Shore Fishing Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville, August 28, 2015

Today we tried the other side of Green Lakes (see previous posts for a map  http://www.fishingcentralny.com/2015/07/shore-fishing-green-lakes-state-park-in.html). There was actually a lot of area to fish it is just a longer walk with the fishing gear. There is an area with a tree down that was prime with fish.

I wasn't getting any bites on worms with a spinner and I could see junior bass up close near the ledges of the shore watching my worm. So out of a hunch, I threw in a texas rig (for more information see  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_rig) and got a nice bass in deep water right away. I was a little surprised at first and lucky I knew to set the hook because the hit did not feel hard because it was so deep down and I wasn't even sure I had a fish.

Besides a small pumpkinseed I got when I switched back to a worm with no spinner, it was all that hit. 

Shore Fishing at Labrador Pond, August 25, 2015

Labrador Pond is located within the Labrador Unique Hollow near Tully, New York.

There is a beautiful dock that stretches out into the pond. It is next to a no motor boat launch and is fishing accessible. 

The difficulty is it is VERY weedy, fairly shallow (about 4 feet) and full of lily pads. Perfect for bass hiding but horrible for any kind of lure. I tried walk the dog and popper top lures and barely got them back (one nice popper I didn't get back). I even tried a Lindy No-Snag Sinker rig and barely got that back. 

I moved to the entrance of the pond into the boardwalk area where it was still weedy but no lily pads and switched to a #6 hook with spinner, small split shot, and Thill spring float. I got a lot of hits from panfish so I switched to the smaller #8 hook with spinner.

I started catching small pumpkinseeds, bluegills, and perch.

Several Kayakers told us they saw big largemouth bass. I have no doubt there were many hiding under the lily pads. It was an amazingly beautiful place and worth the trip even if we only caught small panfish.

Shore Fishing the Oneida River under Route 481, August 24, 2015

Today we went back to Bonstead Road under Route 481 to shore fish. We caught literally the same variety of fish we did last time but two large bluegills instead of one.

I started with my Mitchell 310 light action seven foot spinning combo with six pound line, a thill weighted spring float, split shot, #6 hook with spinner, and a worm. I caught a white bass right away. Several failed attempts after to set the hook when the bobber went under, I switched to a #8 hook with spinner (these are hard to find, I found mine handmade on ebay) and a non-weighted float. I caught a pumpkinseed right away followed by a small perch.

A Note on Floats: The advantage of the weighted float is you can throw it farther, the disadvantage is smaller fish like panfish can feel it when they tug on it and it isn't as sensitive as the the regular floats. I tend to use the weighted floats for bass. I think the reason the weighted bobber was going under and I couldn't set it is a panfish was sucking in the worm and I yanked it out of its mouth before it reached the hook. That is the difficulty. If the panfish doesn't play with it first telling you it is a panfish, you may think it is a bass and want to set the hook as soon as the bobber goes under. 

Shortly after this, I switched to a non-spinner Mr. Crappie #6 aberdeen hook to see if the more natural look of the worm made a difference. It did. I pulled up two fighting, large bluegill. They gave a great fight.

We ended as the sun went down and those nasty mosquitoes came out and gobies started stealing our worms.

Shore Fishing at Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville, August 17, 2015

Today I went fishing at Green Lakes again (previous posts have a map available).

I started around 2 pm with my Mitchell 310 light spinning combo with 6 lb monofilament, a weighted (to cast farther) balsa float, split shot, #6 hook with spinner and beads (I have been avoiding #8 hooks even for panfish because I've had a lot of swallowed hooks lately), and a salted minnow. Shortly after I caught a nice juvenile largemouth bass. It gave a nice jump as I reeled it in, was very feisty, even got itself off the hook for me.

