Owasco Lake 11/2
Got out with my friend and swimming buddy Chris for a day of fishing starting around 7:30 am. We launched out of the south end marina – a very nice launch btw! I’d never launched there before and was impressed. The goal was to try to ascertain the pike bite a bit, then spend some time working some areas I need to learn better and wind up with some laker jigging. The pike fishing was fair – kind of what I expected given the sunny clear day. We wound up landing around 1/2 dozen northerns. Average fish ran around 26″ with nothing over 27″ and a couple under. The pike look fair – I wouldn’t say they are in great condition. Some had growths on their skin and others were skinny. We used spoons, swimbaits and stickbaits and all produced. We found a couple good areas that were unlikely pike spots but produced fish.
We managed to land a couple bass – both a largemouth and a smallmouth, some perch and one bonus 26″ lake trout that came on an alewife tube jig. A couple other boats were on the lake – both very good tournament bass fisherman. One angler we talked to landed several chunky walleyes and some very nice bass too. There are still plenty of walleyes in this lake, though they aren’t easy most of the time. (The bass angler we spoke to fishes the lake every year in the fall for a few days and yesterday was the first time he’d encountered any walleyes.)
Water temps are in the low 50s. Quite warm for this time of year. I tried a favorite point for lakers and although we marked a few and had some light hits, the numbers of fish were greatly reduced from 10/23. I think a lot of spawning has been completed.