Canandaigua July 11

[FLXTroutman]

Saturday morning we marked fish right off the drop off in the south end so I decided not to run up to the

north end where all the big browns and fish seem to be living these days. Working an east troll towards the white rock yielded lots of weeds, trolling north we were marking lots of fish but the weeds were terrible. Outside of the weeds no fish, in the scumline and floating weeds, the fish. So we circled northwest, cleaning lines and resetting, rolling in the waves trolling northeast back towards Whisky Point. Trolling south in 145 FOW the wire rod out 135' fired, the wind had picked up so the lines were getting some nice action, my nephew Zane worked the fish while his brother Logan drove the boat. We netted a beauty 7 lb brown. We hit that waypoint a few more times picking up 2 lakers, one a shaker off the DW Dirty White Boy and 3 lb keeper off an NK 28 Gold Watermelon. The Church Revelator green blade chrome/ prism attractor with the A-Tom-Mik green Hammer fly with an echip took the big brown and another laker. We ended up 4 for 4 with with the one shaker. The nephews had a good time and I was glad we put a nice brown in the boat in the south end.

getting down to business

the happy angler

hot set up on the wire diver

took this pic on Monday's trip of the coolest little boat on the lake

only boated 1 laker and the fleas were the worst I have ever seen especially bad

from Seneca Point to Vine Valley in the deepest water.

[cdgn troller]

FLX, nice fish! it's always nice to have somebody new on the boat and catch a nice fish! did you release? I have noticed that the fleas on the west side don't seem to be to bad. I was checking the lines every 20-30 minutes though.

[stan]

Thanks for the great report and pictures. Great looking fish. The coolest little boat you see, we have them all over the west coast out here. They can handle some ruff water with no problem .

[FLXTroutman]

The fleas were worse in the mid lake area over very deep water, could have been related to wind over the weekend on Monday's outing.

[georged]

That brown is great catch. I noticed the fleas were also bad on sunday on the northend. I like your showing the fly and flasher setup you were successful. Thanks. I'll have to try some flies / spin doctors some time.

Sincerely,

George D'Amato

[laker taker]

great looking fish!! congrats!! those browns are fantasitic...really like fishing the southend of Canandaigua..those fleas really make things tough!!

chuck

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[luv2fish]

Fleas have been horrible on the North end, cant let a line soak for more than about 30 minutes without cleaning it off. DEC fisheries will be done netting on Wednesday. They have had pretty good results, including a net full of sawbellies this morning. That "coolest little boat" is a Lord Nelson Victory Tug 37'. And your right, it is cool!

[FLXTroutman]

Hey luv2fish, are the DEC netting fleas? Or are they netting fish?

Hello Georged, I am more than happy to show you what works for me, downspeed

was 2.5 mph on the Moor Sub troll, on a south troll, into the wind with a good chop.

Mongo has said he doesn't know how I catch trout on the Fingers with flashers and flies, so

I am happy to show you what works for me. The A TOM MIK Hammer fly has a tournament tie and has an echip

on it between the top hook and the mylar fly body. I think somedays the echip brings them in.

I like to troll faster than most guys, but I try to target the browns and rainbows, by August lakers also will hit flashers

and spin drs etc at 2.5-2.9 mph. down speed.

[thumbburn]

what fow are you guys fishing??

[luv2fish]

Hey FLX. The DEC is netting trout mostly, but probably some fleas too! All of their nets are set on the bottom and are only 8 ft tall, so they are targeting lakers. They set the net end closest to shore on the bottom where the thermocline starts, roughly 70ft right now, and run the net straight out into the lake from there. They set one shallow net near shore just North of Menteth the other day and got the sawbellies. They will send some of those to PA to the lab to test for VHS. I dont know how many hundred fish they took out in the last 8 days, but it was a lot. They also took several thousand zebra and quaqa mussels too though! They set up on the North end yesterday, one off the pumphouse, one just South of the dragon wall and two others a little further South on the West side. I couldnt get down there today to see what they caught though...

[fireplug]

Nice job, FLX! Should have stayed in Canandaigua that week instead of going to NC; my fishing SUCKED

[blueghost1]

The DEC also netted a high number of rainbows as well I was told. It is good to see the population on Canandaigua rainbows doing so well. I wish the story was the same for Seneca

[cdgn troller]

were the fish released back into the lake?

[luv2fish]

Sadly, no. All of the fish are DOA when they get to shore. They are then measured, weighed and a scale sample is taken to be viewed under a microscope over the winter. They are then opened up to determine gender and mature/immature age class. The stomach is opened and all contents are recorded. They are then disposed of.

[FLXTroutman]

Uh why don't they just sit at the launch and check anglers fish and get their samples that way, oh yeah

government employees don't work weekends. Hey instead of disposing of the fish they could feed the hungry

DEC Fish Fry Weeknights at the Lake. No wonder I haven't caught many lakers this year, the DEC wants to have something to do come winter time looking at 167 scale samples.

[troutman10]

I'm excited to see that the lake is doing well. I will take all the info that I can get. While in College I worked for the DEC Fisheries in Region 6 (Watertown, Lake Ontario and Western Adks areas). I saw so many cool things while working with Fisheries over two summers. We worked quite a few weekends to specifically gain data that's being discussed in posts above. We would do "Creel Census" at specific boat launches, bodies of water and other strategic locations during weekends. There is a lot of behind the scenes work that is done by DEC employees. I don't think people give them the credit they deserve sometimes. We're lucky with all these different bodies of Water here in the Finger Lakes. There's been some 20lb. + Lakers taken in Canandaigua over the last few years. Who knows, you might be the next one to catch one that big!

[FLXTroutman]

I agree the lake reports do point to great water quality, healthy fish, and good fishing for us. Just seems kind of wasteful to dump the fish though. In the Pro Ams on Lake Ontario cooler after cooler of salmon gets weighed (they make you take the ice out) and you wait in line, weigh in, wait some more then many of those fish get dumped. If I keep it I eat it or I give it to my neighbors.

[troutman10]

It def. would make sense for any left over fish to be given for a good cause somehow. When I worked for DEC I know that about half of the fish, or more, would be in bad shape to eat. We would be pulling nets in with many fish that were already dead. Any live ones we could quickly get them out of the net, take a measure and let them go. About 75% or more would be spoiled in a short time (especially pike). I worked with more warmwater fish than coldwater fish out of Lake Ontario and some adirondack lakes.

[Second Chance 22]

How long would they have to sit at the launch to have anglers bring in the 300 or 400 fish needed for their analysis to be accurate? Would it be a representitive sample of what's in the lake, or just of what we can (collectively) catch?

Because NYSDEC fisheries biologists DO work Memorial Day weekend checking fish at the Sampson and Geneva weigh stations during the National Lake Trout Derby, they avoid having to set nets in Seneca. They wish there were similar opportunities for data collection on the other Finger Lakes, but unfortunately they just don't exist.

They set nets in Cayuga and get the data they need when they collect laker eggs in the Fall.

It's too bad that something couldn't be done with the dead fish, but without the data acquired from the netting, DEC would have no idea how many fish to stock.