Conesus Lake 6/8 Allnighter!
Got out with my buddy Mike at around midnight for some walleye casting. Conditions looked very good with light south winds, tons of alewives spawning, and a cloudy night. We were psyched. One other boat was out nightfishing and they were pulling in as we launched – they reported no action trolling and casting. We worked a lot of areas throwing various stickbaits and swimbaits. With the amount of weeds up, I actually think a spinnerbait would have been a good call. We had very slow action. Around 2 am Mike felt something on his Swimbait. Was it a weed? No, it wound up being what looked like a small (for Conesus) walleye around 18″ long – it got off boatside. Periodically we poked around with our spotlight and saw a nice northern and a good sized walleye patrolling the outside of a weededge. But we didn’t get any grabs from the eyes. We landed a half dozen good bass incl. a smallmouth, but no eyes. Fatigue hit both of us really hard around daybreak – as did a freak minor windstorm or threatening T-Storm which never materialized, so unfortunately we didn’t fish into the day much (or very effectively) for that matter. Next time I’ll bring the coffee thermos.
Overall a challenging day. It was nice to get away from the stickbaits and get some, though not much action on the swimbait. I know folks that use other things as well – like worm harnesses. We had a tough time working our lures slow enough. Now I know what to use my old Shimano 3:8:1 Curado for next time. Water temps were around 69/70 and there were some green slimy weeds around. The lake definitely had a slight algae bloom going on and didn’t look particularly appealing in areas. Next year we’ll get out earlier in the season. I can’t do many all nighters without paying a big price over the next few days….