Owasco Lake 11/14 AM
Guided David and Bryant for a half day trip getting underway around 9:45 am. Dave lives nearby and mostly fishes Skaneateles Lake. He wanted the lowdown on lake trout jigging on Owasco Lake. Given how tough the bite was here on November 3rd with Ron, I wasn’t very optimistic about our chances for success. Owasco Lake has a modest lake trout population, although they do concentrate at times. Post-spawn fish here really scatter. Given that conditions looked to be much better for pike than trout, I asked Dave if he wouldn’t mind my bringing pike gear along so the guys could at least have a better shot at a few fish and he agreed.
The lake conditions here were good. The lake level has dropped a foot or so since the heavy rainfall a couple weeks ago. The water is clear. Surface temps are around 50 to 52 degrees. One other boater was out fishing today. The lake trout bite was still slow. We gave it around 2+1/2 hours today and Dave had one hit – that was it. It was still one more hit than we had on 11/3 at least. A few fish did move for the jigs today in various areas. Fish were widely scattered from deep to shallow and all throughout the lake.
Conditions on the day really were top notch for pike fishing and we gave it a couple hours. Bryant landed a nice northern around 29″ in short order. It was hooked deep so we kept it. The guys doubled up around 10 minutes later on gorgeous fish ranging from 27″ to 29″. A few other follows/short hookups were had. The fish look great.