Apthorpes Fishing & Hunting Adventures

Lake Nettogami 2011

2012-02-09T22:14:00.001-05:00

Lake Nettogami 2011

CLICK ON THE ABOVE LINK TO SEE A COOL MOVIE

I have been playing with Animoto and lifted slides from last year's fishing trip tfor this video.
This was an Air Cochrane trip to Nettogami Island, Northern Ontario.

Too windy for Seneca...looking at one week of photos from the fall

2012-01-08T18:57:00.000-05:00

We were supposed to go out this weekend to nail some perch on Seneca, but while the temperature was perfect, the 20-30 mph winds defintely made it impossible. Next weekend!!!!

So I was just looking at an album of photos from the fall that I took with a trail cam. I put this camera up for 7 days over looking a scrape at my friend's property in Bloomfield. There some 3 really big bucks and a ucnh of little ones. I ilke the photo of the doe actually laying on top of the scrape....talk about flirting?!?!?! I also like the turkey photo.

It is amazing how many deer there were at this scrape over the week.

Hunting for Oak Leaf Grubs

2012-01-01T10:36:00.002-05:00

Fishing, similar to hunting, is so much more than the moment when there is a buck in your sight or a fish on the line. It is the time with family, friends and self....it is the adventures you share....the stimulus of the triumphs and agony of the one that got away...

And so it was yesterday that Jake, Dave and I went exploring for Oak Leaf Grubs. We got onto Oak Leaf Grubs a few years ago when the gentleman in the picture below shared, after much pleading on my part, that Oak Leaf grubs is what he used for bait. Little did I know how difficult it was to get this grub for bait. Only one bait store in the area is able to order them.

Seneca Lake Monsters

Jake & Dave-Mighty grub hunters

The bounty

Last year we went out on a cold winters day only to find the stream frozen and we caught 3 grubs in 3 hours. Dave, Jake and I were going to go fishing yesterday AM on Seneca but there was a cold front moving in with 20-30 mph winds. We decided to use this time to try our luck panning for grubs. Well I am happy to report that after 2 hours we actually caught 65 of these grubs of gold. Jake was in waders using the bamboo minnow net and crab rake that were both constructed by his great-grandfather Willard Morton of Mayville, NY.

With bait in hand, the next trick will be hoping the weather gods give us a couple nice weekends to put these grubs to work.

Mitchell's in Charlotte can order these grubs....but what is the fun in that?

Mitchels Live Bait and Tackle in Charlotte, Rochester on CitySquares

It is January 1, 2012 and I genuinely wish anyone who reads this blog can find time to go fishing and/or huning with family or friends this year.

Winding down shotgun season

2011-12-10T06:50:00.000-05:00

I have given up on the out in the woods an hour before work routine of the past 20 years. I have found that doing this only results in getting tired and cold by the time daylight strikes.....then you blow your hunting by fidgeting...I have been out in the woods at 7 am and have enjoyed seeing more deer than ever before in my life.

With 4 doe tags to fill I headed out to Bloomfield and enjoyed an awesome day of hunting, reading, and probably walked 2-3 miles up and down ridges hunting with a family member JP. Tons of turkeys today and the melting snow made it very slick walking down the ridges such that I took a slip and slide down a muddy slope worthy of the TV show 'Wipeout".


10pt with 11th point broken shot with Jake's 20 gauge single shot

JP and his "Bad Boy" electric buggy saved the day for hauling this big guy out of the woods. Brud is in Florida running the beaches with Molly so JP was called in to help. Very grateful that he obliged.

Hunting season progresses

2011-11-25T08:40:00.000-05:00

Looking out from my ridge top seat in Bloomfield

Today is the 7th day of gun season and we have had a lot of fun. Yesterday Jake and I were out to Bloomfield with Brud and a friend of his. In the morning Jake saw 3 bucks and I saw load of does. Later in our walk along the ridges I saw a nice 8 pt run towards Jake. The buck actually went 10 yards behind him while Jake was watching a group of a does when he turned the buck took off....a few seconds later he saw the buck again, only this time an even larger buck was with him.

Jake wearing his Great-grandfather's hunting coat

Jake was not happy.

Jake and Charlie unsure of the German sample platter

Another highlight of our week was taking Jake and Charlie to Swan Market, truly a male paradise....essentially it is a German butcher shop with more types of knockwurst, bratwurst, etc than one could ever imagine.

In the afternoon Hannah, Jake and I went out for an afternoon hunt. There was an incredible amount of water on the property we were hunting on.

Hannah at the wheel

Trekking through the grass on Cheese Factory Road

Day 3 produces a nine point

2011-11-22T07:31:00.001-05:00

9pt Bloomfield NY

Day three of the season was a good one. The wind was out of the NNE which dictated my hunt yesterday AM. I decided to hunt the area where my trail cam had picked up all those pictures of nice bucks the previous week. I purposely came at dawn break as I knew it would be quiet walking. I had observed the rut in full swing the last two days so I thought I might catch one nosing a doe or hear one grunting. Sure enough 100 yards into the woods this buck ran up to me with his nose on the ground. As I raised my gun he took off, and hunting with a black powder Omega 50 cal I was not going to pop off a quick shot. The buck stopped about 50 yards from me and presented his front shoulder between two trees. I shot, he ran about 100 yards and died literally on the main tractor path.

I got him home and tried to call in the tag # to the DEC, but their system does not allow you to use Blackberrys to key in the report. This is an unfortunate flaw with their system as I had to find a land line to call it in.

That evening Jessica and I headed out to the Krause property and sat in the large platform. We counted 11 turkeys. At dusk two does walked up to us and Jessica did not have a quality shot. I took a shot, hit her, but after an hour of looking we decided to come back this AM to find it. Day 3 and our hunting party has 5 bucks hanging.....not too bad.

Day deer season

2011-11-20T14:03:00.000-05:00

Well it is halftime of the 2nd day of the season. I am watching the Bills lose to Miami but am enjoyoing Hannah's piano playing in the background.

A wild couple of days. Yesterday I went out to the same spot I have started opening day for the past 16 years which is out in Bloomfield. I saw a bunch of does and some small bucks. Walking out to the gas line I saw a nice 10 point buck about 200 yards away. 20 minutes later I was walking out to the edge of a corn field where I saw a gigantic deer run acroos with two doe. I really thought it might have been a mule deer it was so big. I went up to a ridge and sat on a bucket where I watched bucks busy chasing does and I probably would have shot one, but I had visions of a bigger deer for the season, so I passed.

On the way home I got a text from my friend Scott who said he had shot one on the property we lease across the street. So I went and helped him find it, gut it, and hang it.

Scott with his 6pt

This morning I went out to Bloomfield again. Passed ona three bucks that were too small. Brud shot a 7 point that had been wounded. Later I determined it was a deer I had seen the previous day while siting on the bucket. I helped him clean this deer up.

Brud's 6 point

I also took done a web cam near this bucket that Jake and I had put up for a week. Below are the photos;

Getting ready for opening day

2011-11-14T17:47:00.001-05:00

We had fun archery season and prepping for gun season. Yesterday Dave, Scott, Edd, and Adam sighted in our guns at Adam's backyard shooting range. I put the first two in the bulls-eye shooting my blackpowder Thompson Omega .50 and a third bulls-eye with the kids 20 gauge. Hannah and Jessica joined us and took a few shots with the 20 gauge. They were awesome, each coming an inch of the bullseye....I will feel better about them going to the prom now...

