RE: Lake Chautauqua
2009/06/08 21:19:47
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Pxa:
Last year my g/f & I spent a week of vacationing and fishing on Lake Chautauqua the last week of July. We stayed at the Pine Hill Resort, which is located on the Woodlawn area of the lake. I spent a solid 5 days fishing the lake and enjoying being away for a week. The amenities there were half decent (nothing lavish or extraordinary), but most of the other cabins were booked well in advance. There were also two complementary docks there for docking your boat.
I think I caught about a dozen or so walleyes all week. It was tough fishing an unfamilar lake as big as Chautauqua, but considering the circumstances I think I did pretty well. Along with the walleye, I caught boatloads of small fish-white perch, yellow perch, crappie, and rock bass. I also caught several decent sized largemouths & smallmouths. I also had one musky break me off while trolling.
The weeds on that lake are really dense and the small panfish there are voracious! I bought 5 dozen night crawlers to fish with for walleyes, but I quit fishing with them after the first day! The small fish would just annihilate them as soon as they hit the water! I switched over to using Berkley Gulp Alive minnows with better success weeding out the small fish, but they would still tear those off the hook!
Of the walleyes that I caught, I think 5 or 6 were between 18-20 inches, the rest were all sub-legal with the exception of one big guy that went 28" & close to 9lbs. I caught the majority of my fish either anchoring or drifting along the weed edges. I did spend some time trolling during the day, but only caught the one nice walleye trolling.
Wish I had more insight to give you, but that has been my one & only trip to that lake. It is a very nice lake, the only complaint I had was with some of the ignorant boaters there--tons of jetski's and waterskiers whom weren't very considerate to the guys trying to fish during the day!!!