Any good words on Oneida Lake?

[walteye]

I haven't fished Oneida as much as I usually do this year-has any one been doing much there? Usually the fishing is outstanding there and from what I had read earlier and my own experiences this year- it was tougher than it has been in years. Usually I was able to have 10-20 fish days in mid summer trolling-this year I was lucky to scratch out a limit by jigging, only 1-2 trolling. A big bait year?

I am planning to run up there this weekend.

Walteye

[Landshark]

Fishing is good

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[MeatHunter737]

get some waders, and fish the night bite.... its good... blue/silver thundersticks

[rustyrat]

Its very good. I prefer the jr Thunderstix in fire tiger. 4 guys, 4 limits of FAT 20 inchers this weekend.

[johnnywalleye]

check my post..the bait is in..i normally dont fall fish ..im bow hunting BUT on harvested the largest buck of my life saturday so i now can fish

[Stinky Finger]

Wow Johnny, impressive! I hope you had a valid moose permit...

Walteye I have done o.k. on Oneida when things get tough by slowing way down and sizing way down. Usually me & the father in law split our time between trolling the canal (we stay on Fish creek) with crawler harnesses with 80 ft of line at 1.5 mph and heading out to the first bouey out from Sylvan beach and jigging with crawlers on round head jigs, they always seem to like plain lead more than anything, sometimes white. That's when they are agreeable.

When things get tough because of a week of crap weather/ east winds or in years with huge rafts of bait we switch gears and go slow and small. Trolling is out, drifting & jigging is out.

We break out the stuff usually reserved for spring crappie on Chautauqua and even some ice fishing teardrops. Crawlers are out, fatheads are out and we go with red worms on crappie jigs and anchor over hard structure like rocks and drop offs.

What constitutes a drop off could be just a one foot break, so long as there is a well defined edge. Rocks could be gravel / cobble (so long as you're not over muck) in 30 fow, for some reason 30 fow seems to be the charm in the rain on Oneida for us.

We work slow, this is more like ice fishing. You are putting the bait on their nose and leaving it there, spoon feeding them. Moving to another spot means taking up one of the two anchors and letting the boat swing around one length to move a bit along the structure and drop the anchor again, one fore, one aft.

Usually when it gets like this we can't see any marks on the graph, just trust that we are on good spots and inch along hoping to pop one here & there.

If it looks like we are riding with a skunk in the boat we aren't ashamed to head into Fish creek and fish chicken livers in sac mesh in the deeper outside bends for channel cats.

They always deliver and after a couple are in the box we usually declare victory then and head in for a sheet pizza and a 30 pack of Genny Cream. Hey, when it gets to be too much like work...

The only time we head out to Oneida is usually the last week of July or the first week of August so I'm not up on fall patterns for that lake but our bad weather tactics might pay off for you.

Another trick we use is in the canal when the sun is glaring down on hot afternoons and the wallys are shying away from the boat. We run one planer board off the port side with a harness & crawler so it hugs the drop off that is a few feet out from the bank. It does produce when those blue bird skies are making things tough.

When all else fails there is always pizza, Genny Cream and NASCAR