Chautauqua Report

[mostlymuskies]

After returning from Washington State I returned to Chautauqua Lake on Friday,but had an electrical short from the ignition switch to starter.Got that problem fixed by Saturday mid day and got in the afternoon catching 41" & 33" muskies.Back out with Dr. Dave Palo on Sunday,tough day managed a 35" & 32" muskies.Then on Monday I went Zippo! Went back out from 1:00 pm on Tuesday to fine vtune the trolling program.First thing noticed was the bait fish and muskie hooks were now 5 feet deper at 25 foot level.Increased the amount of line out to 6 colors(180 ft) of 60 lb Lead Core with the Wiley's and 5 colors (150 ft) with the Legend Perchbaits,both trolled at 5.2 mph.Using two rods one with a Perchbait in Niagara Walleye and one with a Wiley Brown Perch 5 1/2" Jtd,caught a 47" Fattie on the Perchbait and 43" & 35" muskies on the Wiley,in three hours of fishing by myself.

Program is now 25 ft down at 5.2 mph in 34 to 37 ft of water! 93 muskies in 35 days of fishing so far.

Capt. Larry D. Jones

www.mostlymuskies.com/reports.htm

[zach]

sounds great! lexie and i are leaving to tomorrow night and i better get her on some fish or i'm gonna get to hear about it. was there 2 weeks ago and didn't do as well as i wanted to fishing the south end (tons of bait south of 86 bridge). thanks for all of your info. i read every post you make and take everything you say as word. thanks again larry! i have no problem at all fishing that fast, in fact that is where i do most of my summer fishing, over 5mph except at night. i think from what i have seen people tend to go faster at chaut than waneta but people at waneta make more turns on purpose imo. i try to combine the two. go fast and tons of turns, if you have seen my ugly butt on the water you know what i mean. a drunk guy makes a straighter line than i do while trolling. maybe her and i will see you out fishing, we are staying until saturday morning and i would hire you but i am poor and have a two year old kid, so nope- it ain't happening any time soon. i am refinishing that big 16" grandma copy i got from you, what should the color it be in your opinion? i am going to bring a bunch of homemade crankbaits to try to decide what style i am gonna roll w/. good luck.

[mostlymuskies]

Zach, I would paint it Yellow Belly Brown Perch!

[zach]

got to fish yesterday morning and the weather was great to be outside but not for fishin'

. took lex out at 7am and got this one 10 minutes into our day.

. (that is NOT the bell tower behind her lmao)

she was happy and by 8:15am she convinced me to go get breakfeast at camp chautauqua where we were staying. ate some bacon and eggs and went back out sometime after 9am. well we get back out to where we were fishing another fish is on less than 30 minutes into our pass. she got it but was wearing her bikini and made me hold it for the pic b/c she didn't want all you looking at her. i laughed and held the lil guy

we worked that area for awhile before leaving and i missed another one that was on for less than 6 seconds. oh well.

head towards the casino for lunch and lose another one 10 feet from the boat at the no wake signs off the casino. we ate some greasy food at the casino and then decided to walk around bemus. we ended up renting bikes and taking the rest of the afternoon peddling around the small town. we fished for a total of less that 6 hours and went 2 for 4. i am starting to get better about realizing that i am fishing w/ my son's mom and not some hardcore musky fishermen. she loved taking time off for breakfast, lunch and the couple hour bike ride we took. i would have stayed out fishing until dark but i knew she would enjoy seeing something other than the boat and my ugly mug. i think it was a total success and we left by 6pm to go get the little goober. all fish came on my prototypes w/ hits on all differant colors. some of my lures ran killer and some need alittle weight to make them handle speeds better. it was cool b/c these muskies were on the lures i whipped up this week and wanted to try out. well they got eaten alright. i had to fish these new lures b/c i gave all my good ones to solgrande this week! all fish hit going fast and lexie has a new favorite color, she now likes the "pretty baby" color. its a good thing b/c those are easy to paint!

i started a cool barnyard fight by not feeding the king billy and i really enjoyed watching them butt heads and chase each other around. oh the fun that can be had at the campground!

on the way home i stopped into the happy hooker to get solgrande and myself some perchbaits and brain asked me what we got our fish on and i showed him my "little sweeties" and he said he wants a couple hundred dollars worth of them to put into his shop! i showed him a couple of bucktails and he said the same thing! how freaking awesome. i now have a little side job brewing.

these were the two that boated fish for us. also the silver perch types got blasted 2x.

i did all these in one morning so the paint jobs were just enough to get them done. next batch will be alot nicer paint jobs since i will actually have more than one day to get some ready.

[mccoy13]

Zach, those look fantastic. I'm jealous, I tie my own flies and I look foreward to making my own lures someday. No new hobbies until the kids are older. Not enough time for the hobbies I have now. Keep up the good work. It is good to see so many people talking about pike and muskies. I joined the forum a while ago, but at the time there wasn't much chatter.

Muskylips, I suspect your partner is not thrilled with your new interest in this site!