Smallmouth near Webster park and Hedges

[t2fingers]

Has anyone been out this way recently? I was planning on putting the boat in Thursday evening. I have not been out yet this year. What depths are they at this time of year? Any help would be appreciated.

[bosco]

Gosh I sure hope someone can tell me I'm wrong on this one but it's my understanding that the smallie fishing has absolutely tanked out there the last couple years. The Gobies suck up any live bait before any of the few bass that might be there can get to it. I've also heard that the Gobies are sucking up all the bass eggs thereby jeaprodizing the future of the fishery further. I recall that last season guys were saying that they were countering this by trolling cranks significantly higher up off the bottom than they would be if live bait fishing. Getting a few, but defeating the purpose. Who wants to troll for bass?? A lot of guys bass fish as a respite from trolling. Again, I hope someone can correct me here.

[Fat Tommy]

I was out at hedges 2 or 3 years ago, me and my dad landed over 30 bronzebacks in one day. Besides, the gobies can only eat fish up to a certain size, I've never seen a goby over 8 inches.

[Pike Hunter]

I have to vouch that smallies fishing at Hedges is now nonexistent. I started fishing for smallies back in 1995 and has always landed 10 to 15+ smallies every time we go out for them.

Two years ago, I landed 35 gobies and one bass during evening fishing. That is when I gave up fishing for smallies. Very unfortunate situation.

My friend went out for dinner at Hedges last week and he said he couldnt believe his eyes when he did not see any boat out in front of hedges. Typically, you can find at least 10 boats at any given day in front of Hedges.

[UpGrady]

I've been fishing smallies in this lake, in between T&S of course, since the late 70's from Hedges to Sodus to Henderson. I've seen the haydays thru the mid 80's to the downfall of the late 80's to early 90's and then the rise again from the mid 90's to about 2005.

For the past 7-8 years, I've pretty much fished the Hedges area exclusively for smallies (closer to home and more recently having my boats docked at IBay). Up thru 2005, the fishing was insane there from July thru end of September. Last year saw a drastic downturn in the number of smallies in the area. I found that I could not get thru the gobies to find many smallies. I literally caught about 6 smallies last summer over a handful of trips, the gobies just annoyed the heck out of you after an hour with live bait. I tried many jigging techniques to no avail as well.

I made it out in late June this year for an hour with four of us onboard, we caught a hundred gobies and 2 nice smallies, so my enthusiasm is very low for trying again right now.

I have heard numerous reports that trolling is still producing some numbers, but it defeats the purpose of bass fishing for me, so I refuse to do it. The thrill of a smallie hitting on light tackle and exploding to the surface is completely lost in trolling for them.

My gut feeling in observing the bass fishery as well as perch on this lake for 30 years is that there are upturns and downturns and we just need to be patient and ride the waves. Right now we are on a severe downturn which should be alarming, but if we learn from history, the invasion of the gobies WILL be normalized by the lake, just like the Zebies. Smallies are far too strong of a fish to not survive, they are adapting to a new way of life right now in the lake and will be back again in much better numbers for the future. The gobies will fall off and we will regain our fishery.

The positive is that if you do hook into a smallie off Hedges, the past 2 years have shown me that it will be 15-17"!!!

[Fat Tommy]

I've been reading up on the goby invasion.... learned some interesting stuff.

For starters, when they first appeared, the predator fish had no idea how to deal with them, they act so different from other fish they would eat. However, pike, bass, and walleye are all adjusting to the learning curve and a lot of fishermen have reported gobies in the stomachs of the fish they are filleting.

Secondly. Gobies eat zebra mussels. Zebra mussles filter the water, taking all the dirt, PCB's, and algae. Until the gobies came around, these things were locked in place. There was nothing to circulate them through the food chain since nothing ate the zebra mussles. Now that the gobies are eating them and other fish are eating the gobies, this presents a huge problem. The PCB's that were getting taken out of the food web are now being put back in. Eventually it gets down to us when some of us decide to keep a few of the fish we catch.

[BP Swing]

too bad about hedges. Does anyone know if the smally fishing at sodus in front of the bluffs has been sucking too? I remember going there about 5 years ago and getting 100+ bass on several occasions but the last few years have been no where near as good. Anyone have a report from this year? I havent been there yet. Thanks BP

[ray koziatek]

i have a friend who lives on sodus and fishes everyday he can get out ,,, the last 3 years when the lake rolled he has found 1000's of bass floating dead or stuned when the cold oxagen starved water moved inshore too fast..ok upwelling!

[Yankee Troller]

OK guys! I know it might be hard to believe but the Smallmouth fishing this year as been INSANE out there. Im tellin ya the truth. Gobies havent killed it as much as you think and VHS has done damage but not enough to hurt anything (yet). Hedges is pretty much washed up. A lot of pressure day in and day out. I have always done much better (size and quantity) heading east of Hedges.

This Spring we had a blast off of Hegdges in shallow waters. All sorts of fish swimmin around and you could see them.

A few weeks ago some friends went out to Hughes and smoked the smallmouth ranging from 12" to close to 4lbs. He brought in a sack of 13lbs of fish. Thats a 2.5lb average. You wont see the 5-6lb smallies like you do in Erie (for some reason) especially on the south shore. Once you get up by henderson you will see more 4-5lb fish.

We had a bass tourney on Irondequoit Sunday. I headed west to fish the Largemouth in Braddocks. A friend of mine went East to head over to Sodus. Half way there he stopped in front of Hughes marina b/c he had gotten some nice smallies there a few weeks ago. Well throughout the 6 hour tournament his boat caught over 100 smallies and he never caught a goby! He fished 15-20 fow with Lucky Craft pointers (these are jerkbaits). Fishing them with rapid twitches of the rod and then a pause. He also took many fishon drop-shotting soft plastics. He said the closer he got to Sodus the better it was.

[BP Swing]

Good news Yankee Thanks. As far as the upwelling, I heard that 2 yrs ago they found lots of floating dead ones but thats nothing new, Im sure the lake has been upwelling since its inception. Although I never heard that happening in the last 10-15 yrs to that extent. Now if only we could get Wautoma to come back to life. Its like a barren sea for bass west of braddocks compared to eastern Lake O. BP

[UpGrady]

This is all great news for the Eastern basin... just too bad for the central areas of the lake... Smallies off Hedges were a great option for a lot of years... hopefully we'll strike a balance in a few years...

I had heard the same about Sodus area being on fire again this year. A few co-workers, two weeks ago, with no real knowledge fished off the trailer park and caught a pile of big smallies up to 19", with very few gobies...

[Yankee Troller]

Hedges used to be a decent aera for smallmouth for a long time, but I always found that the point after hedges was just as good if not better. An then when the nuke plant let you fish near it that used to be an AWESOME smallmouth fishery.

[UpGrady]

The east end of the bluff beyond Hedges was the spot for me for a number of years as well. Never had to go all the way to the plant, but I can imagine it was even better!

Sodus has been awesome for over 10 years now... tough to beat the Maxwell basin..

[bassnbrian]

forgive the ignorance please...but what and where are these so called "hedges"?

thanks in advance

[Silver Fox]

5 miles east of Ibay

[Fish Junkie]

'Hedges' is a restaurant on the lake 5 miles east of Iron. Bay