frm03064

funny i saw a few browns this morning in the shallows between the pier and durand... big ones at that... probably in less than 10ft of water.

only a little action today...was out there for 4hrs this afternoon...only managed to get an 11" smallie on a yeck zipper.. My first smallmouth out of the lake... but nothing huge anyways.

Fished the outlet today from 12-4... Got a decent largemouth about 1/4 way down the pier in the shallows on a Copper Blue Fox Vibrax. Also Got this beautiful steelhead about 3/4 of the way down the pier in irondequoit. Channel Side. Hit a blue and weight KO Wobbler with a normal retrieve in fairly deep water. Based on length id estimate the fish was 7lbs or so... Shame is i was alone and only had my crappy camera phone. ****ty picture just doesnt do the beauty justice. also, sorta surprised to see steelies inshore so early. Headed back out around 7 tonite to the summerville pier...hopefully gettin into some kings.

i was at the summerville pier today near o'loughlins and saw quite a few kings jumping and also what appeared to be a very large, very dark green and pink steelhead. Threw some KO's and Yecks for about 2 hrs with no results =[

ditto. casted spoons and egg sacs... surf was pretty rough and it was windy. didnt see any fish at all... Im not sure if the jumpers i saw on monday went back out into the lake or if they moved into the bay overnight... but theyre no where near the pier anymore... I checked the irondequoit creek at ellison, empire and linear today and didnt see any fish, so im guessing they are either sitting in the bay somewhere or went back into the lake.

i casted about 7 or 8 different cleos with no success... Also tried yecks and wobblers. Tried blue fox vibrax and minnow spinners. Tried rooster tails. Tried Mepps Aglia Long spinners. tried a soft plastic shad on a jig. tried a few silver rapalas. They just seemed totally uninterested in anything....except jumping and putting on a show. wondering if maybe egg sacs or soft plastic egg representations on a jig might of been the ticket.

just got back from there... there was in fact a ton of fish breaking the surface, pretty sure i saw a king do a tailstand and laugh at me. Casted every spoons and spinner i had... Panthers, yecks, cleos, daredevils, blue fox, everything... not a single bite despite the fact that i could see fish feeding everywhere. From what i saw it looked like there were browns, kings and atlantics.

heading there now. update*** just got back from the channel... channel side is chocked with weeds thus making it hard to properly present a lure... Didnt see any sign of any salmon on the channel side, or any fish for that matter other than gobies that the bucket people were taking. Lake side however provided solid largemouth action, got 2 within about an hour on wobbler spoons... after about 3 hrs with no more fish i decided to leave because it looks like t-storms are not far off... Thinking about going back first thing tommorow morning to the very end of the pier, weather depending. If there were salmon there last night they cruised right through and are probably half way across the bay by now.

sometimes the smaller a fish is, the faster you retrieve him... bringing him up from depth quickly can cause problems with the swim bladder, and its only exacerbated by the warm surface temps.

the fish are definately staging just off shore... the cool weather weve had the past few days, and the good amount of rain weve had has been enough to drive alot of them in... id say were gonna see a pretty early run this year... If we get a few more days in the 70's like its been, and another good day or two of rain, the fish are gonna start heading up the channels. I hooked something today from the end of the i-bay pier (lake side) in about 30ft of mixed water on a big daredevil that stripped about 3/4 of my line out before it spit the spoon out... If i had to guess id say it was a pretty good size brown....regardless id say its a sign that the fish are sitting just offshore. also, it will be interesting to see if slater creek/russell station actually gets fish this year... the past few years were pretty abyssmal, but i know in the spring i managed to grab a few browns on the lakeside of the bridge...so it would be cool to see some big guys coming back in the fall.

I used to use a baitfish scented spray on lures when fishing for bass... Now i rarely use it, as most soft plastics come pre-soaked in salt or bait scent formulas... If im fishing bass/walleye in pretty murkey water ill still sometimes give my lure a little squirt of attractant just in case the flash/motion isnt enough to draw the fish. As for trout and salmon, i occasionally will put a chunk of powerbait trout/salmon/steelhead bait on the end of my spoons and spinners. In my experience, scent alone will not cause the fish to hit your lure... The motion of the lure and the color is still the primary force for attracting fish... BUT a little scent/taste enhancement will make a fish hold onto the bait for a second longer, giving you time to set the hook where as maybe without the scent he will spit it out if you dont set him quick enough. The exception to this rule is when fishing for carp or catfish... Then scent/flavor are just as important if not more important than the appearance of the bait. I personally stick with spray products you can purchase at the baitshops, or canned powerbait chunks... though i know some guys that swear by some homemade enhancers like Anise extract, cod liver oil or the water from an anchovie container... Usually when i start fishing i dont use any sort of enhancers or attractants... but if i go more than an hour without a fish, then usually i start to take steps to increase the attractiveness of the bait, including scents.

all of em are pretty nice fish... way to go.

Smallies were on fire today at the clover street locks... Managed to catch 4 in about 20 mins... Saw some guys land a 10lb drum and a good fat walleye as well... As usual, the lure of choice seemed to be bucktail jigs and mr. twisters on small jigheads, bottom bounced into the pool. All fish were put back live and well. You cant really tell from the picture, but the coloring on the second fish was crazy... it had a deep grey hue to it, almost blue... Nothin like the typical green/brown color smallys have.