Afterwards we all up to my garage where JP and Mark joined us with an 8 pt that JP had shot in the morning. We spent the evening cutting up the deer and cooking fresh back strap on the komado grill...it was like heaven!

Friday Jake and I went out to the Hedges farm to fix some stands and cut shooting lanes. Just as we finished we saw our first snow flakes for the year, but fortunately they did not stick. That evening while bow hunting I got the cartoon below from a friend....too funny as it totally captures what I would call a quality "tree stand".

Ontario fishing...Finger Lakes fishing....Bow seaon

2011-10-23T09:12:00.002-04:00

Lake Nettogami

There is a fire in the fireplace and the sunrise is illuminating the crisp fall color outside my window. Ironically I opted to sleep in this AM after spending most of yesterday bow hunting and now as I write I am watching 2 8pt bucks outback heading towards my tree-stand. I have to laugh as I am in violation of my own number one rule of deer hunting....."You won't get a deer unless your in the woods!"

Lake Nettogami sunset

I intend to bring this blog up to date on our fishing adventures since May 2011. Let's start with Lake Nettogami June/July and our 8th Air Cochrane fishing trip. This was a trip was a very typical northern Ontario summer fishing trip. Temperatures varied between 45-75 with several fronts moving through the area.

Jake 40" pike, July 1 2011

We caught several hundred walleye with Jake catching a 40" pike and Josh catching a 36" pike....as always Fish Tek spinner baits carried the day. This year I fished with an ultralight rod and jigged for walleye on 4 pound test....it was a blast.

Ben with a nice walleye

There had been a terrible storm last year that blew down a ton of trees that made the walk to "Lost Lake" impassible.

Trail to Lost Lake

After the great luck from last year and finding the large schools of whitefish on this lake we were disappointed not being able to get over there. The very first day Dan and Rob portaged a boat across a beaver dam to a neighboring lake (pond) and caught a lot of small walleye.

Shore lunch on the peninsula

This year's highlights included Uncle Shu's run in with the "FOPP" while chasing a white mini-van, his obsession with cooking with flames both on shore and on the grill. A couple baseball games on the island. Shore lunches and swimming off the peninsula. Uncle Rob's dive in the lake after a rod that went in.

Below are some video clips from our trip.

Josh Wilkes with a beauty

Danny Walsh putting on a clinic

The sea turned angry...Cayuga Lake jigging

2011-05-24T21:11:00.000-04:00

We spent a great day on Cayuga Lake yesterday. It was my first time on the lake and boy was it beautiful. We had the great pleasure of fishing with renounce jigging expert John Gualke

I have fished a lot of water in my day, but John did with us was pretty remarkable. John put us on lake trout jigging his patented technique using these gigantic jigs. Well, if I had not experienced it first hand, I would have been very suspect of his technique...but it really works great!!! We landed 4 and had lots of hits. The wind came up very abruptly to about 20 mph and the lake turned very snotty. We put on the Type 1 life jackets and made a very wet and bumpy ride back to the launch.

The Niagara Bar and beyond

2011-05-15T20:17:00.000-04:00

What a 20 hours of fishing with Shu, Dave, and Cousin Tommy.We ended up on the Niagara Bar off Fort Niagara early Saturday morning. An strange heavy fog descended upon us, but we managed to catch a few fish. We caught lake trout, which you cannot eat. But they are very fun to catch.

Warm night on Conesus Lake

2011-05-15T08:41:00.000-04:00

One of the first warm weeks of the year and I was fortunate enough to get a text message on Thursday from my friend Jim inviting me to go out walleye fishing on Conesus Lake that evening. The weather was so good all week that this invite came at the perfect time. We fished from 7- midnight. While we did not catch any walleye, Jim did land a monster of a largemouth bass on a stick-bait troll. Easily the biggest largemouth bass I have ever seen north of the Mason Dixon line.

The lake as flat as glass and the water temperature was already 63 degrees, a sharp contrast to the 40+ degree water in Lake Ontario just a few miles to the north. The water did have lots of algae balls, leftover from last year that would get on your lines quite a bit.

I was very impressed with Jim's homemade planer boards and planer mast.....very creative.

Jim with this beast of a largemouth

Cold afternoon on Keuka Lake

2011-04-19T17:04:00.002-04:00

Fishing by the Boy Scout Camp on Keuka Lake

Dave, Tom and I spent the afternoon on the branch of Keuka Lake. We launched at the boat launch in Penn Yan around 1:00. The current was really ripping in the outlet. We took a quick look down the outlet to see if the crappie were in yet, but the water was still too cold. 41 degrees. The water was crystal clear. My guess we had 10-20 foot visibility.

Dave & Tom

Released this nice smallie

We used minnows and caught about 15 perch and 1 large smallmouth all day. We kept 9, but only 3 were larger than 12 inches. It rained, snowed, and sleeted. Tough day of fishing, but we were not skunked! We caught the fish in 8 feet of water and by the end of the day we were catching them in 50 feet.

Winter Nettogami Party

2011-03-13T10:27:00.002-04:00

Last night our Lake Nettogami crew got together to celebrate what has become an annual celebration of our father/son fishing trip to Lake Nettogami. We compiled our photos and had a fun slide show. Last year's trip highlighted the badger and late night jokes of Slurpees and 7-11s. Lots of laughs and great memories. We all agreed to load up on our dark Fish-Tek MSBs and lead core line for those elusive whitefish.

Mid-winter panning for "gold"

2011-02-27T17:10:00.000-05:00

I have fully come to appreciate the fact that there are 3 kinds of perch....dink perch which are 8 inches or less....big perch which are 8-14 inches....than there are JACK PERCH which are 14-20 inches. For the past three years I have been listening to those experienced with consistently catching the jack perch on Seneca Lake. One of their "secret weapons" is called the Oak Leaf Grub.

Oak Leaf Grub

This is a bait that is difficult to find and is the subject of much fishing folklore. You can only find these grubs during the winter months as they become Crane Flys.

Today, with the warm weather, Jake, John, Dave, and I took John's Bad Boy and headed out to the woods to see if we could find these elusive critters. We got a mile into the woods and the Bad Boy got stuck a few times too many. The last time it got so hung up in the deep snow that we decided to leave it until tomorrow as there is supposed to be a big meltdown. From there we hiked another mile, Jake and Dave in their waders, to our destination. To our surprise the stream was frozen. We thought the recent warm-up would have had it open. Jake and Dave eventually punched a large enough hole through the stream that we were able to do our work.

A lot of work, but a lot of fun too.

Ice Castle Weekend in Mayville: Day 2

2011-02-22T08:39:00.000-05:00

On Monday Jake, Miika, Jessica and I headed out to Dewittville Bay, or what our good friend Jim would refer to as "Livak's pond". There was about 10" of fresh snow on the ice so the walking was not near as treacherous as the day before.

We walked almost a mile out where we set up base camp in about 14 feet of water. The ice was about 4 inches thinker than it was in Mayville the day before. The ice was a good 14 inches thick here.

