Owasco Lake 10/12
Fished with Greg today. Greg first booked me this past June and every trip we’ve done has featured some very good to excellent fishing. When I heard the winds howling at 4 am this morning I was wondering if our luck had run out! As I drove through the park at Taughannock on my way to Owasco Lake I narrowly missed hitting a skunk! Was it an omen? Did I “just miss the skunk?” Well I’m not superstitious but I’d be lying if I said I thought it would be easy fishing today. Greg got his fill of lakers 2 weeks ago and the target today was smallmouths. He said if he got one 18″ smallmouth he’d consider today a success.
The lake was misty with rain and windy out of the west as we launched. No one else was around. As we headed down the lake the wind seemed to follow us. Waves got bigger and we got wet as we motored around. We fished a couple areas and at the second area we fished Greg got a hit on an X-rap. I thought it was a small bass, but we netted the fish and it was an 18 1/2″ smallmouth! Paydirt! Greg insisted I fish a little and I managed a northern around 25″ on a tube jig. We continued down the lake and Greg missed a few fish incl. another average northern. A few largemouths missed our lures near the south end of the lake. We worked back up and I picked up a 17″ smallmouth. I alternated between fishing and not fishing -every so often Greg wanted me to fish, so I did.
We continued up the lake and Greg nailed a beautiful smallmouth on a spinnerbait – just a hair under 20″! Then the pike started hitting and we probably caught another half dozen northerns. Nothing over 26″, but all decent fish. I nailed another decent smallie on a tube and pike were also hitting the tube. Perch were everywhere. Bigger ones were near the south end. Allin all we felt pretty good about our day. We worked hard for every fish we caught, but we did catch some very nice fish. We saw one other boat out all day. Bass were in around 7′ to 20′ of water. Same with the other fish. The outside edge of the weeds was key for northerns. Bass were in shallow and off the edges. Fish are all over the lake. Covering water was the key today. Fishing should only improve by the week! H2O was at 64 lakewide and 62 in the outlet. Greg’s a funny guy and we were laughing our butts off with assorted crazy mimicry and other forms of “cold generated weirdness”.