Owasco Lake 8/10 AM
Met Chris and his wife Heidi at South Shore Marina around 7 am for a scheduled 1/2 day fishing trip. They joined me last fall on Keuka Lake out of Hammondsport with Heidi landing a memorable 32″ Keuka Lake giant laker (hope I remembered the size right.) They are renting a place on Owasco Lake and wanted to see where the laker fishing was good and then learn a bass tactic or two if we had time.
We worked various areas up the lake starting on the south end flats. Chris missed a hit or two down there. Best action and screens were on the north end. There were a lot of lakers and baitfish up there along with some bass. The choppy conditions and overcast skies had the fish somewhat inactive, but both Heidi and Chris managed to land a laker each on a spoon and plastics respectively. Surprisingly, both appeared to be wild unclipped fish! Fins looked intact, even and gorgeous with some nice colors. Stocking of lakers was seriously cutback here a few years back after the laker glut combined with decent numbers of walleyes to decimate the baitfish levels and other salmonids on this lake. We caught hundreds of lakers here in the early to mid-2000s and never saw any wild fish until a year ago or two. Funny how nature often fills niches.
One 20″ smallmouth also was landed up north on a jig by Chris and he also landed a smaller one further south on a Superfluke. All fish released today. Lakers were from around 65′ on out to 110′ or so. A lot of fish were out suspended over deeper water. I expect some top-notch fishing on this lake this year. Derbies held here earlier this year confirmed the “bounce-back” of this lake’s generally impressive brown trout, rainbow trout and laker fishery. Some large walleyes are still around as well.