Any Luck In Upstate Ny?

[Krux5506]

I've heard a couple tales of guys killing it back there frogging, but I always had my doubts. J, have you put any time into fishing Blind Sodus Bay? As of last year during all the high water, the bay has been breached since then on the north west shore but I haven't gone back there at all this year. The few times I've fished it didn't pay off too well. 

[J Francho]

Haven't been over there in years, but Port Bay had a washed out spot, and te bit on that adjacent ledge and flat has declined.

[ww2farmer]

I had limited time to fish Silver this AM, I was on my way to work at 7am when the boss called and said to scratch it, the job we had planned was called off. So I turned around and hit the lake for about 4 hours. I had to be off at noon as I had family activities planned for the afternoon.

 

I forgot bclark7b was going to be out there, so like any good host, I looked for stuff to put him on. It wasn't easy. The super hot bites I had been on the last few weeks seemed to be off this morning. I did manage to put a 5-7, a 4-9, a 3-11, and a pair of 2.5lbers in the boat while in search mode for something that was working and I could recommend for Ben to try. But I had to go before I got the puzzle  glued together for the day. Hopefully they turned on for him in the afternoon, or he found something that was working for him.

[bclark7b]

I fished silver from 6am-5pm with an 30min lunch break. Caught 2 bass about 5 minutes apart around 8 o'clock. One three pounder and a two pounder. Then I just grinded all day. It was pretty windy which made it tough so I went to lunch thinking the wind would die down a little when I came back out. It was worse when I came back out and just kept getting windier. I was basically stuck fishing the north west end of the lake after lunch because of the wind. Only caught one bass and a rock bass after lunch. All day I had 4 bass 2 rock bass and a pike. 

[River Dave]

I will be hitting Silver Lake for the first time in almost two years tomorrow. This will be my first actual fishing trip of the year so I'm looking forward to it. I've been on the river twice so far but always taking kids out so I didn't really fish. Silver has been tough on me in the past but it's also given three of my top five biggest largemouth so I keep coming back. Hopefully I can at least find some pike, I would be very pleased with that. I plan to be out from sunup till close to sundown or whenever I get bored. If anybody's out tomorrow give a holler, I'll be in the bow of a blue and white Bayliner capri. 

[ww2farmer]

Silver wasn't on fire yesterday, at least compared to what it's been, but it wasn't terrible either.

 

I fished from 6am-4pm, and caught 20 bass. The average size went down from the last few weeks where 3-3.5lbers were jumping in the boat, to around 2.25lbs. Big fish were not real active for me yesterday, biggest was only a 4lber, and I only caught the one said 4lber, and only a handfull over 3lbs. Junk fishing was the name of the game again. I caught them doing a little of everything, with nothing seemingly too productive for more than a fish or two. Timing was once again critical, I caught most of my fish in two little spurts. One from 9:30-11am, and the other from 2:30-4pm. Out side of those two spells, I probably only caught half a dozen fish, and they were mostly 2lbers. I had one little frustrating episode where for 45 mins just before the afternoon bite turned on where I lost 6 decent fish in a row.....all on stuff that usually gets eaten well. I don't know what was going on, because all of a sudden it stopped and I started getting them in the boat. Thankfully it happened during a fun fishing outing and not on tournament day, or else I might have come unglued and got spun out.

[J Francho]

Port bay was pretty good on Saturday.  Around 25 LM, 1 SM, and two northerns.  Most were caught before 9 AM.  Was out of there by 11 AM, when all the jet skiers and pleasure boaters wake up.

[River Dave]

Definitely not on fire today either. Still waiting for the switch to flip. 

[River Dave]

Switched finally flipped around 3:00 but didn't last long. Their lockjaw finally quit for about an hour but then came right back. I think I'll give Silver a break and concentrate on lakes where the fish eat for more than 45 minutes a day. That place has sent me home with my tail between my legs too many times. It's too bad, it's such a nice lake and it's half the drive of some of the other lakes I go to. 

[Krux5506]

On 7/30/2018 at 8:08 AM, J Francho said:

Port bay was pretty good on Saturday.  Around 25 LM, 1 SM, and two northerns.  Most were caught before 9 AM.  Was out of there by 11 AM, when all the jet skiers and pleasure boaters wake up.

I was on Fair Haven Saturday 6am til 11am or so and it was the total opposite. One of my slowest mornings of the season actually. A few smallies at the north end but nothing too special. Most caught fishing very slow and finessey. J, if you're ever on Fair Haven on the weekends and see a black Lund w/ silver Honda outboard that's me, feel free to say hey. 