On the ice we caught much bigger perch than in Mayville, but not very many. About 12 is how many we caught.

Ice Castle weekend in Mayville: Sunday fishing

2011-02-22T08:22:00.001-05:00

On Sunday a whole crew of us parked at the railroad depot in Mayville, New York and headed out about 1/2 mile directly out on Chautauqua Lake in front of the Ice Castle. The lake was sheer ice with no snow on it so it was treacherous walking.

The ice was about 8 inches thick and Jimmy had his workout for the week as he drilled the bulk of the holes. Uncle Cam and I spent the bulk of our time putting minnows on hooks and taking fish off youngsters poles. Our core crew was Keith, Mark, Mathew, Jimmy, Miika, and Uncle Cam....on and off throughout the morning we were joined by many family members and friends.

Caught a lot of perch, the size of which are fondly referred to as "dinks" by the locals. We enjoyed homemade Manhattan chowder, hot cocoa on the ice, and Caged Alpha Monkey Ale.

Seneca Lake again produces!!

2011-02-22T07:26:00.000-05:00

Seneca Lake continues to be the fisherman's paradise. I love this lake. The perch on this lake defy all perceptions of what big perch are. Dave and I took 1/2 day of vacation to take advantage of 45 degree weather and light winds to fish for a few hours. Once again the perch were in the honey hole!!!

Strike out on Irondequiot Bay

2011-02-01T17:03:00.001-05:00

Shuman cooking clam chowder

Well Shu and I went out to Irondequiot Bay Saturday and joined the rest of the 300+ crazies on the ice. There were Clams as far as the eye could see. We had a feast on the ice with our Swan's brauts and hots.....clam chowder....yum!!! Which was good because the fishing was awful. Shu caught the only perch. We saw a lot of alewives as they swam around our ice holes. Ice Shanty had reported the fishing was still slow there, but we had a blast anyhow. We stayed until the waning hours of daylight and was the second to last clam to leave the ice. Earlier in the day there were a group of six clams and two deep fryers....they were all frustrated because they were thinking they were going to deep fry the perch on the lake, but they did not catch one perch all day!.

The ice was a good 8 inches thick and we were fishing in 30 feet of water. I brought my propane heater in the clam and several times did we get the temperature above 100 degrees in the clam.

Slow day on Cranberry Pond

2011-01-17T10:25:00.001-05:00

Cranberry Pond looking north over Lake Ontario

Yesterday morning a group of 8 fathers/sons and friends headed out for our first ice fishing outing of the year. I felt that Irondequiot Bay was our best opportunity to catch big perch, but reports on IceShanty were that the ice was still questionable. We stopped at Mitchells Bait & Tackle and discussed strategy. We ended up going to Cranberry Pond with a bucket full of 6 different types of minnows.

Dave cleaning ice hole....ice was 6-8 inches

There is a parking lot for fisherman on the northwest corner of the "pond". This pond is fed by Lake Ontario and supposedly holds a lot of perch. We spent several hours with tip-ups and poles with live minnows, but we only caught one 4 inch perch. It was the worst day of ice fishing ever! There was probably 20 mph winds on the lake. Fortunately we stopped at a local diner and had a great hot meal after wards, so the boys were not too disappointed. I think the local definition of big perch on Cranberry pond is around 8 inches, versus my definition of big perch which is 16-20 inches.

Little Shu and Big Shu packing up our ice sled

2011 starts with snow and big perch on Seneca Lake

2011-01-09T08:39:00.002-05:00

Dink perch on a Seneca Lake perch

Jake (15), myself and Dave had a great day on Seneca Lake yesterday. We had spending the last couple of weeks reading iceshanty threads to see if, when, and where we would go ice fishing. The lakes with ice were reporting fish, but little ones.

Perfect conditions

On a whim, Friday night we discussed hitting Mr. Flanagan's secret honey hole on Seneca Lake which has produced good fish in the past. Seneca can be a tough lake because it turns real rough, real quick. The forecast called for light winds, but even better there was a low pressure system moving in which is good for fishing.

Needless to say we had quite a day. We saw one other boat on the lake. There was a small boat with two guys pulling up to the launch area as we were heading out into the lake. We were a little dismayed at first when they said that they had only got two all monring.....that is till we realized they were duck hunters and they were referring to the fact that they had only shot 2 ducks.

We went to our favorite spot and in 15' foot of water, with fathead minnows from the Outdoor Store. We probably caught 70 fish, keeping 45 over 12".....making for an awesome fish fry that night for our family!

Wrapping it up.....2010 is almost in the books!!!

2010-12-15T19:12:00.000-05:00


Can you see the deer? In the stream through the ice.

It is the last week of muzzle loading and it is a winter wonderland outside. What a fun season so far. John P. nailed a nice 9 pointer on the leased property, Bill a 6, Brud a 10 pointer, Dave a 7 point, and an 8 pointer for myself. Jake got a doe and I put three does in the freezer. Scott, well, let's just say he knocked off some quality DIY projects at home.


Jessica and I in our southern stand on Suors property.

I enjoyed a year of hunting with all my children this year. I saw 7 different bucks out of the southern Suor stand. On Dec. 11 I saw 31 deer at Brud's house in Bloomfield, passed on 2 small bucks and shot an 8pt. I was glad Jake was there to help me out dragging the beast out of the ravine in which it ran into. Afterwards Jake and I went to Ionia to Sweet Solutions for a breakfast meant for kings.

More photos from the season!

Mr. Flanagan's secret dish

Jake and Hannah fighting over Fr. Flanagan's cooking!

Jake hauling my 8pt to the road

.50 caliber muzzleloader Omega Encore

Jake ready to help drag

Winding down bow season, prepping for gun season

2010-11-15T08:13:00.000-05:00

Hannah on watch for a trophy!

Well we are winding down the bow season, albeit the bucks continue to be on the move. I missed a gigantic buck, shooting just over his back. I thought he was 40 yards, but was more like 25. I was not too upset as I thought it was pretty cool to see buck that large. 200lb+ 10-12 points. We have seen two other trophy bucks around as well as lots of 6-8 pointers.

Yesterday I was in one stand on a creek where I watch a black mink swim by with a frog in his mouth. Jake was in another stand close by and heard to bucks fighting close by.

Looking out from the stand with all the action.

Opening day and lessons learned

2010-10-19T21:15:00.000-04:00

Opening day of bow season witnessed 20 mph winds. Jake had to go to football practice in the morning and off with friends in the afternoon. I headed back to the southern stand on the Suor property that Jessica had helped me sew a blind cover around just three days earlier. This stand is exactly 3/4 mile due south of my house. As I approached the stand I kicked up a doe that had bed down under the stand.....a good sign I thought. From 4-6:30 I saw at least 12 does that moved from north to south, into the wind, all pausing below my stand eating acorns. At dusk an 8 point walked out of the brush with his nose to the ground moving at a pretty good clip into the wind 30 yards west of my stand. I drew my bow and barked at him to stop. He did and as he took off my arrow flew. It hit the front shoulder and made a loud crack. He jumped and really took off. Thinking I hit him good I decided to sneak out of the woods and come back in the morning. I let the woods in a direction I believed to be far away from where he ran.....I found out the next AM that in fact I had actually walked in the exact direction the buck ran and I am sure this resulted in me pushing him.

