Seneca River 7/27 + Oak Orchard/Lake Ontario 7/28
Seneca River 7/27 PM:
Got out with my buddy Jarrod for a few hours on the river. He had some good bass fishing and we’d heard some good reports on walleye action over the past few months, so we gave it a shot. I haven’t fished the Montezuma area in probably 5 to 6 years. We tried one of my favorite areas and I got a hard hit on a jig/crawler. After a very, very strong battle we landed the BIG drum! It was probably all of 12 to 13lbs. I knew it was a drum after the first minute or two of the battle. No walleyes or cats for us. But it was a fun evening with an Osprey and two bald eagles sighted on the day. We saw some gar breaking and Jarrod likely broke off a bowfin earlier in the day.
Lake Ontario/Oak Orchard 7/28:
I met Jarrod at 4:30 am and we drove out to “The Oak” for my annual shot at jigging Kings in Lake Ontario. I put the idea to (the late) Toby Wood years ago and he went out and jigged up a couple 15 lbers off Hamlin Beach. I still haven’t had a stroke of luck with it, but I keep trying. Toby had some salmon trolling experience (which I don’t have much of) and knew what conditions he needed to get Kings on bottom. Another friend of mine, George D. has also jigged his share of Kings over the years, so it is very possible to do.
Things looked as good as I’ve seen them for jigging. We had cold water in close to shore and decent bait. For the first time ever, we experienced some solid chasing fish AND a couple hits (Jarrod.) The lake did get rough, but I’m very sure we could have scored had it been a little calmer. I felt confident with my new electronics. We worked out to over 250′ of water (4 miles out) and marked some nice hooks in and below the thermocline. I think this will be the year we hit paydirt, cause I know I’m coming back! We worked some plastics and Jarrod worked a spoon. Boater action was reportedly “so so” today, so I’m looking forward on hitting the Oak/LO on a good to great day. We found fish in around 85′ to 105′ of water on bottom and down around 60′ over 210′. It took a lot of tinkering with the electronics and precision boat control to present our jigs today, though we did drift a bit. The big lake is quite the challenge for the jigger.
The great thing about the Oak is the terrific gar fishing in the lower creek (river.) It is simply LOADED with gar – including some big ones and it felt good getting some fly-rod action. The water was very murky, but we found plenty of fish. I landed around 5 or 6, nothing very big. Jarrod used his spinning gear and picked up a nice one on one of my modified rope flies. Water temps were cool for this time of year in the river – around 74. Usually it’s closer to 84!