Raystown Lake,Pa

[buzzbait4me]

Need some tips on fishing on raystown lake pa. Going there this weekend to try and do a little camping and fishing....What lures should i Use?

[NateFollmer]

I hope you have access to a boat because if you're fishing from shore, you're going to have a hard time finding a good spot. Most of the shoreline is steep or an area where people swim. I'm sure you can find some place to fish with a little work though. The boat is a must on Raystown though, you need to get back into the coves away from all the boat traffic.

I use just about everything on Raystown. Crankbaits, Slashbaits, weightless Senkos and other plastics, spinnerbaits and swimbaits: All these I use in the DEEP water. Find the cliffs and run these beside them (I normally don't go down much further than 30 feet for bass, after that, things get a little... BIG and they aren't bass...).

All of the above baits will work off the shallow points too. I also throw texas rigged plastics back in the slop and coves (again, you'll need a boat to get to these areas).

Raystown is a freakin' puzzle and then some. You could be on masses of fish one minute and then not get a bite for days. That's why I love it so much though! Everything is massive in that lake for some reason, I've caught bluegills that looked like large dinner plates ha. I also know a few guys that did some diving rescue training there and have seen some fish that scared the pants off them. The catfish, stripers and musky are the big ones!

Stop by Jim's Anchorage, they have an awesome shop and should be able to tell you what's been catchin' fish. There are also tournaments on Raystown about every weekend so go check out the weigh ins and see how they did!

Ok, I could go on for hours about this lake, so I'll stop there. Let me know if you need anymore info

[oprcsr]

Ah cool, great information. I was just looking up Raystown Lake. Not too far away, and might be a good camping spot for the family.

[NateFollmer]

Raystown has AWESOME camp sites. There are tons of them around the lake. I love the lake because there are no homes around it, so it's all forest and cliffsides.

I'll share some good starting points for bass. Just enter the Lat. and Long. points in google maps or earth to get a better view of the area. These aren't dead on, but they should at least get you started. I selected these from memory and didn't set these while on the water.  Most of the good areas are closer to the dam, but there is a lot of the upper area I haven't gotten to yet.

Good hunting!

[oprcsr]

Nate I'm probably a bit off from going there (will probably wait until my kids are a couple years older), but how do you think a kayak would do on the water? Is it a big boat lake?

[NateFollmer]

People are "afraid" to put kayaks or canoes in Raystown simply because they go to Seven Points and see all the freakin' house boats and speed boats.

If you want to put a small vessel in (which I use a rowboat with a small outboard so I'm a small vessel also ). Put in at Snyder's Run (which is the most northern point on my attached map). Basically, just stay away from Seven Points and you'll be fine. If you need to go past it, stay on the south side of the lake and hug the shoreline. When I put canoes in Raystown, I just stay in the no wake zones and I'm fine (most of the good fishing is in no wake zones also).

[oprcsr]

Awesome, thanks for the info.

[Ginger Cox Dixon]

i run my 14ft flatbottom in there all the time... its so narrow wind never makes big wave you just have waves from the boats.. people in central pa just have never saw a big lake and to them raystown seems overwhelming but in reality its very narrow and long so just stay clear of the big cruisers and your fine.... to put it in perspective it is literally 1/3 the size of the smallest lake that holds a professional bass fishing tournament so its not that big