Moved 2 pallets of these by hand yesterday at camp. What a way to spend Fathers Day by myself.

 
 
  Think most were in the 12" - 15" range? 
 
 
 

Hecks ya. Very healthy looking fish. As of right now, looking like Saturday's wind might be the best for the Big Lake. Like I said, for right now. NOAA is more bi-polar than one of my daughters. 🙄😆

 Opps, one pallet of the Bulldogs and the other was Googan Contender's/Revolver's. Nice looking Fish!!

Some of the recent posts regarding the tough fishing, got me thinking about the good ole days.  My fishing back in the 60s and 70s was from a 12ft row boat (with a 12lb Shakespeare trolling motor) and my dad and I caught many more fish than I catch now.  
 
Today I have a fancy side-imaging fishfinder, a trolling motor with gps autopilot and spotlock, etc.., which help me some, but makes me think how did we catch all the fish in my youth without them.  In reality, my dad was just a better fisherman than I am.
 
Dead Gator mentioned a mister twister was his go-to bait when he was a teen.  Mine was the beetle spin.  It caught everything!

I went 45 years without so much as ever hooking a musky that I know of. Never tried for them intentionally.

In the last 3 years I’ve lost track of how many I’ve caught (more than 10 and less than 30) without even targeting them on 3” & 4” soft plastics. They are downright annoying when I’m trying to fish for other stuff and I’ve often thought about joining the Toss Em in the Weeds Club. Although I won’t, it’s tempting.

Shoot, a couple summers ago when my son was 11 he caught three muskies (two in one day) on his fly rod. While he was using a single kernel of corn on a size 16 hook fishing for carp to warm up for steelhead.

I see lots of guys hucking those giant baits to no avail and just chuckle. All ya need are some 1/8 oz jig heads, a pack of Gulp minnows, and to fish in the right places. And there are several of those places around NWPA that we’ve found.

Snagged one of those bulldog lures crappie posted a couple weeks ago in nearly brand new condition. Guy I saw fishing nearby told me it was worth $30 or $40. If any of yinz want it, I’ll let it go for $50.

I tried the Ned rigged ZMan again. Little smallmouth loved it. Got a few decent ones too, but seemed to be crack for the 10”ers. They snagged up much more than weedless tubes or senkos, but if fishing them mostly in wadable depths, unsnagging just like the others. Will definitely be in my rotation when the bigger baits aren’t getting hits.

MyWar
Took the boat up to Rosston. First time on that pool. Got a handful of small bass. Great day to be on the water but the fishing was meh.

Gonna have to put some time on that water to figure out some patterns or something. I wasn’t even sure where to look for fish. There was practically no current, didn’t see a lot of fish on the sonar, not a lot of obvious structure… just not the kind of river water that I’ve grown accustomed to fishing. Im mostly a casting guy, maybe I need to start trolling this kind of water.

I’m really tempted to just put the boat in at Parker or Emlenton and hoping I don’t bust my prop. I could just cruise up as far as I can go before I bottom out then drift back down, or even just motor around as much as I can and wade.

 
Just get a jet and be done with it....opens up a lot more river water for you, esp. the upper Allegheny where it is more fun!  

MyWar
Took the boat up to Rosston. First time on that pool. Got a handful of small bass. Great day to be on the water but the fishing was meh.

 
Rosston is kind of a tough launch, and even tougher to get back on the trailer as it's pretty shallow there. You can motor quite a way up Crooked Creek, and there are walleyes, Muskie and a few Northerns in there, but I can't say about this time of the year. Down river between the island and railroad side usually gives up some fish, as does the downstream side of that island. If you're going up river, leaving the launch go straight across closest to the island 'til you reach the barge channel. It's very shallow on the marina side for the 1st third or half mile, then you're ok going up river. Trim your motor up to the last notch, enough to keep the water pump working, so that if you ground out, the skeg will take most of the abuse without prop damage. Word of caution. When you're stirring up all that muck and vegetation, the pump pushes it up and into the power head, and can plug up the telltale. 1st trip out in the spring, I fired up and had no pizzer. Ran a wire up in there, got muddy water at first, then the full stream. My motor does not have a thermostat, but the smaller 15 does, and the stat and the hose down to the pizzer was plugged on it with mud and the hulls of choke cherries. Not a good thing.

Man all this talk of boat maintenance makes me wanna have a friend with a boat, not an actual boat!!

EMitch

MyWar
Took the boat up to Rosston. First time on that pool. Got a handful of small bass. Great day to be on the water but the fishing was meh.