That night Dave cooked JP and I an awesome steak with wild mushrooms in celebration of the successful hunt.

Well the next morning JP joined Jessica, Jake, and I to find this buck. As we drove down the Suor field a large 50-60 pound coyote jumped out in front of us. My heart sank as I knew if coyotes were in the area chances were pretty good that my buck had been their dinner.

Jake and JP on the trail

Jessica in field where the trail went cold

Arrow bit off by the buck

We immediately found the blood trail and followed it for 1/2 mile into the Krause property where it went cold. We spent the entire day looking for that deer, but to no avail.

My lesson learned is, even though it was dark, I should have waited an hour in my stand before heading home so as not to push the deer.

Fishing and bow shooting...love the fall

2010-10-10T19:08:00.000-04:00

Jake aiming for the bullseye

Miika lands a bullhead

This weekend has been absolutely beautiful. This morning Jake and I did a lot of bow shooting from 20,30, and 40 yards....each point marked with pvc pipe in the ground that doubled for holding our arrows. We them went out behind our house and Jake climbed into our oldest stand, 16 years+. Up in the tree he held one end of a 100' tape measure as I was holding the other end marking different distances that corresponded with our bow sight pins.

Hannah is focused

Dad with a 3lb bass

Later in the day I took Tracy and the kids across the road to the new property we are leasing to fish on two of the ponds. These ponds are the origins of Irondequiot Creek. They are tucked away against the hillside along side of Cheese Factory Road. The ponds have woods on one side and open corn fields along the other. The kids caught several bullheads. I caught a 3 pound largemouth bass while pulling a popper in by hand as my fighing line was tangled up. The fish took my lure literally 3 feet from where I was sitting on the shore. The bass was the lightest colored bass I had ever seen.

The girls have joined the ranks

2010-10-03T11:22:00.001-04:00

This weekend my girls and I spent at Heritage Outdoor Sports in Phelps NY. On Saturday the girls took their archery safety course and Tracy even scored a 100 on the exam. Part of the bow course required them shoot at various targets . They did great and i was really proud of them.

Afterwards we went out to the woods and did some trail work on a new property we are hunting.

Chautauqua muskys and Honeoye Falls ten pointers

2010-09-21T06:59:00.000-04:00

Dawn on Chautauqua Lake

The fall season got underway with a bang this past weekend. It all started when my Uncle, and childhood fishing/hunting mentor, Cam called me up last minute to see if I could take his son's place on musky charter. I am always up for musky fishing, but when he said we were going with acclaimed Chautauqua Lake fisherman Mike Sperry, I was definitely catching that boat!

We met Mike at 7:00 AM at the Bemus Point boat launch. The mist was heavy on the water, and the sun was just beginning to illuminate the white mist blowing across the surface of the lake. It was a classic fall morning with the air temperature about 45 degrees and sounds of migrating ducks/geese in the air.

Uncle Cam with a beauty

Caught on a figure 8

It had been about 7-8 years when I first met Mike at a musky show in Butler, PA. He was the President of the Chautauqua Lake Musky Hunters Club and signed me up as a member. Mike is relatively new to the charter captain business, but he is an old pro at catching muskys on Chautauqua Lake. With a 5-7 SWS wind, and 60 degree water temperature we fished primarily in the center of the lake.

Although we only fished for four hours, I felt like I had experienced a week long vacation. We caught 2 muskys and had 2 follows, which was fantastic....as every musky fisherman knows, this is a LOT of activity for 4 hours of fishing. In addition, Mike is so knowledgeable about musky fishing that it is almost like putting on a clinic when you go fishing with him.

At the same time I am fishing for muskys, my Blackberry was burning up. My son Jake and close friend JP were sending me photos from the trailcams JP placed on a new piece of hunting property that we are leasing together.

One of 25 different bucks on the cam

I just love the fall!

Lake Nettogami 2010

2010-07-09T21:08:00.002-04:00

I am writing reflecting upon another successful trip with Air Cochrane and stay at Nettogami Island. This year there were 3 fathers and 5 (god) sons and as tradition would have it one of the newbies caught the biggest fish, 40" northern pike. Long time northern Ontario and close friend John Shuman would catch the biggest walleye at 25". Also a long standing tradition, both were caught on a dark color Fish Tek lure , albeit this year both fish were caught on the smaller MSB, years past the big ones were always caught on the Fish Tek MSB-150.

Day 1

We drove through Toronto with Black Hawk helicopters hovering in the air a world summit of the G-20 was taking place. There was a lot of teasing that Ben's mom was in one of them to keep and eye on him. We left Shu's house at 7:30 and arrived in Cochrane, Ontario at 8:00 pm. We made our annual mid-day stop at North Bay Don Cherry's for wings. In Cochrane we stayed at the Thriftlodge and enjoyed a dinner at the adjacent sports bar...a sports bar in the sense there is one TV with a baseball game.

Day 2

This AM saw crystal blue skies and I thought for sure we would be out soon after our 8:30AM meeting with Mark at the basecamp of Air Cochrane...but alas, once again it was a hurry up and wait event. The older boys and Shu agreed to fly out first as the same plane was to fly us out, but would have to make two trips. The plan was for them to set the camp up and to get the boats fueled up and ready to go....Jim and I felt obligated to minimize any possible distractions so we ensured that the fishing poles were not loaded on this first trip. While the first group was being flown in Jim, I, Josh and Trevor played euchre in the basecamp. Around noon the plan returned and flew us out to the island. It was about an hour flight, but I was re-assured to see we were in the very experienced hands of our pilot Ron whom I have flown with before. On our flight in Ron pointed out a forest fire burning 50 miles away Hands Andre and George are always a delight to talk to at the loading area. Andre gave us some pointers on fishing the lake adjacent to Nettogami.
Upon arrival to the island Trevor, Jake and Charlie greeted us at the dock waving boat paddles with short lines tied to jigs on the them. They were angry that the poles were not flown in with them, but they were excited that Shu had caught a 27" pike and Jake had a 22" walleye jigging with boat paddles while they waited for our plane to arrive. Apparently this was a fishing tip the pilot Ron had left with them when he dropped them off. Jim and I were perplexed as to why they would have been fishing when they were charged with getting the camp and boats set up?!?!?

The first day fishing witnessed Ben catching the first fish in our boat and Josh catching the largest pike at 30". The weather was very calm and sunny. That night we stayed out fishing till midnight so as to take advantage of the new moon, which was spectacular. The stars were minimal because at midnight the horizon still was orange from the sunset.

