The Season so far...

[Nalod]

As excited and determined as I was for the musky season opener, I am now completely humbled by the tough bite at the start of the season. My goal for the year is to keep a close eye on my fishing days and track what was caught and what time was spent not catching. Until I have a better tool to track these, I figured why not use the forum!

Saturday, June 16

Lake: Chautauqua

Fishing time: 8AM - 8PM

Weather: Sunny (bluebird skies) in the 70s

I could barely sleep the night before. By the time I got the boat to the lake, I was already exhausted...not good for when you plan on casting all day! The entire day was a struggle just to see a fish let alone catch one. We ended the day with one missed hit and around 8 follows. I threw pretty much every lure in the tackle box just trying to see what looked good in the water and what should be removed for the rest of the season. The majority of my time was spent throwing Lunge Lumber lures. I also threw a bunch of bucktails expecting that fast fur over the weeds would have been the key with such warm water temps.

Thursday, June 21

Lake: Chautauqua

Fishing time: 2PM - 9PM

Weather: Too hot! Sunny, Humid, and upper 80s.

I took out a new friend from the Niagara Musky Association to show him some good casting and trolling spots on the lake. This is his first year targeting this species, and I wanted to get him off on the right foot. We spent a little time in the south, but then I took him north to show a couple casting spots and then the rest of the night trolling around the bell tower. We did not see a follow nor have a hit in the little time we casted. We also had nothing on the troll. It was still good to get out and see all of the great looking bait and hooks near the Institute.

Friday, June 22

Lake: Chautauqua

Fishing time: 7AM-11AM and 4PM-8:30PM

Weather: Overcast and 70s

We spent the day practicing for the tournament. We hit most of our casting holes looking for what had the best water (not overgrown with weeds, holding good temps, water color, etc). We ended the day with a few follows, but that was it. The lake seemed as if it was dead! Oh, I forgot to mention that we hooked up with a big school of gar pike and had at least 12 follows in about an hour. Chad even caught one on a 6" lure...pretty neat to see one up close. When we got back to the docks, we make a bold decision that this tournament was going to be tough to win on the casting bite, so we set the boat up with our rod holders and trolling gear.

Saturday, June 23

Lake: Chautauqua

Fishing time: 5:00AM-4:30PM

Weather: Sunny and 70s

Notes: Chad had already written a great writeup on the Bait Fish Fund Tournament. Please read his also as he gave more information on the entire day.

To start the early morning, we setup at the best looking casting spot we saw yesterday and threw around a few lures. It was tough to see if we had any follows because of the time of day, but we did see a bunch of musky surfacing around us. At 6AM, we packed up and drove to the launch to pick up our 3rd team member. He got on the boat and we ran to our trolling grounds around the bell tower. We ended up catching a 43" thick musky at 8:30AM near the center of the lake (37ft of water). The fish hit off of a Baker bait in perch color. We kept trolling until 11:30 where we decided to get away from the pleasure boater traffic and see if the casting bite was getting any better. For the couple hours spent in the flats, we had a couple follows and a missed hit to our name...not enough. The rest of the day was spent back in front of the bell tower trying to get another big fish hit, but no luck. On the fortunate side, it sounded like most of the 121 tournament entries were also struggling to find the fish (especially the big girls). We ended up getting third place. On an even brighter note, my buddy that I took out on Thursday caught a 45" fish which gave him second place!

Sunday, June 24

Lake: Chautauqua

Fishing time: 6AM - 10:00AM

Weather: Sunny and 60s to low 70s

To end a fun (and tough) weekend, we decided to spend the morning trolling. There was a small storm that was supposed to come in during the afternoon -- also, the moon rise was during our fishing time...I really thought we had a good chance to hit a window like we saw the day before (we saw about 4 fish caught during a 45 minute window which included our fish). No luck! We spent the morning just burning gas and telling stories.

From the tough start, I think it is time to watch the weather forecasts a little closer and also better learn the south end. I was hearing great numbers at the start of last week from the trollers in the south end. They were telling me that their numbers were extremely hot during the warm front, but the cold front that came in at the end of the week just completely shut down their bit. I will be planning another run down to Chautauqua later this week and will probably spend the majority of my day in the south end finding new spots to try.

--Joe

[JOE ESOX]

Nice write up man... was camped there sat/sun and only had luck trolling in the south basin. We got a couple lower 30's fish during the tourney and decided to keep trolling and skip awards ceremony (with no results). Bite was tough the whole weekend with only one other fish boated sun am. had a couple follows casting jerkbaits in north basin but no dice. Beautiful weekend though and awesome that the season has finally started!

[Nalod]

Monday, July 2

Lake: Chautauqua

Fishing Time: 5:30PM - 7:30PM

Weather: Sunny and 80

I had to run down to Chautauqua to check on my boat (I have been having issues with the live well system turning the pump on even though the switch is in the off position). After doing a little cleaning and some more testing, I decided to take the boat out for a couple hours to fish the flats.

I ended the day with no fish in the boat but had 1 follow. The temps still seem a little off. The Flats were around 76.5 degrees while I found 80 degree temps in Irwin Bay. Also, boat traffic was not great, but not as bad as I had expected. Still, the few boats that were out in the flats (north winds -- so I the wind was not the issue) caused good waves and made casting an interesting event.

I still want to head down to the south end of the lake to give casting a try down there, but knew my time was limited yesterday and wanted to fish as long as I possibly could in the little time I had.

--Joe

[Ronix 51]

im doing ok so far this season but the hot weather is making it miserable to be on the water after 10 am and with the temps climbing it probably isnt a bad idea to give the fish a break until things stabilize here...I am considering trying some night fishing in these next cooler nights but we will see. So far these are the highlights of my season:

[Ivan]

Nice fish Mike...like the tigers.

[JOE ESOX]

first tiger is a beaut! they are such a cool looking fish