 
Rosston is kind of a tough launch, and even tougher to get back on the trailer as it's pretty shallow there. You can motor quite a way up Crooked Creek, and there are walleyes, Muskie and a few Northerns in there, but I can't say about this time of the year. Down river between the island and railroad side usually gives up some fish, as does the downstream side of that island. If you're going up river, leaving the launch go straight across closest to the island 'til you reach the barge channel. It's very shallow on the marina side for the 1st third or half mile, then you're ok going up river. Trim your motor up to the last notch, enough to keep the water pump working, so that if you ground out, the skeg will take most of the abuse without prop damage. Word of caution. When you're stirring up all that muck and vegetation, the pump pushes it up and into the power head, and can plug up the telltale. 1st trip out in the spring, I fired up and had no pizzer. Ran a wire up in there, got muddy water at first, then the full stream. My motor does not have a thermostat, but the smaller 15 does, and the stat and the hose down to the pizzer was plugged on it with mud and the hulls of choke cherries. Not a good thing.

I went back to some of info you all had posted last year which helped a lot with the navigation. We didn’t motor upstream past the marina, we mostly drifted with the current and ran the electric down stream. We got down to about the end of that last island before lock 6 and then motored up. Didn’t get a chance to explore the creek too much, although that would have been fun.

It looks like the launch was renovated recently. I think they poured new concrete last fall. It was steep but other than that I didn’t have much trouble, although I did just wade in and guide the boat onto the trailer by hand. A bigger boat would be tricky.

What’s the plan of attack on this kind of water? Try to cover a lot of ground by drifting and/or trolling? Bounce baits off the bottom while moving?

I didn’t see a ton of fish on the depth finder, just a couple here and there. So I mostly ended up fishing soft plastics on the shoreline drop offs, which perhaps unsurprisingly, only got a few bass.

It looks like there are some big deep holes out in the main channel and the depth can change quite a bit. Should I be focusing on the deeper water?

Porktown
I will give that a shot.  I don't have any Zman flukes, but do have some Zooms that seem to get hit at times using as jerkbaits.  I did get two okay fish, one probably 14"er and another a little smaller.  Also got a few small rock bass too...  When using senkos (dingers), I get some 10"ers, but most are 12"+.  But far less strikes.  So, I guess a give and take.  I was debating to ned rig a dinger.

The thing with those Zman baits is the way they float. A zoom fluke will behave a little differently on the ned jig than the Zman fluke style bait. Similar, but not quite the same. Not sure how much difference it makes, but the way those Zman baits always try to try return to that upright position is unique.

I also just love that black and gold color for the clear water rivers. It’s natural, but it’s visible at the same time.

I also notice that there are the kind of spots where the bass are all 15-18s and then there are spots where the average is 10-12 or less. Baits make a difference, but habitat seems to be almost more important. The big ones are always near some heavier current. In my experience anyway.

pensfan1

CTKsnowman

pensfan1
As of right now, looking like Saturday's wind might be the best for the Big Lake. Like I said, for right now. NOAA is more bi-polar than one of my daughters. 🙄😆

Yeah I fish the east end of Erie (Barcelona, Dunkirk) Saturday and Sunday say 0.3 wave height for now....
I also heard the bugs are emerging, I might have to focus on slow trolling with the butterfly rigs.

In other news: I spent an hour cleaning the river scum off my boat yesterday, that stuff was nasty.  
 

Flat lining Hot n Tots and Bandits in thatsub 25FOW could be the game. Theyr slaughtering them at Ashtabula at night, 10FOW. Hoping for water temps around 65° 66° for Saturday. Last I looked it was 62° off Erie.

In the last two weeks, I've made it up Erie three times.  The shallow bite doesn't seem to be happening this year.  I've caught a total of 4 eyes in those three trips.  Talking to other boats, it seems the 40-50 FOW is the hot spot right now. Maybe you will have better luck. 
 
Although it has been a banner year for big sheepshead.  Many 8-10 pounders.  Fun to catch.

EMitch
Yeah, it's a swim bait. The head of it kinda looks like the rounded end of a shovel handle, w/eyeballs, gill fins, and a very long tail. No paddle on the end, but the rubbery tail swishes side to side. This was one of his larger ones; it also has a big spinner in front of the head. They range in size from about 6" up to 18" or so. He has Musky stick baits as long as a 15" sucker. Those baits are horribly expensive; in the $100 plus range. That's why I don't target Muskies. Too danged expensive for me.

A 100$?? Holy smokes.

I had a period where I caught around 10 over 2 summers or so casting big big baits for bass. Like Snag said earlier, seemingly a right place right time with em. 

I'm inspired though to go back to my roots for July 4 weekend - going Mister Twisters and jigheads on one rod, and drowning some worms on another I guess. In between drinking either some Bud Light Lime, White Claws or Coronas, and wrangling a 2 year old - I'm sure I'll be the next to post a Musky picture right?

psu_fish
Unless you stick to Oil City pool, running a prop outboard is a very bad idea. USGS gauge in Frankin was 3.28 Saturday afternoon, and you had to watch some areas...its currently 2.92.  
 
We use a Mercury 65 HP jet, but it I'm almost certain it would be rated as 90 hp with prop. 

I think my next boat will have a jet outboard. I feel like I'm missing out on some good spots up north.