[J Francho]

At least you got a few smallies.  I got one  16" on a Bandit Rackit.  It was actually a funny catch.  Fish slammed the bait, and start reeling, except there's no resistance.  I thought maybe a northern bit me off.  Next thing, the smallmouth launched right at me, three feet out of the water, with that Bandit in it's mouth.  I finally caught up to it, reel set it.  Thing was nuts, lol.

[Krux5506]

Amazing how crazy those smallies get when they are hanging out in the bays. They are a good fight either way but for some reason it seems like they get more wild in the bay, and more willing to hit different baits that I don't get them on in the lake. 

 

I was planning on sitting this weekend out and staying home to get other stuff done, but now the lake forecast is looking pretty decent for Saturday. 

[ww2farmer]

I fished the 3 fish limit, 3 hour, evening tournament on Conesus this past Tuesday night....and it was just terrible. I fished with a good friend of mine who has been doing great over there. He won my single angle tournament a couple weeks ago with 21lbs, won his club tournament that same weekend, and won the Tuesday evening league championship/classic last weekend. Plus, him and I have cashed/won many tournaments together over the years.

 

Tuesday night..................we each caught a 2.5lber and that was it. 8lbs cashed...so not an on fire night for that place.

 

That lake is just kicking my butt this year. I am usually very competitive, and have finished in the money many many times on it, and even have a win. All in opens, and often against some of the real hot shots on that lake. This year I am just struggling to get bit.

 

My good old back yard...Silver...however, is playing nice this year. Thursday night was back to being on fire. I caught a lot of fish. With one over 5, and a couple over 4. 

 

Go figure...it seems like these lakes have switched bodies this year.

[River Dave]

On 8/3/2018 at 7:18 PM, ww2farmer said:

 

 

My good old back yard...Silver...however, is playing nice this year. Thursday night was back to being on fire. I caught a lot of fish. With one over 5, and a couple over 4. 

 

Ugh! ???

[ww2farmer]

I continue to drive the struggle bus on Conesus.

 

Fished this past Sunday there from 6:30am-1pm, caught 8. Nothing to get excited about. Biggest was about 3lbs, and the best five went 13lbs or so. Pulled out disgusted, and went home to Silver. I fished there from 4pm-dark.......also only caught 8, so it wasn't on fire either, but size was much much better, with a 5-3, and 4-1 as the highlights of the evening.

 

Then yesterday I HAD to go to Conesus for my weekday solo angler tournament. Unlike Sunday, I caught a lot of fish. But size is still escaping me there this year. I came in with 14.11lb....good enough for 5th, and good enough to maintain, and grow my AOY lead in the race to 9+ lbs over 2nd. The lake was not kicking out big fish, the winner had 18, 2nd had 16, and 3rd had 15. NO 5lber came in, and only 2 or 3 over 4lb were caught.....by a field of really good fisherman on that lake. 2 of the other 3 guys at the top of my AOY standing turned in terrible days as well, with one guy just clipping me for 4th with 14.33lbs, and the other guy, my team event partner Rick, who's won 4-5 tournaments on Conesus this year, posting up an 11lb bag...yeah....Conesus is "off" this year.

 

I did make one strategic error yesterday. I have struggled so badly this year there fishing the usually good areas north of the launch ramp (which sits about smack dab in the middle of the lake), that I decided to fish some areas I like south of the ramp. I had my weight by 8:30 am from my south areas, but like a bone head, I pulled up shop, went north looking for big bites, and caught dinks and non-helping fish the rest of the day. I should have ground it out in the south all day. 

 

I have a team tournament there this Sunday...I am not excited.

[nosdog2]

At least it wasn't raining on you!  LOL!  Get any muskie follows?  I need one of those this year. 

[ww2farmer]

4 hours ago, nosdog2 said:

At least it wasn't raining on you!  LOL!  Get any muskie follows?  I need one of those this year. 

No, but I caught twice as many pike as I did bass yesterday. I don't think I have caught a tiger muskie yet this year over there.

 

As for tonight's fishing on Silver...it was good. Not on fire but good. I fished from 4pm-8pm. I caught an even dozen, with the best 5 a 4-13, a 4-1, a 3-11, and a pair of 3-9's. I'll take 19 + lbs for 4 hours of work any night.

