population that contains some very big fish, but it’s not on a par with neighboring Skaneateles Lake for bass.
This Saturday is open for trips. The weather looks terrific!