I tried for about another hour with salted minnows and got no more bites. I switched to worms and caught a couple of decent pumpkinseeds and was thrilled the #6 was not swallowed. I have only recently been using floats/bobbers and with them on, you can't feel the bites and have to rely on sight and bobber movement. Different fish do different things with the bobber. A bass will take it under in one swoop and a pumpkinseed sucks the worm in so I've had the bobber go completely under and pulled the worm right out of its mouth because it hasn't reached the hook yet. 

One of the neat things about Green Lakes is the water is so clear you can see the fish and at about 4-5 pm, small-medium sized pumpkinseeds come up to the shallow water right in front of you. Today is the first day I've gotten a decent picture of them.

Shore Fishing the Oneida River under Route 481, August 15, 2015

Today we went to a place I have been looking for for a while. I read about it online once and every time I drove over 481 as it crosses the Oneida River I looked for it. I could never find it because it is directly below 481 and you can only access it from Bonstead Road in Clay, NY.

It is primarily used as a public boat launch but there are plenty of areas to shore fish. 

The water was very mucky and weedy so I used my 7 foot Mitchell 300 series spinning light pole with 6 lb line, a fixed oval float, split shot, #6 hook with beads and spinner, and worm. Caught a pumpkinseed right away at a drop off just past the weedy area.

I continued to catch fish fairly rapidly. 

White Bass

baby Perch

The goby were clearly in this area and kept grabbing our worms and diving for ledges forcing us to break our lines and lose gear. We caught one goby. I have mentioned in other posts this invasive non-native fish. After a lull from hits I switched to a Mr. Crappie #6 aberdeen hook and got a big bluegill right away. Every time I sent out the worm, I jigged it a bit as I reeled it in and this seemed to catch the attention of this large variety of fish. 

After losing a few more worms and hooks, we called it a day.

Shore Fishing Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville, August 12, 2015

Today we went to Green Lakes around 3 pm, we normally go late in the evening. Who knew this was a good time to fish. We normally only catch very small bass or small panfish but today, we got some decent catches (all released). Our first few catches were Pumpkinseeds.

 

I was using my cheap Shakespeare Micro Series UltraLight spincast combo with 4lb monofilament line which I love for Green Lakes because you can feel every bite. They were caught on #8 hooks, with and without flashy spoons on them, worms, and a fixed bobber. This type of bobber is supposed to allow the fish to feel less of the weight on the line than a round bobber.

At some point we switched to #6 Mr. Crappie aberdeen hooks which are very slender like the #8 hooks but less likely to get swallowed. The first largemouth bass I caught was a surprise because it barely fought and let us hold it open handed. I even looked online to see if it could possibly be some kind of trout since its behavior was so off. We caught less pumpkinseeds and more bass as it rounded from afternoon to evening.

What largemouth bass lets you hold it like this without flopping out of your hand?

Shortly after, we got even more of a surprise with an even bigger LM bass and on a #8 hook!

All fish were caught just past the first drop off out from shore and in the more shaded area. We saw a lot of bass jump after 5 pm and even a very large bass. Even caught a tiny baby LM bass that jumped while being reeled in. 

I can't have a post of Green Lakes without showing some of the fantastic scenery. 

Just some beautiful water reflecting.

Shore Fishing the Oneida River in Caughdenoy, August 9, 2015

We had two people tell us we should fish Caughdenoy, near Central Square. One said catfish were great the other said walleye and top water lures. So we figured we should check it out. Caughdenoy is very small and its biggest attraction appears to be fishing at the dam.

lower section of the dam

There is pretty fantastic shore access on both sides of the dam with ample parking and it is a peaceful body of water. 

Fishing Tales: When we first arrived we met a man who was selling used tackle in front of his van. He said he had been there for four weeks and told us that right in front of him was the best spot. We then watched him snorkel for lures and tackle. He went out in his pants and shoes and snorkeled until he brought up more tackle to sell. He said he was low on sinkers so he was snorkeling at that moment for them. He talked about the messes people left and how he cleaned them up and how some kids had thrown out a rope and left it and when he brought it up he found the biggest selection of tackle he'd ever seen stuck to it. He was also kind enough to swim out and unstick my hook from a rock after a gobie snatched it and ran with it. He told us to avoid the rocks and gobies, throw out a worm with no sinker or split shot and let it not go down far enough to hit gobie territory. Gobies are horrible invasive fish and it was disappointing to find them at such a prime location.

