I had the pleasure of getting out on Owasco Lake while I was home in New York last weekend and my girlfriend Jackie and I had a very successful 3 hour fishing trip. She had not been fishing in many, many years so I was being tested. We only had about four hours of daylight left and this would be our only chance to fish during the weekend. I started the trip by making a stop to the local bait shop at the South end of the lake; we purchased 18 Mooneye Minnows to use as bait. We then traveled back to the dock, packed the boat and headed out. Being under the gun for time, I went to a "honey hole" that my Grandfather has taken me to for as long as I can remember, and we placed four poles in the water, all baited with lively minnows. After about 10 minutes, we decided we should eat our sandwiches before the fishing consumed all of our time.....well one bite in and the fishing took over! We had 9 hits in three hours, hauling in 6 Lake Trout (the limit in NY State is 3 per person, per day ), all of which were over 20 inches in length. We were fishing in about 80 feet of water and all but one of our hits were on the bottom. It has been my experience that the Lake Trout prefer the deeper water and usually cruise the bottom.
The largest of the 6 ( pictured above, was caught by Jackie ) was a 26-inch trout with an estimated weight of about 7 pounds! Quick tip: If you don't have a scale available to you, as long as you measure the length and girth of the fish you can estimate the weight quite accurately here. Once we had our limit, we headed back to the dock to show off our catch to our family who was quite surprised at our quick success.
This trip goes to show just how successful you can be if you know where the fish are during a certain time of year from past experiences and know the diet of the fish you are going after. Of course we had some luck on our side, even given all the perfect circumstances you are not guaranteed a successful trip! I was able to share this trip with my girlfriend and the smiles and excitement she had made it the most rewarding part of the trip for me. Even if I did not catch a thing, just seeing her with that Lake Trout with a smile from ear to ear made the trip well worth it for me. We all need to remember that sharing the outdoors is just as rewarding as experiencing it on our own...if not even more rewarding!
I've attached some of the pictures from our trip to this post and also added them to our Media page.
If you ever find yourself out on Owasco Lake, remember the rigs and bait I detailed in previous posts and hopefully that gives you a jump start on the competition!
The largest of the 6 ( pictured above, was caught by Jackie ) was a 26-inch trout with an estimated weight of about 7 pounds! Quick tip: If you don't have a scale available to you, as long as you measure the length and girth of the fish you can estimate the weight quite accurately here. Once we had our limit, we headed back to the dock to show off our catch to our family who was quite surprised at our quick success.
This trip goes to show just how successful you can be if you know where the fish are during a certain time of year from past experiences and know the diet of the fish you are going after. Of course we had some luck on our side, even given all the perfect circumstances you are not guaranteed a successful trip! I was able to share this trip with my girlfriend and the smiles and excitement she had made it the most rewarding part of the trip for me. Even if I did not catch a thing, just seeing her with that Lake Trout with a smile from ear to ear made the trip well worth it for me. We all need to remember that sharing the outdoors is just as rewarding as experiencing it on our own...if not even more rewarding!
I've attached some of the pictures from our trip to this post and also added them to our Media page.
If you ever find yourself out on Owasco Lake, remember the rigs and bait I detailed in previous posts and hopefully that gives you a jump start on the competition!
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