Day 3

The next morning saw the weather once again being nice with calm waters. Jake, Ben, and I headed up the lake to fish the narrows. Slow fishing in the morning for our boat landing about 20 fish, mostly pike. Fortunately big Shu caught a bunch of walleye and between all our boats we rustled up enough fillets for a shore lunch. At first I hoped to eat at the eastern point of the peninsula, but when we pulled up to it the air was ripe with a rotten carcass somewhere nearby so we promptly opted for the beach we ate on last year. Ben and I started the fire while Shu and Jake cleaned the fish. The Wilkes boat helped setup for lunch which consisted of fired peppers, onions, mushrooms and fresh walleye.....and it was fantastic. The water was lower than last year so we had more beach to work with. Jake and big Shu sat on their boat seats along the edge of the water soaking their feet when Jake abruptly yelled to Shu that a 5 inch leech was closing in on Shu's foot to which Shu promptly jumped to his feet and danced a fast paced foot jig that one can only describe as Shumazing. After lunch we all headed back to the cabin for rain gear as their was ominous looking weather approaching from the west that later we would learn was a cold front which would stay with us for the balance of our trip.

That evening we held our annual Lake Nettogami fishing contest by which the boat with the most total inches of fish caught in a two hour period would win. Big Shu and I were in a boat, Ben, Jake and Charlie in another, with the Wilkes comprising the third boat.. We headed to the place on the lake that produced well for us at the end of last year's trip. Taking advantage of a North-west wind Shu and I drifted over the roller coaster shaped lake bottom catching 150+" of fish in the first 30 minutes. This tranquil state of fishing utopia was suddenly interrupted by Charlie yelling at us while Jake drove their boat up to ours. Charlie complained that his fish had swallowed his lure and needed help getting it out. They were awed by our total fish count that I shared with them while big Shu removed the lure from the pike. Then Jake, with a devilish look in his eye, wished us well and told Ben to shove their boat off. This grin did not fade as he drove the boat 20 yards down wind from our boat where he stopped the boat and started fishing. Each boy promptly caught fish while drifting over our fishing hole!!!! They proceeded to always stay 20 yards in front of our boat, catching fishing, and quickly passed the 200"+ count. Shu and I shouted angrily at them, calling them unethical, and other such words that should not be printed in a public blog, and which only seemed to fuel their delight. Needless to say, when the two hours were up the boys contended to be victorious while Shu and I claimed it was a victory shrouded in controversy!

Day 4

On day 4, I think I was up early because everyone else was sleeping. In front of our camp I could see the whitefish rising on the mayflies that were all over the surface of the water. Two years earlier I had caught a whitefish on this lake and I had come prepared with a lightweight rod rigged with a popper hoping to have another opportunity to catch one. I hurriedly got dressed, bailed the boat out, and as luck would have it they vanished as soon as I arrived on the water. I know they are very skittish so I drifted the entire length of the bay with my popper a long ways out, but nothing happened.

Big Shu and I decided to portage to the lake adjacent to Nettogami. I called it Lost Lake as I do not think it has a name. The portage entrance is not very well marked and we were not sure how far of a walk it was so we carried our fishing tackle with us first. It was a wet, boggy, 300 yard-ish walk, which weaved through quite a few blow downs and we had to be careful not to tear our rain gear as we climbed under some of these trees. At the end of the trail were two boats flipped over, a motor with a red bandanna on it, and gas tank. There also was the charred remains of a stump that was obviously the center of a camp fire not too long ago and was amazingly still smoldering. Amazing because it must have rained 2 inches the night before and it must have been left by the previous fishing party. The boats looked very tired and it was difficult to determine which one to use. They were flat bottom Lunds whose hulls were pretty banged up and the transoms were very, very tired. In fact Shu and I had to rig up some extra boards to mount the motor on the transom as we feared the flexibility of the transom was such that the motor would rip it off. After much sweat we go the motor on only to find that the motor leaked gas out the back quite profusely, which is probably why there was a red rag tied on it, too bad that it had not been brought back to camp for repairs. So Shu and I removed it and went back to the boat where we had brought an extra motor just in case. We rigged up a paddle to carry the motor on which was the only way we could have carried the 9.9 Johnson outboard that far. By the time we got this motor rigged up we were more than ready to go fishing. Once in the water we could not go very fast as the motor would have clearly broke off the transom. As we pulled away from the shore we saw up the shoreline two more Lunds lying upside down on the brush. This lake was much deeper than Nettogami with several spots being over 30' deep and one place we marked was 46' deep. We fished the entire shoreline of this lake. One place we dubbed "Pike Bay" because we caught a bunch of 30"+ pike. This bay was perfectly calm as the bay was lined with trees including the point that extended into the lake making for a perfect block to the 20 mph winds that was churning up the lake. There was a loon's nest near the point of the bay and the mother loon made it very plain that she was not happy with us fishing there. We did mark several places of the lake that contained large schools of fish at 20'-30' of water. We tried some deep water crank baits as the wind made jigging impossible but come up empty. I am guessing they were schools of whitefish. As we drew near our launching site completing our loop of the lake, Shu pulled up a 25" walleye. A beautiful fish, it was in 4' of water adjacent to a drop off to 15'. This fish and all the other fish we caught on this lake was on a dark colored Fish Tek MSB 125 and MSB 50. We pulled the boat on shore and decided to leave the motor on the boat in case others from our group wanted to come. We did grab the extra gas tank that someone previously had left there and headed down the path in the rain passing the smoldering campfire on the way....with everything soaked from 24 hours of rain I could not believe this thing was still burning.

Day 5

The next day saw the weather being really difficult....20-25 mph winds, driving rain, and temperatures in the 40s. You could see your breath outside and the wood stove in the camp was roaring. I was glad the boys had split a bunch of birch wood the evening before. The wood stove on this this trip was burning more than on all the other seven trips I had been on previously, combined. It was cold. The boys were in knit hats, sweatshirts, and rain suits when we left to go up the lake to an area of Nettogami we dubbed "The Bowl". It was a 20 minute boat ride into the wind with Jake on the bow and Ben in the middle, both boys riding with their heads down and their backs to the bow permitting the driving rain and bow spray to glance off their rain suits. Once in the Bowl we attempted to use an anchor to hold us in position but the wind was too strong so I spent much of the time moving the boat to one end of the bowl in a position so as we could drift across the bowl. We

caught 25+ fish in two hours of fishing. A nice mix of walleye, pike, and blue pike. The conditions, however, made it impossible to stay any longer....blue lips and chattering teeth reminded me of the stern safety warnings I had received earlier from Ben and Jake's mothers respectively just prior to leaving for our trip. Once back at camp we played lots of "Austrian" euchre which is 4 on 4 euchre. The discourse around why big Shu dubbed the game Austrian shall remain in Canada as if it were written here it may cause an international incident. The Wilkes ventured over to the other lake and used the boat we had left rigged up from the day before. They had some luck. Jim was smart enough to figure out the chain in the stern of the boat, which I did not even notice, was to connect to the motor so it would completely fall off the back. Later in the day Big Shu and I were playing cards when Charlie, Ben and Jake returned from fishing. It was miserable wet and cold outside. I was surprised they stayed out that long. Charlie walked in first in his black/gold dripping wet rain suit with a grin on his face asking how many inches of fish Shu and I caught. I said 205" and he grinned saying they only had 160", yet he oddly seemed very excited about finishing behind us. Then Jake and Ben burst into the cabin, both wearing knit hats , glistening wet rain suits, and sporting mile long smiles. Jake shouted "Ben caught a 40 incher!" Charlie, who was laughing like a maniac, gave out a war whoop and sarcastically repeated they only caught 160 inches, but 40 of them belonged to one fish. Jake continued on excitedly with short, stammered statements about the three of them battling this monster, how it was fish to hand combat, how Ben muscled this beast while he (Jake) and Charlie kept the boat from flipping, and how he had to bear-hug the fish in the dip net in order to get it in the boat, and that once in the boat he and Charlie pounced on it to keep it under control. Ben followed Jake's statements repeatedly saying "It's true", it's true!" Ben proudly showed us the pictures of this mighty fish and the entire camp was abuzz with excitement. Ben caught it on the Fish Tek MSB, the true work horse of this trip. I think Ben wore a perma-smile for the rest of our trip. i was also really proud of how they successfully released this fish. Jake explained how he held it up right in the water moving it back and forth until the fish was revived and swam away. This, for me, marked that my son was now a full fledged fisherman and I was very proud of him.

