Chautauqua Angling Adventures

June 24, 2009…6:00am-1:00pm. Finally, the weather has started to seem like summer. 55 degrees at 6 am with a water temperature of 67.2 degrees, wind light from the north. While waiting for the charter client to arrive I caught a 2 pound largemouth on a Pop-R right at the ramp. Good start! We headed up to Mayville and fished the 10-17 foot drop-off but caught nothing. We moved in close to shore in the scattered weeds that were in 4-7 feet. We used a spook and the Pop-R to catch a combination of largemouth and smallmouth, five (5) to be exact. We saw many more that were roaming the clear shallow water and had a few more blowups on the baits but no hook ups. There were roughly 30 or so fish anywhere from 2-5 pounds. As you can see by our totals most would either not bite or had bad eye-mouth coordination since THEY missed the bait. The old saying that “if you can see them, they can see you” seems appropriate here because of the super clear, shallow water. To get the strikes we had to make long casts to the areas where the fish were. Either way it made for an exciting morning. When things slowed down we moved to Mission Meadows and caught one nice smallie, 3+ pounds on a melon pepper tube. Then we headed to Warner’s Bar where we caught our last 2 fish. First we caught an 18 walleye on the tube and lost a really nice smallmouth on a GULP 5” Jumbo Leech fished on a dropshot….The one that got away is ALWAYS the biggest!
June 21, 2009…6:00am-2:00pm. This trip was a 2 man team tournament. The Lake temperature stayed consistent at 67.4 degrees. Wind was from the NNW at 10-15 mph at the very start and the sky was very overcast. We began by hitting 3 docks below Prendergast Point that produced 6 good largemouth earlier in the week. Unfortunately they weren’t at home when we got there and left no forwarding address. Been there, huh? Well, not to be unnerved we moved north to Lighthouse Point. There we put the first fish, a 3 pound largemouth, in the livewell. It took at blue/black jig’n pig. Next we headed up to Mayville along the upper shoreline to get out of the heavy wind that now seemed more like 20 mph. We found and caught 3 more largemouths in 4-7 feet on a spook. We also lost 2 more nice fish. Other boats were in the area and saw us catch two nice ones. They moved right into the area and started catching fish too. Once the action stopped we moved to Hartfield Bay and completed our initial limit with a 2 pound largemouth, caught on the Senko. The last adjustment was to move down the lake to Dewitteville. We stayed in the same 5-7 feet scattered weeds similar to what we had been successful in at the other places. This did not work. The wind changed to a more NW direction and the sun came out. We moved out to 9-10 feet and I made a cast with a tube over the 12 foot ledge bring it up to the weed edge. The result was a 4.97 pound smallmouth. During the next 45 minutes we caught 4 more smallies, culling out all but the two bigger largemouth for a tournament winning limit of 18.95 pounds. The best part of the day was something that very rarely happens anymore. I fisherman who was also fishing our area and had caught a couple of the smallies asked us if we were in a tournament. We told him we were and he immediately picked up his trolling motor, wished us good luck and left us to the prime area. Class act for sure!
June 16, 2009…6:30am-12:00pm. 62 degrees with a SE wind at 5 mph and a slight surface fog made for a nice easy run to the Mayville area. We could see the fish on the graph but could only catch one, a 2 ½ pound smallie. They were suspended and he hit the tube well before it hit the bottom in 13 feet of water. Too many tournament anglers scouting and watching what we were doing so it was time to move. We headed over to Hartfield Bay and fished the inside weed edge and some docks. We caught 3 largemouths, 2 on the docks and one in the scattered weeds. All hit a smoke soft stick bait. We tried jigging the weeds in front of the golf course but caught nothing. Next we fished above the Bell Tower but came up empty. Finally we fished some docks above Prendergast Point and caught 6 largemouths ranging from 1 ½ pounds to 3 pounds. The water temperature stayed between 68-70 degrees. All water was clear. The prime thing missing this year is the milfoil. Not enough of it and too much pond weed. Hopefully the milfoil will catch up.
June 14, 2009…7:30am-12:30pm. 47 degrees greeted us as we launched today and eventually warmed up to 73 degrees. The water temperature has come up to 67.5 degrees and by the time the trip ended it had risen to 71.2 degrees. The water is still very clear. The wind was NNW at 5-10 mph. Largemouth were wandering the shallows in Maple Bay and Colburn but we could only get two to bite. One took a soft stick bait the other a black/blue jig. Most of the weed cover is pond weed, not the normal milfoil. This is a great disappointment. The fish are in a post spawn state and are not willing to be very aggressive. In the clearer water, if you find the fish shallow, you need to locate them and then move off and make long, repeated casts. Finding good defined weed edges will be the key to finding the deep water bite. Without the normal milfoil that has been a challenge.
June 4, 2009…6:30am-12:00pm. The water temperature started the day at 60.1 degrees and by noon was 64 degrees. There was a slight fog and 39 degree air temperature. The wind was light from the NE. The shallow spawning fish have moved off into deeper water. There is an occasional male still guarding the nest or just roaming the very clear water. Not an easy target to catch. We caught one 2 ½ pound smallie in 13 feet just outside the weed edge in Hartfield Bay on a melon pepper tube. Then in the same depth at Mission Meadows two nice walleye 17-19 inches using the same tube. There are tons of good size perch just about everywhere. You can have a great time with a small jig on an ultra-light rod. The fish are in 13-15 feet. This was a short trip primarily to check out the weed growth. The milfoil is just a bit behind in these areas. Also in the Mayville area the usual thick weed bed has a long way to go to get to its normal condition. That made it really neat to go across it with the trolling motor and see 4 different muskies in the clear water. Hopefully, the warming trends, set for the weekend will jump start the fishing.
May 23, 2009…6:00am-1:00pm. This was a trip filming a TV show for Centre Sportsman from State College, PA. Host Scott Laukhuff and camera man Dave Welch and I spent the entire day at the north end of the lake. The water temperature was 60.2 degrees and the wind was SW 5-10 mph. The sun was out but we were still dealing with a cool 67 degrees. The morning started at Chautauqua Institution about a ½ mile above the Bell Tower. The bite was slow and we had to move across the lake to Chautauqua Point. There we caught some smallmouth about 2 pounds on white flukes. We continued around the point and located some smallies on beds but could not get them to bite. We moved into the secondary point and saw a huge muskie (55+ inches) lying in the shallows. It saw the boat and just slowly swam away. Still fishing the white fluke we caught very strange fish for this lake, a 3 pound rainbow trout……And yes, it’s on film. Go figure where he came from???? The final move was the best one. We stopped at Warner’s Bar. We caught good smallies there in 3-11 feet on tubes, flukes and spooks. In all it was a great day. We boated around a dozen smallmouth, 1 trout, 2 largemouth and too many rock bass.