2016 Great Lake Adventures

We made the trip yesterday and the Daisy is once again riding Ontario. Weather was stellar and the seas we're calm . The fishing? Well let's just say , it was fishing, not catching. We seen some good bait pods and nice arches under them but no takers. Surface temperature in the bay is 70 and out in the main lake it's 64 .
Took my first swim out in 160 fow .
A little chop today and so far a blank screen out in 130 fow.
Let the good times roll

Heck yea Clint. Gonna be needing some company this season as I have no full time crew .
We made the long run out past Chernobyl into deep water and still not any hits .
Seems today most boats are fishing the break outta the bay , Browns ?
We are making the slow troll in that way and set up a program for that

Man am I wishing I was fishing! Spending 8 hours trolling without a nibble wouldn't bother me a bit, good friends good tunes good times, fish or not! Finally have hired a assistant cook so not putting 80+ hours a week in anymore thought I would check in, glad your back on the big O with the Daisy Tuna, look forward to all your reports and pics. Hope ya all are well and look forward to meeting up with some when the fishes return in the fall. Tuna hoping for a trip out there sooner bro! Be well friends

42 boats and two fish- yeeeep- it might be over already.
Sad stuff.

Here is a more detailed report.
The atomic tournament has a 3 division big fish ( salmon- rainbow- brown) then a total box weight . Not sure if lakers count towards the total box . Will say big brown was 14. Something and total box weight was pretty hefty off top of my head , just no salmon.
As lucky said its traditional west bite moving east in another month .
We seen great bait marks , great big fish hooks that would come look at our gear , assuming it was lakers . I'm still learning but gaining info every trip . Seems my lures were to far back and fish were looking at the rigger ball then dropping back down . It was very obvious on the sonar.

Jiggin:
Yes we did try vertically jiggin, it worked well giving the flat low current situation. Issues were .. Zebra Mussels !!! Anytime my lure hit bottom, be it trolling or jigging, the hook points were covered in zebra.. Seeing this was a shakedown trip , I only gave the jigging an hr effort.

Meat :
Running herring is what I was told works well at this time of year. The charter guy for stripers here and fishes outta Oswego, brings brined herring from the Hudson to troll Ontario,, yea , yea VHS ..
I learned, if you find a bait ball to jig for alewives, just like we do here on the Hudson.

Browns :
Guys on Sunday were hitting the bay hard very early in the am , I didn't get to lake until pm on Saturday and went straight deep early Sunday. Might've screwed up as when I said we were moving back in around 11:00 yesterday. Seen a nice brown netted by another boat and then we hit that small , all fins In tacked brown.

Water:
My gosh , that water is getting super clear and zero cover in shallow. Could see clear to bottom in 20-25 fow and barren . Looks great but doubt it helps the fishing.

Next:
We have TONS of bait , pike and lmb swimming around my dock .
I'm bringing a minnow trap and some scum frogs next weekend.

More to come from the next adventure as I start vacation in 4 days :) !!!!

Weather was really good out on lake yesterday . We put about 6 hrs in with no bites .
Learned som things . Today it was a 2-3 foot chop . Lost 2 kings in 90-110 fow . Landed a 6.5 brown . Chop and wind made a few messes with us and about $150 in lost tackle ( ball, dipsy & rigs )
.
Ah well it's been a great adventure so far . Snyders little salmon inn and Dans chichen shack have been awesome . Heading back for another round of good local people

r3g3
Glad you are hitting some Rich.
Keep it up.
Agree on good local folks too.
 
Really missing it up there -
Generally have at least a dozen day or two trips up by now ( since Feb) in addition to a week in Winter and bout the same in Summer.
Early Fall cant come soon enough.
 

When you're missing it up there Trev think about all those chores that you don't have to do,that should help the pain!

hot tuna
While I don't own property up there ( yet ) myself , I enjoy puttering around on the boat and visiting the locals when we get blown off the lake . I should start fishing the river for smallies or unicorns .
I have a bunch of pictures from last week ( fish too ) that I have to upload yet and we are heading back up again Friday morning .
I have 3 and 4 day weekends planned for Great Lake adventures right through the 3 rd week in August .
On that note :
The salmon have shown up in numbers and size . Charters at my Marina have been doing well and the LOC summer tourney is putting up some really nice fish
[/quote
That's good news on the Salmon Rich,now my motor is starting to race.Anyone have a report on water levels above the dam?It's really dry down here so I'm a bit concerned about the water up there.

Good chit, HT. Glad to hear good times, and fishy ones at that.  I've never fished the river for smallies, I really need to right that around. Oh yeah, I did poach a little one out of Schoolhouse (we snuck in down the powerline), but that don't count.

Water levels as far as the res?  It is decent shape for the lack of rain. They  cancelled the Recreational release last weekend.  The big rains from yesterday missed the tug.  Going to get worse if the rain does not come.

pafisher

hot tuna
While I don't own property up there ( yet ) myself , I enjoy puttering around on the boat and visiting the locals when we get blown off the lake . I should start fishing the river for smallies or unicorns .
I have a bunch of pictures from last week ( fish too ) that I have to upload yet and we are heading back up again Friday morning .
I have 3 and 4 day weekends planned for Great Lake adventures right through the 3 rd week in August .
On that note :
The salmon have shown up in numbers and size . Charters at my Marina have been doing well and the LOC summer tourney is putting up some really nice fish
[/quote
That's good news on the Salmon Rich,now my motor is starting to race.Anyone have a report on water levels above the dam?It's really dry down here so I'm a bit concerned about the water up there.

The reservoir looked about 5-6 feet low, maybe 25-30 feet of bleached bottom stones above the water level around the Redfield Bridge yesterday.    Streams up on the hill are nearly dry or in some cases, dry, no flow.  Clouds rolled through for 3 days but the rain that fell hardly wet the ground.  

Try Avon skin so soft. Works for me. I found out spending lots of time in the woods as a kid that standing still  next to a tree confuses them and they are not attracted to light clothing. I guess there's some scientific BS to explain it all, but I'll just go with what works.

I can say this , the wave and weather reports SUCK . It says 2' or less but it's EASILY 3-4 plus . Boats have been out and saying BUMPY !! Not what I want to put the family through .
We been catching dink perch in the little SR off the boat but it's getting lame and kids are restless . Time to head to the chicken shack !!
Maybe we will get out for the evening

Tuna awesome to see you getting out. Clint deer flies seem lighter than I can remeber in my necks of the woods... smaller too. Dry dry dry!!! days of horrible humidity is lessening the evaporation factors, and a few bursts here and there have kept us hanging in there. But dry us the word.

Rivers, streams, lakes, reservoirs??? Browns, rainbows, smallies (big smallies), rock bass, pan fish and creek chub have been caught in the 100's between the kids and i. I've lightened up on the small mouths so not too sure if they're still abundant. Most of the monsters definitely dropped back to the lake. Its typical for smsller ones to be around at this point.But when they were in the average fish was over 2 pounds. My son got one over 4 and I lost one that I can honestly estimate as a 6#. A few days we had 8-10 fish in less than an hou.No bs. Oh, and we did get 1 small atlantic. From what I'm seeing and hearing, the Lakers are taking over. Hopefully all of the charters are killing their limits :/

Jack, not positive on the res level. My guess is its not too bad given the few down pours and the humidity at times. I'll try to scope it out or find out for you though