After dinner I paid Jake $20 to help Big Shu and I carry the motor back from Lost Lake. He and Charlie helped us lug the motor back. A lot of work, but well worth it. At dinner the Wilkes cooked up their legendary fishing camp cuisine jambalaya. This has become a real highlight at fishing camp. That night I invited all interested to a 4 am fishing trip and I got muffled responses from the boys citing their need for rest after their heroic battle with Ben's monster.

Day 6

At 4 am Big Shu and I were up and the weather was not good. Probably in the high 40s, 30mph winds, and horizontal rain.....a little more than we were ready to take on. We went back to bed and I enjoyed reading my new book on the Mayflower, something I only seem to do while fishing in Canada. The balance of the day was spent speculating whether or not the planes would come due to the lousy weather. At 5:00 the first plane arrived and the pilot was uncertain if the other plan was coming so we flipped a coin to see who would go back and who might have to spend another night. Jake and the Wilkes went back in the first plane....the rest of us returned to the cabin where we played cards and planned for an evening fishing tournament. Then at 6:00 another plane arrived and we were back in Cochrane around 7:30. We drove 4 hours to North Bay, spent the night at a Ho-Jo's and the next day was Canada Day...ugh! It took us 3 1/2 hours just to drive through Toronto....next year Big Shu said we are to drive through Ottawa. On the way home I emailed Mark Jones and made reservations for next year, and added an extra day.

Special thanks go to my wonderful, beautiful, talented oldest daughter Hannah, who readily decided to edit and revise this piece after some slight persuading on my part.

Lake Ontario and Oak Orchard

2010-05-23T06:46:00.003-04:00

Friday I took a vacation day and went out fishing on Lake Ontario with Dave and his cousin Tom. We took his 19' Grady White, 150 HP Honda and launched at Golden Hill State Park. We were met at the boat ramp by a Bureau of Fisheries employee. He just wanted to know what we were fishing for. The lake was like glass when we started at 6:30. After a slow start our first hit came on Dave's fly rod....that's right his fly rod was one of the rods he had trolling a crank bait. He explained the fly rod provided a unique action that could entice neutral salmon....I never saw anything like it! Well the salmon leaped completely out of the water and broke the leader. We hooked 5 and we lost 5. The wind started to come up from the east and Dave suggested we go in. I did not think the wind was too unreasonable with 1-3' seas, but his experience on Lake Ontario told him it was just the beginning and he was right. We started to head in and not 10 minutes later the Lake went to 3-5' seas, amazing, I had heard many times that the lake can turn like that, but it was the first time I experienced it. We ran 2 miles to the boat launch and I was thinking I was glad we did not go 13 miles out for rainbows which we were pondering earlier in the day as we were smashing up and down on the swells. We pulled the Grady White and grabbed his 40hp Lund. We put in next at Oak Orchard Creek where we caught brown trout, pike, perch, and an ugly fish called goby. This picture is of Tom the next day with a nice salmon.

Limekiln Lake ice fishing March 2010

2010-03-15T20:18:00.002-04:00

Spent 20 hours up on Tracy's camp in the Adirondacks on Limekiln Lake. There was about 8 inches of snow still on the ground. It was glare ice out on the lake. We picked up 20 fat head minnows from our favorite minnow store called the Outdoor Store. Jake and I went out about 8 am and there were already several other groups on the ice. They were smart because they all had power augers and we had a hand one. the ice was surprisingly thick, 20+", way more than the reported 6-8" we had heard from others. It was a little unnerving because we were not too far from open water. We actually saw two 14" ish splake come up to the hole. A very pretty fish, silver with orange colored fins, characteristic of the Salmonidae family. While the ice fishing proved to be tough, the kids once again enjoyed brauts on the ice.

200+ Perch on Lake Chautauqua

2010-02-19T11:39:00.006-05:00

Ice Castle weekend proved to be a lot of fun last weekend in Mayville. On Sunday Jake, Jon and I set up a Clam shelter about 100 yards off the train depot in Mayville, adjacent to the Ice Castle, in about 6 feet of water and caught a pile of perch.

The next day we went out to Dewittville Bay where the weather was awesome, bright, sunny and about 40 degrees. Jimmy, Hannah, Jim Livak, and I caught at least 200 perch...the fish fry afterwards was fantastic. I cooked them up using a simple recipe of Snyders butter snaps, crushed, roll fillets in eggs, and fry....yum-yum.....here we fished in 8 feet of water. We learned later that the fisherman who were 1/2-1 mile out were fishing for walleye.

The above I took experimenting with a Flip video camera and Power Director 7 software.

Ice Fishing on Mendon Ponds

2010-02-01T06:14:00.003-05:00

Yesterday Jake, Mark, Jovan and I spent the afternoon on Hundred Acre Pond in the Mendon Ponds Park. We put in at Hopkins Point pulling our newly constructed ice sled. The temp was about 20 degrees with a brisk 10 mph wind. There were two other clam shells on the Pond. The ice varied from 6-9" of black ice. We fished about 20 holes for 3 hours and did not catch anything. The other fisherman reported a very slow day as well with small northern pikes being the only fish biting. Fortunately our Church, the Mendon Church, was having their annual winter picnic in the nearby West Lodge in the Park, so we were able to get lots of excellent food and the kids were able to get some time in sledding. We had a lot of fun and the kids thought it was cool that much of the equipment we were using was Jake's Great-grandfather/Mark's Grandfather-Willard Morton's old ice fishing equipment that he would use on Chautauqua Lake.

Good day of perch fishing-Seneca Lake

2010-01-17T21:25:00.004-05:00

What a day....Jake, Dave, and I were planning to go fishing today for the past 2 weeks. We had been planning all along to go ice fishing on Irondequoit Bay, but the reports on iceshanty.com were not very promising. The ice reports were bad and the lightweights on the ice said dinks were abound. Dink fishing is no fun. Call me spoiled, but when our neighbor Dave asked me years ago to go perch fishing I was not very excited because perch fishing on Chautauqua Lake meant catching a lot of 4-6" fish...BORING...When Dave told me we were fishing for perch 12-18" I thought he was dreaming...fast forward 10 years....there ain't a perch going in our bucket that is not at least 12". Well today was no different, we went to Seneca Lake with a 5mh SE wind and headed out with fresh minnows from the Outdoor Store in Bloomfield....the BEST place to buy minnows in the Finger Lakes. Everybody was in 25-30' of water and the reports said 30-40' of water....we caught 70-90 perch in 12' feet of water.We only kept perch that was 12" or longer and we had a total of exactly 50 perch after 3 hours of fishing. A great day and a lot of fun.....dinner was fantastic tonight!