 

The most exciting part of the night was when I went for a swim.....unintentionally. I skipped a frog up under a dock, and some other bozo left a wad of braid broken off on this dock, and of course my line, and frog got all tangled up in it. So there I am, on hands and knees, with the scissors cutting my frog out of this mess, when I get blind sided by a huge wake. It wasn't the initial wake that got me it was the rebound wake off the retaining wall on shore. I felt it start pushing the boat away from the dock.....the next thing I know, I am forming a human bridge between my front deck and the edge of this dock. My out stretched arms and hands on the dock, and my feet hooked on the gunnel of the boat with the rest of my body over open water.....it must have been a sight to see. I was faced with two options.....keep holding on for dear life and risk some kind of bizzaro injury, or just let go and take a swim. I chose to go into the drink. So I went in as gracefully as a 300lb fool could. I actually landed feet first on the bottom in about chest deep milfoil and eel grass choked water, calmly walked over to the boat, grabbed the TM shaft and walked the boat through the grass filled water to the nearest dock with a ladder, and climbed back on. One of my idiot friends saw the whole thing, and I thought I was going to have to call the ambulance for him he was laughing so bad. Lucky my phone, keys, and wallet were in the boat, and not my pockets. I continued to fish for 2 hours or so after this comedic fiasco, and caught my best fish of the night afterwards.

[ww2farmer]

I finally got off the struggle bus on Conesus today....but it took a little luck, and a lot of grinding to do so.

 

I was all set to fish as a non-boater in the Fix-it 4-U team trail tournament there today with a kid who buys jigs from me and is just breaking into bass fishing, but has a nice boat that would be more comfortable to fish out of in a bigger team open. He decided to not go at the last minute. So....I hitch up the ol' tin can this morning at 4:30am and head over there alone to fish it.

 

My day, much like most of my outings on Conesus this year got off to a painfully slow start. It was 8:30am before I had a bite, and it was only a small 1.75lb keeper. Catching that fish did nothing to bolster my confidence, so I switched things up. Shortly after the switch, the days magical/lucky moment happened....I caught a 6lb 4oz. largemouth. Easily my biggest fish this year in a tournament, or even in practice on Conesus. ( I have caught several bigger n practice on Silver this year). So I keep running with what caught that fish...for a while. I ended up getting a limit by about 10am, but it was a 13lb bag, and with a 6-4....you do the math on what the other four were....let's just say, not hogs. I eventually bailed on that after a long period with out bites. I ended up culling up a couple times the last hour with a couple decent fish, one largemouth and one smallmouth, and ended up cashing in 3rd place in a team event by myself with a 16lb 11oz. bag, and also took tournament lunker with the 6-4. 

[nosdog2]

Can't complain about a day like that! Nice lunker too!

[ww2farmer]

I think I fished Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and friday night on Silver.

 

Monday and Tuesday SUCKED.....I tried to force the bite I had going last Friday, and it wasn't happening. With me struggling to put a couple of keepers in the boat each nite.

 

Thursday was good, I played around with the new Berkley max scent general baits and caught a bunch of good ones in a few hours. See my post in the baits section for report/review of the night.

 

Friday was on fire. I got there around 1pm after an early day at work. I had another one of "those days" that only happens a few times a year. Without going into too much detail....the highlights/best five largemouth were a 6-2, 5-7, 4-11, 4-3, and a 4-1....yeah it was good.

 

Then there was yesterday.

 

If last Sunday I started to throw dirt on my Conesus struggles with my 3rd place finish and 6-4 lunker in a tournament, yesterday (with BIG BIG help from my partner) we buried them....for now LOL.

 

I fished the annual big Dash for Cash on that lake with the kid whom had to cancel on me last weekend. We started right, as I caught a 4+ lber early and we each  contributed to a solid limit in the boat of mixed bag lm/sm in the first hour or so.

 

Then the wind really started whipping. We went to one of my best areas for big fish on the lake, and had a magical 20 mins. He put a 6.5, 5.5, and 3.5 in the boat in short order, and I culled out one of our smaller fish with solid mid to upper 3lb fish fishing behind him. That put us well over 20lbs when combined with the 4lber I got early.

 

We ran in and weighed his 6.5 at the bottom of the hour, waited 2 mins and weighed in the 5lber at the top of the very next hour. The 6lber took that hours big fish prize, but the 5 was JUST clipped by some one with a little bit bigger one. Oh well....we could have waited and won almost every other hour after that, but we wanted to get them weighed, on the board, released, and get back to that area before the bite died, or someone else moved in on it. That's all part of the dash for cash game. 

