Chautauqua Pike

[zarzycki]

Take a family fishing trip for Pike each spring for the last 20 years. We are looking to try something new and none of us have ever been to Chautauqua. I know it is good Muskie and Bass but if you hang out and cast for 10 hours a day, will you catch a good amount of Northern or aren't they really there? Any help would be great as I know many of you fish there..........

[old man]

i fish there several times a year,casting for muskie and have never seen a pike. caught a gar there once. it's no pike lake.

[Nalod]

I have to agree with you old man. Below is a link to an image of fish that can be caught in chautauqua and the surrounding area. I found it on the Happy Hooker's website.

http://www.happyhookerbaitshop.com/chau ... lake-fish/

--Joe

[mostlymuskies]

Chautauqua doesn,t have any sizeable numbers of Northern Pike.What small numbers there are are not in the lake but in the river system down through Jamestown,NY..A better choice would be Cuba Lake for Northern Pike or Findley Lake for Northern Pike & Tiger Muskies.

Capt. Larry D. Jones

www.mostlymuskies.com/reports.htm

[old man]

zarzycki,you say family fishing? if you need numbers for women and kids have you tried the north end of cayuga? you can hammer pickeral there with a johnson minnow or red eye on light tackle. you will also catch a few fair size pike and some nice bass. another good family spot is eel bay. i rent a state cottage on wellesy island 'bout every other year. they're not cheap but they are nice. you can leave your boat in the marina for 10 bucks a night. from there it's about a 10 minute run to eel bay. the bay is loaded with pike up to about 10 lbs. and they're dumb.

[zarzycki]

Old Man....thanks for the input. We hit the north end of cayuga opening day, middle of the season and end of the season. it is our number one spot since we always catch a ton. My dad lives in Binghamton and my two brothers and I live in Rochester so Union Springs on the north end of Cayuga is a great spot for us to meet often to fish. We kill them there and i would say each trip we get 2 pike above 30 inches which is what we love. We found a spot that will hold ten of us for our family trip this year up on Chaumont Bay. We have never gone there so we are going to give that a try. This will be year number 22! My dad was 48 when we started this and now he will be 70 this year. Started at Bob's Lake in Canada for at least a dozen years then expanded to hit many places. We have done: Black Lake, Lake Champlain, Great Sacandaga and Tupper Lake. We cast about 10 plus hours a day just hoping to hook into that 38 incher but hope to catch a ton of 24 inchers while we are trying.... We joke because the fun of the trip is getting away from Friday to Monday yet when we come back, we probably do better fishing Coneseus and Cayuga but there is no fun in "going away" where you live.............

[Stinky Finger]

zarzycki Yes it is true there are some northern in Chautauqua but very few it seems.

Chautauqua is always a great family vacation destination for more than just the fishing, great fishing I might ad. Seriously I think a couple of crash test dummies in a pedal boat could do well on keeper panfish on that lake.

When you bring the whole family though, you want a little more than just fishing. Bemus Point has antique shops, restaurants and just up the road is an amusement park geared to smaller kids that has been there probably a hundred years.

Try your hand at the famous Chautauqua muskies, might wind up being you that gets hooked- for life.

Lots to do down there, tour the hatchery, drive in movies, Chautauqua Institution with big name musical acts all summer long.

All of Chautauqua county and parts of Cattaraugus county county (Allegheny river and several creeks) for decades had no closed season on pike and no limits.

In other words, if you caught a pike, any size pike any time of year, you were encouraged to keep it (kill it).

These days I do not see that expressly stipulated in the fishing regs like it always was, maybe that has been dropped?

This was in all waters where muskellunge are present, to give the edge to the muskies and weed out the invasive pike which are viewed as a nuisance in those waters, a direct threat to the muskellunge fishery.

Onieda lake is a good destination too. Good walleye, pike and tigers in the canal. Also has a small amusement park at Sylvan Beach like the one at Chautauqua, geared to the little tykes with smaller rides, also been there about a hundred years. A few miles up the road from Sylvan Beach (north) at the northeast area of the lake is the Top of the Hill or Hilltop? I forget the name, great prime rib place owned by the same family that runs the Red Osier on rt 5 by Leroy.

Good luck fishin'...