The hunt is still on....

2009-12-08T17:58:00.003-05:00

Well my friends have been scoring some nice bucks thus far this year. Dave is holding a six point that had 13" tines. Jake and I were with him when he shot this deer at 100+ yards with his single shot Encore. JP is holding his 8 point that he got behind his house. Both of these bucks were shot within a mile of each other near our house. We had a lot of fun cutting these up i the garage with the wood stove cooking. I continue to pursue the big deer out in Bloomfield and my friend Brud reported that he saw him gain tonight, so I know he is still there.

Deer season continues

2009-11-27T10:15:00.004-05:00

Well we continue to hunt morning, noon and night. I have had three more opportunities at the 10 pt buck in Bloomfield, but every time I needed just a few more inches of view. Hunting with a muzzleloader really keeps one focused on taking a carefully placed shot as you typically only have one good crack at it. Jake has done a great job at passing up the little bucks, holding our for a shootable buck. Today we are hunting across the street to see if we can fill some of our doe tags as we only have 8 legal tags to fill?!?!

This picture was taken Thanksgiving AM round 11. It is my favorite spot to take a break after hiking several miles pushing the bush. This shagbark hickory stands proudly alone in this field. The warm sun on our faces lured us both into a comfortable snooze...ahhhh got to love deer hunting.

Fun Opening Day

2009-11-21T18:54:00.003-05:00

We started opening day eve with my good friend Dave cooking a fabulous wild game dinner at JP & Heidi's house. Included wild mushrooms that Dave picked himself. He sauteed up some loins from the deer JP shot during archery. JPs parents joined us and we enjoyed hearing JP's father telling hunting stories from every decade starting in 1940 to the present!

Opening morning had me in my favorite stand in Bloomfield. A very dark and foggy morning. I was in my spot by 5:45. Through the course of the day I saw 5 bucks, one a 200+lb class 10 pt that I missed with my 50 caliber Thompson Omega..albeit it was a good 200 yards. He was with 9 other deer on the move. Hannah joined me for the evening hunt and we saw 8 deer. fun-fun. This picture is her enroute to our spot.

Successful Bow Season

2009-11-08T22:10:00.005-05:00

Well we have had a lot of excitement around here this fall. Jake headed out to the woods for the first time as a bow hunter and we have had a lot of fun. We have been hunting behind our house in Mendon and one morning we were out to Gorham. The weather has been very, very nice. It reallys is great living in this part of America. Last night Jake and I were together in a tree stand when he took his first shot at an adult doe. Perfect shot right through the heart. Later in the day John P. came over with a 7 py he had shot on his property on Quaker-Meeting House. It was so warm that we had to cut up both deer tonight. Lots of rootbeer and kids helped us zip right through it. We even had time to get out into the woods and set up another tree stand. We are using 2 person stands so that we can sit together. We are having a ball!

Catching staging salmon on Lake Ontario

2009-09-16T10:10:00.007-04:00

This past weekend we had a fun day fishing for salmon that were getting ready to make the run up Oak Orchard. My friend Dave setup the trip with the legendary fishing guide We had a great time. Using green and white Jplugs with customized trailer hooks we were able to hook up a couple 20-25lbs salmon. A cold front was moving in with wind moving from the East to the North, with 3-4' seas.

John shared the tidbit about the term "blue plate special" coming from the time period when blue pike was fished out of the Great Lakes and served in local restaurants as a special called the "blue plate special". While this is at odds with Wikipedia's definition, it is interesting.

Aunt Kay's Fishing Pond Overfloweth in Fish

2009-07-22T21:12:00.002-04:00

Mark posed for the big one!

Aunt Kay's pond continues to be the best fishing pond in Chautauqua County if not the state. I sat in my chair and all I did was bait hooks and take off fish. I quit after 62 fish as I was getting dizzy from this blistering routine. The older kids caught some nice 3-7 lb bass and the younger kids caught the largest NY bluegills I ever saw....easy 1 pounders. It was very memorable and will be remembered by all as a great family time.

Jill shows off her big catch!

Jessica scores big too

Jake with one of his many slob bass

Keith really had fun :-)

Browns, Cohos, and Kings abound

2009-07-21T19:09:00.001-04:00

A day on Lake Ontario proved to be a lot of fun. My good friend and I spent a morning on his boat north of Lyndonville, NY. Water temp was 64 degrees and we used an array of green/wiote Taco Flies and Northern King spoons. Between 60 and 80 feet of water proved to be the hot spot with Kings, Browns and Cohos all mixed up. I never saw more clouds of bait fish than I saw on this day. Early in the morning the baitfish were vertically stretched 40ft long, but by noon they were horizontal along the bottom. We caught 2 browns, 2 kings, and a coho. A big one ran the drag out and snapped the line...bet it was a big king.

Lake Nettogami 2009

2009-07-02T07:25:00.000-04:00

Well indeed the story begins..."On a dark stormy night..." as so it was the night which found my son Jake and I just completing a 2 mile drift along the shore of Lake Nettogami casting for walleye and pike. I had caught a few small pike, but Jake was whimsically talking about going to Lake Haultain next year as he had not caught any big fish thus far and he was feeling a little frustrated. Looking through the rain across a lake that had 2' foot whitecaps I said, "Jake, we are going to get aggressive with our fishing strategy tonight, but what we are about to do you have to promise never to do alone..." He eagerly agreed, we loosened our boot laces, and headed to a place on the lake where the full weight of the lake was being pressed by the strong wind against a dropoff. Upon arriving Jake hopped up on the front bench, riding the boat on the whitecaps like a surfer on his board, casting his black Fish Tek MSB towards the shore while I attempted to keep the boat into the wind and off the rocky shallows. I was struck how skillful Jake had become as I watched him casting his Abu Garcia C4 with great determination into a wind driven rain, grimacing as he set his hook on the first cast, followed by a grin of relief and joy as he exclaimed "fish on!"....and so it was he had caught a 42" Northern Pike. After a dicey 10 minute fight, given the wind, waves, dangerously close proximity to the shore, and successful release of the fish I was pretty whipped, but Jake wanted to do it again....so we did....and he caught another 42" pike....the same exact sequence of events from the previous 15 minutes transpired again...and he wanted to do it again...so we did....and this time he caught a 44" pike. This fish was huge and filled the entire width of the boat....he wanted to do it again...so we did...but thankfully the bite was over as I was whipped, covered with Pike slime, fish blood, my blood and a deep sense of satisfaction that "Dad's aggressive plan" paid off....

The Wilkes and Shumans were great fishing partners on this trip to Nettogami. We figured to have caught over 300+ fish. The euchre games and episodes involving the Canadian badger will conjure up laughs for many years. The flight out was an adventure as our pilots skillfully dodged a series of thunder storms. We flew out at 3:00PM and was back home in Honeoye Falls at 3:30 AM.