 

Anyways we won the entire event in the overall weight department with 22.84lbs...got some $$ for the win and his hourly winning fish, a couple of cool plaques, and bragging rights for a year over a lot of the top guns on that lake. What a day.

[ww2farmer]

Since the big win on Conesus in the dash for cash, my last three outing have been slow, to terrible.

 

Monday night on Silver I fished for three hours after work, caught one 11" bass, a 3.5lber, and one pike...pretty terrible outing.

 

Thursday I had the 5th tournament in my solo angler series on Silver. It was bad for me from the get go. I caught 3 keepers all day, nothing big. There are 9 events in this series, and we take the top 6 for the AOY race, so I just took a mulligan on this one and will use it as a drop. I was leading the AOY race after the first 4 events, but dropped to 4th after this one....but I am still in it, only a few lbs behind the current leader, and I can still afford 2 more "bad" outings, but I better not flub the rest too badly.

 

Yesterday I fished the CV Bass trail team open on Honeoye...land of the dinks, with a new to me partner out of his boat who is a good young angler, and has fished and won a bunch of tournaments in the area. Neither of us has much exp. on Honeoye, I haven't been there in 10 years, and he fishes Cayuga, Keuka, and Oneida more than the smaller western finger lakes. We ground our way to a 5th place finish out of 33 boats by basically junk fishing...but since they only paid 3 spots, 5th was as good as 33rd in the money department, but at least we meshed well, didn't fall on our faces, and had a good time.

 

This afternoon I went to back to silver, and given the struggles of the last two outings there...I locked a spinning rod in my hand and had a better day. Not good, just better than the last two outings there. I fished from 2pm-8pm, and caught 7 bass, all over 3lbs, with a 4-2 as lunker for the day.

[J Francho]

Port Bay was on fire Saturday.  At least it was for me.  Many said they struggled.  I caught fish on everything but moving baits, save for one on a YUM Tip-Toad.  Seemed odd, since the wind was whipping out of the south.   All said, fished from 6 to 11:30, caught around 30.  All green fish.

 

Tip-Toad Fish:

 

Biggest of the day, not quite 4:

 

Steady 10-15 mph winds all day:

[nosdog2]

Made a short and busy trip up to NY. I got out on Friday from about 1-6 and got hammered.  Nothing was working for me; docks, ned on the outside weed bed, frogging, wood, weeds, you name it.  So I dropped the rods and me and my sons went swimming!  

 

Also seemed like everyone pulling a tube that day decided to see how close they could tow to the shoreline.  I usually don't get bothered but they were throwing massive wakes and beating up everyone's docks, and very close.  Guess if I pull my kids in any type of inflatable, I want to be as far away from anyone else, but not on Friday they were getting crazy close with their kids. 

[Krux5506]

After Labor Day all that annoying boat traffic dies down significantly. 

[ww2farmer]

Since last report:

 

I didn't fish at all after work this week, between the heat, having other stuff to do, and the slow fishing on Silver I just decided to wait until Thursday to fish.

 

On Thursday, I fished my 6th stop on my Conesus/Silver weekday solo angler trail. Much like last Sunday, given my recent struggles on Silver, I decided to lock a spinning rod with a ned rig in my hand until I got 5 keepers in the boat, and then make adjustments on the fly after that.

 

The final fish of the limit didn't come until 4 hours into the tournament....and the fish I caught on the ned ran from a small 1-14 keeper, to a 5-11 hog with a couple 2 and 3lbers in between. What to do? I decided after fish number 5 (which was a 2.5lber) to fish it for one more bite...if that bite culled...I would keep using it, if it didn't, time to change gears. 2 hours later at 1pm I caught a clone 1-14 to my smallest fish and said "that's it" time to do something else. I picked up a finesse flipping jig and headed to the bank. I caught one more fish by 3pm, another 2.5lber to cull with. I ended up with 16.37lbs for the day....good enough for a handshake and to stay in the top 4 in the AOY race. Winner had 20lbs, 2nd had 20lbs, 3rd had 18, and then there where a whole bunch of us bunched up at 15-16 lbs. I didn't even get lunker with my big fish (5.77lbs on my tournament scale)...that was beat by a 6.29 another guy caught. Oh well....It wasn't a crash and burn like last week, but it wasn't anything to get excited about either. Silver, even though it's my home lake, is not fishing to my strengths right now, Winner, and guy who got 2nd spot baby sat all day, and ground out what they had....that's not my style. I like to cover water, and junk fish, it'll be back "on" for me soon enough. On to the next one in 2 weeks at Conesus.