Sodus Bay 7/8
Guided John and Brian for the full day starting at 6 am. They don’t do much fishing and what they’ve done in the past was mostly stream fishing, so today was a new horizon for them. We started off attempting topwater bass action with no luck. Working deeper using Rat-L Traps, Superflukes and Senkos paid off with a half-dozen nice bass landed running from 11″ to 16″ – with most being around 14″. The water was hot (around 83) and a fast retrieve on the trap worked well. John hooked” a big fish” and I watched his rod double over and the fish thrash on the surface. After a strong fight we slid the net under the 5lb+ drum. These fish are fun – no two ways about it. The drum hammered a Rat-L Trap! We saw a good school of nice drum.
We saw plenty of small gar surfacing in the AM. We did give L. Ontario a try with some dropshotting. Brian had a smallmouth around 11″ come after his goby imitation. Gobies were around. After an hour and a half on the lake we hit the bay again. The sun/heat got to Brian a bit and we wrapped up a little early. The guys did a great job and Brian was even casting a baitcaster pretty well in short-order. Good fishing.
I grabbed a terrific double cheeseburger, onion rings and a milk shake at Orbakers on Rt. 104 just W. of the bay on the way home. It’s out of the way by around 8 or 9 miles but well worth it! I stopped at Bass Pro Shops and bought a new winch and starting battery. It was fun trying to switch out batteries in the parking lot with temps reading 104 degrees in my truck. Sweat was pouring and I realized my wingnut was cross threaded and I had to use a saw to carefully cut off the post when I got home. I installed the new winch, a bilge fuse and the battery and am ready to go. Not the kind of thing I like doing with a heat index around 97 after waking up at 3:30 am. Some people think guiding is just “going fishing” – they are completely clueless.