We tried top water lures and worms without anything to weight them down and only got gobie hits. We tried both sides of the dam with no luck and left. 

What a fisher sees as a prime drop off when approaching the water

high section of the dam

Black Lake Panfish Marathon, August 7, 2015

July 19th to October 5th, Black Lake, which is located near Alexandria Bay, NY, has a panfish marathon. Area businesses donated money to tag 200 fish with prizes up to $10,000. For more information:  http://www.blacklakeny.com/panfish-brochure.pdf

Friday we bought a 7 day pass, rented a pontoon from Pleasant View Cottages, and went out on the lake for the day.

We were surprised that the young man telling us how to operate the boat didn't know how to use the fish finder, best areas to fish the lake, or at what depth we should put the propellers at despite having told us that there were 4 instances of people being stranding in the past week by losing propellers. So we went out and tried to stay in waters above 4 feet. The first area we tried was heavily populated, the rocky point a short distance off the docks. 

The first fish we caught was a very small pumpkinseed on a #8 wormed hook.

 

We started to see rapid depth changes from 4 to 2 and even 1 feet of water and decided we were too close to ledge and left the area. We had a hot spot map of Black Lake but had no idea how quickly it took to travel the lake. We reached the South West tip past all of the campgrounds and deeply weedy area much quicker than expected. So we turned around and headed toward deeper water, near Raspberry Island across from Pleasant View. We didn't get very close to the island and just started traveling into 6 feet of water when we hit a rock and broke the propeller. Pleasant View responded quickly but we were upset that we weren't told that lower waters were causing this problem and the person responding said he also had no information for us on how to avoid this problem because even though he had lived there his whole life, he thought fishing was boring and didn't know much about the lake. When we made it back, Pleasant View wanted us to pay $100 for the propeller and not take it out of the $200 deposit we had already made. This didn't make any sense to us. 

We left and had an enjoyable lunch at Fishbone Cafe, located at Mcclear's Cottage Colony. 

      

Afterwards we went back out on the pontoon and decided to stay between Mcclears and Pleasant View so there was little chance of breaking a propeller. We went to a drop off near the original rocky point we had fished but out farther. We anchored and stayed pretty much at the shelf of 7-9 feet of water. We saw a lot of fish at different times on the fish finder below us so we figured this was a good area. Right away we started catching pumpkinseeds on #8 hooks. They were very small and kept swallowing the hooks even though I was using my new favorite pole, the Mitchell 300 series 7 foot light pole with 6 lb monofilament line and could feel them hit right away. 

 

So, I switched to one of my favorite lures, a sunfish colored spinner with a worm and split shot. I have caught lots of perch and bass off of this lure, no matter what the location.

Immediately I started pulling up bigger pumpkinseeds and perch after perch. 

The legendary fisherman, "Uncle" Homer Circle said that fish like the colored spinner with a worm because it looks like a flashy fish chasing a bait. Indeed we saw several instances of a perch chasing the perch that was already hooked to try and take the worm from him. 

We caught 30 or more perch and a few pumpkinseeds. We tried several other lures for walleye and bass, which there are claims that Black Lake is a Largemouth haven, including pig n' jigs, top water baits, and crankbaits and got no hits. It was odd to never even see a bass jump, even as the sun went down. We docked around 6 pm to clean the 11 fish we kept.

We headed back out at 7 pm to do a little more fishing and fill up the boat with gas at Mcclear's. 

Blue Heron fishing at dusk

We got a few more little bites and ended the night at about 8:30 pm as it was starting to get dark not having caught any prize winning fish but having had a great time.