Stagging Yet?

[Striped Bastard]

Making a 300 mile trek to Pulaski next week, Was wondering if the combat trolling in front of the river has started yet? Are you guys still fishing temp. or is that something I need no worry about.

[hard knox]

Mexico bay was full of fish Monday. Flasher fly on a diver was the ticket.

Edited September 1, 2023 by hard knox

[newmike]

 a lot of staging fish in  120 feet outside Stony Creek. A lot of boats but nobody was catching them, they had lock jaw.

[fcboats]

Guarantee that a lyman gets rid of the lock jaw.  Same thing up here but lymans always entice.

[Gill-T]

They didn’t want Lymans either. Believe me I tried. Lakewide lockjaw from East to West. I wish I knew the magic formula other than approaching fronts. 

[newmike]

Whats a Lymans?

[LongLine]

A plug very similar to a J-plug.

[Gill-T]

Two fish today on rattling silver horde plugs. Off by 11:30. That’s a wrap for the year!  Ironically I pulled the plug on the season after our mag dipsy snagged a fellow fisherman’s weighted steel junk line pulling a Kevorkian Spin Doc (Dr Kevorkian reference- the OG plug puller).  I don’t recommend running junk lines on the Niagara drop due to traffic and changing currents. That weighted steel line snakes more like leadcore. Our boats were not that close and yet his line was drifting way south on strong north to south down current. I was able to return the trollers gear. All fish were returned to swim again. All told we caught 32 fish over four days that we really had to grind for. Hours spent trolling over heavy marks while waiting for those subtle clues to trigger a flurry. Meat rotted mostly- taking only a few fish. Spoons sucked. It has been mostly a flasher fly and plug bite to catch this class of three year olds. I will say good riddance to this graduating class. This was the COVID class that only had Oak Orchard, Olcott and Niagara pen projects plus no lamprey treatments. Cormorant harassment had not started yet upon pen release. These 3’s have always presented short and fat. Not sure if it was lamprey effect (lots of scars) or less feeding in captivity due to COVID restrictions or a late jump to size because of a poor YOY class of alewives that year. One thing for sure, they are moody as stagers!!!

Edited September 3, 2023 by Gill-T

[Gill-T]

Small fish this year. Winning team this weekend only had a 15.5 lb average. Another LOC fall winner below 30 lbs. 

https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70204588

 

I think this will be the last year class of kings that were negatively effected by the 2015 winter/alewife hatch. Poor alewife spawn 2015 results - lower number of adult alewives to create babies in 2019 - to feed the year-one king plants in year 2000 (theory). 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Gill-T