Ive read a few pieces and reports about Landlocked salmon in some of the finger lakes, seneca in particular... does anyone know off hand which species can be found in landlocked environments? I know i read somewhere about a school of landlocked sockeyes up in Lake George...

nice! Massachusettes, maine, vermont and new hampshire have some of the ripest brook trout waters out there...

I had a 5lber under the o'rorke bridge at the genesee a few nights ago around 9 on a fire tiger rapala floater... I live off bayshore as well and i usually work the area down by the marina every few evenings.... but i havent got much of anything down there since mid june... I think its too hot... Usually i can slam bass down there... but lately theres been nothing. Ive been having way more luck at the outlet channel at the end of culver and the genesee.

Well after a few weeks of this long dry, hot spell tonite we finally got the break ive been waiting for... temps down at the pier at the mouth of Irondequoit bay were in the low 70's... cloudy, rainy and windy.... and the water was up a bit from where its been at... So i finally decided it was high time to do some bassin' again. Grabbed my medium action rod, a spinning soft-plastic worm rig and hit my usual spots... Started by the boat lunch and the area behind Don's original and worked my way out to the pier. Found a nice spot about 1/4 of the way down the pier where i managed to hook up 4 bass in about 15 minutes... Turned out to be pretty productive. Some other guys were taking nice perch and rock bass off soft shells just down the pier from me. feels good to actually hook up some decent fish after the slump ive been stuck in the past few weeks of catching nothing or sunnies.

i had some good largemouth action by the inlet the beginning of last week... bagged a few 12-15 inch fish... all on soft plastics. but for the past 8 days or so ive come up with nothing. im starting to get pretty frustrated....

Is it just me or has the fishing the past few weeks been unsually slow for this time of year??? A few weeks ago people were complaning that the water levels in the lake were unusually high... Now theres spots where the water has dropped a good 10 feet.... The irondequoit bay outlet channel is down to a foot in some sections and quickly becomming a beach along the shore... with no good rain in sight it doesnt seem to be getting any better.... This time last year i was bringing in 2-5lb largemouths in good numbers both in the irondequoit bay and down at conesus and candandagua lakes... Now ive tried just about every spot around with no success... Totally gave up on my bread and butter which is trout fishing... with this temperature most if not all the fish have gone out to the lake into deep water, and those left in streams are sitting on the bottom barely moving. Usually when it gets too hot for trout, i switch to bass fishing and enjoy success at that through july and august until salmon and trout runs start back up... But this year...even the warmwater fishing seems slow... About the only thing ive managed to catch the past few weeks is some channel cat under the O'rorke bridge on the genesee... no bass, no sunnies, no perch, not even the carp seem to be active... Short of boats that are working the deep water in the lake, has anyone managed to bring in anything the past few weeks in the bays/tribs?

When i was at webster park last night the water was coming up over the seawall and splashing on the pier.... id say its still unusually high for this time of year... at least in the lake.... most the streams i fish however- different story.

where is this???? near lock 32 park?

Hit irondequoit bay for about 5 hours today... moved around to a couple different spots on the Irondequoit side, starting at the Pier on the end of culver Rd. At Irondequoit Bay State Marine park, and then headed south to a few spots off bayshore blvd and empire blvd. I set out with the hope of maybe grabbing some trout off the pier with some casting spoons since the water temp was down considerably today... Didnt come into any trout though, and after about the first hour i kept seeing bass jumping and decided to switch to bass tactics. After about 2 hrs i managed to get my first bass, a pretty small one about 11" off a #1 panther martin, which for the past few weeks has been my go-to lure for both trout and bass... it never seems to get old. Stayed near the outlet channel for about another hour before moving... Went down to Laselle's landing near empire at the mouth of I-creek and managed to get a nice 3-4lber off a soft plastic salted worm. Put up a hell of a fight on ultralight gear and definately made it a worthwhile trip. One other thing... while at the outlet channel i noticed quite a few dead and dying fish... saw maybe 3-4 rock bass on the beach and a few bullhead, and saw a walleye and 2 LMB's belly up in the water.... Im guessing it has to do with the water temp dropping quite a bit in a short amount of time... hopefully its nothing more serious...

does this apply to shore fishing as well as boat fishing??? I have no problem with someone trolling a handful of lines out in the middle of the lake. But it pains me to go down to the irondequoit creek and see these guys that have 5 or 6 poles sitting out in the water with 3 or 4 hooks with corn on each line and a bucket full of juvenile trout, given the size of the creek and pressure that overfishing there has put the population under. For fishing in rivers and streams id actually like to see a 1 rod per person rule.

If you absolutely must touch the fish, always wet your hands, it reduces damage to the fish's protective layer. If your hands smell and are sticky after handling a fish, generally youve damaged its slime coat. Wet hands before handling means less damage to the fish and less smelly hands after. Leland lures made this excellent video which tells about proper handling of trout/steelhead...Its aimed at the fly/shore fisherman, and certainly when on a boat the game is changed a little bit, but as a general rule of thumb its good advice.

thats what ive heard... ive been getting a nice mix of both stocked and wild browns at linear park and behind panorama plaza... the hatchery fish are all pretty much your typical cookie-cutter fish... all from 9-11"...pretty colorful... The wild browns though are either big silver fish in from the lake or big, dark brown fish that grew up their entire lives in the stream....and theyre definately an unexpected treat when you hook one amongst a thousand small hatchery fish. Biggest one ive had yet was a real silvery 20 inch fish... thought he was a steelhead at first.