What's wrong ? Poor fishing @ best!

[nancyb2]

Several boats i know have been fishing the Rochester area and have had very poor fishing. We fished friday ,saturday and sunday all day with good weather ,good water temp and just a couple fish. It is getting hard to stay positive with such poor results. Can anyone shed some light on the problem?

[GAMBLER]

It is called Clear and Cold water. With no rain we have clear water on the shoreline. Fish will scatter and spread out deep. The deep water is crystal clear and cold. In another week or 2, the temp breaks will start to set up and things will get going. Also the browns are shutting down early because they have gobies to fill up on easily. What good colored water we have in the area is getting hammered every day. Things will pick up. Just be patient.

[Yankee Troller]

Ditto to what Gamble said.

[momay4000]

I agree with YT and Gambler as well. Some other things to consider:

1.) Find structure (very hard around the Rochester area as the bottom is so flat)

2.) Find the surface temp. breaks, even as subtle as 0.5 degrees

3.) Find bait

That being said, other than a few scattered temp. breaks which were overfished in tight, the Rochester area was a slow pick this past weekend b/c of clear water, very little bait and poor structure.

In order to be successful this time of year, you have to be patient and concentrate on the good temp breaks, trust your surface temp. on your FF, look for slicks, birds picking off bait, whatever you can to make a difference. We are watching our graphs like crazy this time of year for any marks, bait and any change in surface temp. Once we find it, we'll make passes from different directions (SE troll, NW troll, etc. over the same area), and continue to change our speeds and try and hammer a specific location.

- Chris

[REELJERKS]

The only "green" water I have found so far this spring has been 8 miles East of I-Bay and in front of Hedges. Pretty bad when you can see bottom in 15+' Give it another week or two and we should start to see stained water and temp breaks. I'm across from you NB2 on B-dock..

Mark