Otisco Lake 6/5
Well the “Fish Gods” finally paid us off on Otisco Lake today. After getting my boat inspected by the NYS Parks Dept (I’m a certified “Public Vessel”) at 1 pm, Jessica and I took the boat over to Otisco Lake, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a month now. I’ve been trying to get a Tiger Musky there for a few years now – usually going once or twice a year. The Tiger numbers are up now, so the timing hasn’t been better in years. We started throwing Lunker City Shakers, stickbaits and spinnerbaits in around 3′ to 14′ of water. Within 25 minutes Jessica hooked a fish on a shaker. It was fighting really well and I saw it was a nice Tiger Musky! After a few great runs (incl. 2 under the boat) I got the fish into the net! Gorgeous fish – 29″ long. After a few photos we released the sublegal musky (we would have released ANY muskies unless mortally wounded.) Needless to say, Jess was thrilled at her first musky.
We kept working and expanding on the area we fished. I lost a big largemouth bass. On our 2nd pass my shaker got hammered (after she caught the musky, I switched over!) and I landed a 25″ walleye, just under 6lbs. So I got my first Otisco eye. 10 minutes later I landed another nice walleye – a 23″ 4lb. fish. Both fish will be “released to the grease” 😉 A big smallmouth, a few small largemouths and a couple small perch rounded out the day. We’ll obviously be back to Otisco soon! This lakes been tough to crack for me – usually just bad timing with cold fronts and tough conditions, but we made some headway today. My friend Tyler at Bass Pro Shops gave me a good tip re: the lake that helped too. Every bit helps…. BTW – the walleyes all hit Shakers rigged with 40lb bite leaders! So much for “line shy walleyes”. The fights on the eyes were less than spectacular, though they hit hard.