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.

A bluegill kind of day, Bullhead Point in Fulton, and Lock Island in Phoenix, August 05, 2015

Well, everyone knows Lake Neatahwanta is going through revitalization after years of pollution. It is not advisable to eat the fish and swimming is prohibited (and be careful not to let animals drink the water). Today we fished Bullhead Point on the lake in Fulton. I started on the bank casting with a slip bobber and worm with a #6 hook out toward the channel heading under the bridge. I was hoping the excess of weeds were attracting mid-day panfish or bass.

I got no bites until I reeled in and my worm hopped into a rock pocket right in front of me. 

The bite surprised me so I quickly switched to a #8 hook with half a worm and just plopped it back out in between the rocks. Right away I got a small bluegill.

We continued in the same fashion and caught three more. It reminded me how fun it can be to not cast and just drop a hook into a small area. There is something unconscious in many fishers that make us think the biggest fish must be in the farthest reaching area away from us (because why would fish want to be so close to their predator?). But it is a myth. They are often right in front of us in the rocks, weeds, and quick dropping ledges leading to deeper water.

At about 7 pm, we stopped to listen to some great local live music in the pavilion and walked the pier. The whole area was very beautiful.

Later, we headed to Lock Island in Phoenix. Almost as soon as we got there, I started catching more bluegill right on the ledge of the rocks in front of us, with the same slip bobber, half a worm and #8 hook. These were a little bigger than the gills we caught in Fulton. 

The most notable thing about this area is the HUGE catfish that roam the shorelines at this time of night. I had some Wildcat Blood Catfish Bait and put it on a #4 hook but got no hits and it was really hard to get it to stay on the hook. I have vowed that someday I will catch one of those cats. We ended the night by moving out to the tip of the island, only getting a few more hits and lots of bass jumping in the heavy weeded areas.

Shore Fishing Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville, August 02, 2015

Green Lakes is always beautiful and we go there frequently (for a map of shore fishing at Green Lakes see my previous post:  http://www.fishingcentralny.com/2015/07/shore-fishing-green-lakes-state-park-in.html).

One of the benefits of fishing Green Lakes is to learn about how fish behave with your bait. It is hard to find a lake this clear any more that you can actually see the fish. The sunfish and sometimes small bass, will come up to the edge of the lake and you can watch how they respond to your bait. The sunfish were actively feeding between 6 pm and 7 pm, bass started feeding and jumping at around 8 pm. The pumpkinseeds that came up to the edge responded to the splash of the bait hitting the water and to an active lure. They stopped responding when it dropped to the bottom. They were responding to hooks with small spinners and not responding to plain hooks with just worms. The area is so weedy, no split shot or weight is needed. I used size 6 hooks but because they were sucking in the worms and stopping at the point that they felt the hook, I should have brought size 8 hooks. Unfortunately, size 8 hooks with spinners are not easy to find. Bear Paw is one of the few companies that makes them.

Tonight I used my Shakespeare Micro Series Ultra-Light pole with a spincast reel and 4 lb line. Green Lakes is one of the few places I feel confident using it because I'm pretty sure I won't catch anything over 4 lbs onshore and it is nice to be able to feel the delicate hits.

Shore Fishing the Causeway at Otisco Lake, August 01, 2015

We went to Otisco Lake tonight, a very small Finger Lake. The main public fishing area is the causeway, a walkway that used to be a roadway and is now public fishing land. The causeway is on both the East and West side of the Southern portion of the lake but only the West side, on West Valley Road, is accessible. Parking is along the roadway (circled on the map below).

We fished off the roadway instead of the causeway because there were so many people on the causeway. 

We caught a couple of small perch and a white bass, all with spinners and worms. 

  

We started at about 6 pm and got several hits. We got practically no hits after 7 pm. 

   

Shore Fishing the Oswego River Lock in Phoenix, July 30, 2015

Even though the lock walls in Phoenix are filled with goose poop, it is still one of our favorite places to go. We have caught and seen everything here: Black Bass, Rock Bass, White Bass, Gar, Bowfin, Bullheads, Channel Catfish, Bluegills, and now Perch. Tonight we caught a young SM Bass, Rock Bass, and a perch.

The only difficulty I had tonight was setting the hook. I never have problems with this but I was using a new 7 foot medium action spinning rod with 10 lb line, which I know is a lot for smaller fish but it is what I normally use, with the exception of my previous pole being only 6 feet. I'm not sure if it was the rod's lack of sensitivity or that I was getting so many nibbles and every time I tried to set the hook, I just pulled the bait away from it, so I started waiting longer to set the hook. In either case, I'm going to look into getting a medium/light rod with 6-8 lb line.

Shore Fishing at Oneida Shores County Park, July 29, 2015

There were two decent areas I found for shore fishing. One is the shoreline near the camping area and one was the boat docks. Without camping, the shoreline near the camping area meant paying to get into the main park and walking from the main park or parking in the camping area. It is very weedy and shallow on the shoreline so I tried weedless jigs with Berkeley bubblegum crawlers.

It was pretty to sit in this area and available because there were no campers but I got no hits. So, I moved to the boat docks. The boat docks were also shallow and I brought up lots of weeds. I've said this in other posts but I have never had any luck shore fishing the Oneida Lake or River. I have the best luck in the Oswego River. Today was no exception. 

If you strike out like me on Oneida Lake, you can soothe your ego by riding some fish in the park.