Owasco Lake out of Emerson Park 5/16
Fished a full day trip here with Mark I. starting at 9 am. I was groggy this AM and wound up showing up at the launch thinking we had an 8 am start! Fortunately Mark was running early and came down around 8:35. He rigged his fly-rods and we were underway around 9.
Mark hadn’t fished here before and I was hoping to show him the lake’s good pike fishing. We started by checking out some laker jigging. I didn’t mark much in less than 100 FOW. Out deeper we found some fish but they weren’t hitting much. So off to try for pike we went – unfortunately conditions were very tough today for the pike too. We had no wind and very muddy water with some debris in it from the south end up around 3 miles north. Working muddy water with various gear set ups (e.g. spoons and stickbaits) did not even generate a follow.
We tried various areas. We saw plenty of perch, a few smallmouths and even a few lethargic walleyes. We went back to more laker jigging and Mark had some good follows but still no grabs – it was very similar to my last time out here (which also resulted in no fish on April 25th.) Some wind finally came up and we set up for pike again. Things were looking good with a hit and two follows on the flies, but no hookups Very tough day. Mark wound up with a couple perch, that was it.
My guess is that fish are still lethargic with the cold and oftentimes muddy water. There are a lot of pike in this lake and I know we had to be around some. A solid week of warming temperatures should get this bite going again. I plan on hitting Watkins Glen soon and hope to have a better pike report, even though I know it will be cold and muddy down there too.