June Fishing

2009-06-19T20:47:00.001-04:00

Spent a couple days in Chautauqua fishing with my Uncle Cam. The weeds were lower than I have ever seen them. The traditional well defined, tall and heavy, weed beds did not exist. They were there, but what looked to be a month behind schedule. I took water temperature finds with my Clinefinder and water temps were 65-67 degrees down to 22 feet. Rained all day, but it was warm out. Fished two days an the only fish we saw were carp jumping and rolling. Still it is a great warmup to our annual Air Cochrane trip.

Chautauqua Lake fall musky or walleye fishing?!?!

2008-10-12T06:35:00.000-04:00

October 10-11 Jake, Hannah, Jessica and I set out for our annual Columbus Day weekend musky trip to Chautauqua Lake. The weather was beautiful, strangely identical to the same weekend in 2007. Friday morning we set out from We Wan Chu on one of their great Lunds w/15 HP Honda 4 stroke into a thick/thick fog. I used my GPS and really came to fully appreciate the settings I had on it from my previous outing in June at the CL musky tournament. Without the GPS the lake would have been completely unnavigable until 9:00 AM when it thinned out enough to see the shores. Water temp was between 59-61 degrees with air temperature 45 in the AM and 70 in the PM.

We trolled most of the day because there was four of us in the boat and casting would have definitely resulted in someone going to the hospital. Jake had a 36"ish musky follow his lure up to the boat.

Renting a nice boat at We Wan Chu is a breeze and affordable. We boated to Bemus Point and docked at the public dock and walked to the See Zurh House for lunch. Mayville has a large array of resteraunts for dinner choosing.

On the second day we got into large walleye, with 8-10" musky baits?!....on the inside weedline?!?!...at 10:30 AM under a full sun cloudless sky?!?! Frankly the last thing I thought I we would be into was 27" walleye, but the truth is in the pictures. Beautiful fish, which I would have love to have caught on lighter tackle. Catching this size of a fish on a musky rig is like killing a fly with a sledgehammer.

Jake has nailed down the art of baitcasting large musky lures. He was using an 8' St Croix rod with a Abu Garcia reel most of the day casting either Musky Innovation or Fish Tek lures. I was proud of this 13 year old as he did not get one backlash in 2 full days of fishing. The girls were troopers on Day 1 with Jessica offering lots of fishing advice and Hannah knocked off a couple new books I ought for her by Bruce Coville.

I would also like to reflect upon the water quality. In my almost 40 years of fishing on Chautauqua Lake I do not ever recall the water looking as it did this past weekend. The visibility was clear, with weeds 6-12" below the surface. The water was full of green spot algae. I wonder how much of this is related to the influx of zebra mussels. Bill Jacobs has a nice blog on invasive species and provides this link to finding the invsive species of Chautauqua Lake.

Team Fish Tek Returns to Northern Ontario

2008-07-07T21:28:00.000-04:00

Jake and I spent six days last week on Lake Nettogami. Thanks again to the labs of Fish Tek we capitalized on their MSB-125 to catch a load of walleye, pike, and silver-blue pike. On jigs we also caught perch and white-fish. This lake was pretty rough and for 3 days the 3 ft waves prevented us from traveling to the south end. The river at the north end is very shallow with beaver dams so I am not sure why some literature suggests this is a good place to fish. I'll try and post some pictures soon.

Chautauqua Lake Musky Tournament

2008-06-26T06:47:00.000-04:00

Last weekend Shu and I participated in the Chautauqua Lake Musky tournament. Capt. Larry Jones did a great job of putting together a fun program to compliment the fishing. The money raised by this tournament was used to pay the NYS DEC to keep the musky fingerlings in their ponds a little longer before releasing them.

One of the speakers on the first night was the musky historian Larry Ramsell who showed over 100 pictures of 50 pound plus muskys caught through the ages. Each one had a great story. One story featured a picture of a 50+inch musky hanging vertically alongside a proudly well dressed woman in the 1920s. This fish had a large bullet hole in the middle of its tail which came from a disgruntled male angler who was so frustrated with trying to catch it that he took a shot at it. A few seconds later the well dressed woman hooked it.

A couple of local musky angling greats, Pat and Chip, shared great stories with us on Saturday as we sought shelter in Bemus Point from a rain storm. Chip shared a couple of his impressive homemade lures with me and I cannot wait to try them.

In terms of the fishing. I saw one musky and it was a unique sighting. This was a 40+inch musky chasing bait fish on the inside weedline at Bayview Point. I saw her twice. I have always read about fishing the inside weedline, but had always been luke warm about it.....not anymore :-) I believe a total of 8 muskys were caught in the tournament with the largest a little over 48 inches.

The lake temperature was in the high 60's no where were weeds visible to the surface. On the second day we went way up into Celoron casting over the weed beds. The weeds were still two feet below the surface where normally it is choked with weeds this time of year.

We stayed at We Wan Chu, rented a boat there, and will come back in the fall to try again.

Today Jake and I head to Nettogami for week of fishing via Air Cochrane....

Success on Keuka Lake

2008-04-25T22:07:00.000-04:00

Jake Crushed the Perch on Keuka

We headed out at 5:30 AM...Jake was the first one up at 5 and woke me up...that was a first as I always had been the one to wake him up. We had bought minnows from the Outdoor Store in Bloomfield for $1 a dozen. We were in the water by 6:30 AM at the public dock in Penn Yan. Not too busy and the lake was like glass. Water temperature was a 47 degrees with a 8-10 mph SSE wind. Using a pencil weight with a light hook in 20 feet of water we caught load of perch and smallmouth. Jake caught one perch that was 16 inches. Two nights earlier a friend and I fished for bullhead in the outlet and caught 4 large bullheads. These bullheads, coupled with the perch from this trip, made for a great fish fry. Jake was a pro at cleaning the bullhead, claiming he had become an expert from his experiences in the Adirondacks. fishing bullhead. Keuka Lake certainly is a beautiful lake and well be back.

Fish'n with Friends in Florida

2008-04-05T19:01:00.000-04:00

Jake and I spent two full days in Florida Fish'n with our great friends Uncle Rob, Aunt Kate, Allison & Danny. Day one took us to the Stick Marsh. The fishing was slow, with the exception of the trophy snook caught by Alison, aka, the "Snook Slayer"....highlights are captured on this video/

Chautauqua Lake Musky Hunters Club

2007-11-12T05:11:00.000-05:00

I was disheartened to learn that the CLMH Club had dissolved recently. Mike Sperry and the other club officers did a great job for 5+ years. It has to be incredibly difficult to run a traditional club in today's world of extreme demands for peoples' time. I enjoyed writing the newsletter, and was going to pick it back up once I was done with my dissertation next spring. This club had a good mission, and was run by good folks who are excellent musky fisherman. Hopefully this club will only be dissolved for a short period. These are some pictures I have from when I was writing the news letter...the first one is the well published photo of the Chautauqua Lake Hatchery crew holding a monster musky. The second historical photo is of the hatchery crew netting the muskys. The CLMH were good stewards for muskys on Chautauqua Lake and their efforts will be missed.

October Chautauqua Lake 49" Muskellunge

2007-10-08T08:42:00.000-04:00

The kids and I spent the weekend in Mayville muskellunge fishing. Although we only landed one fish, boy was she a good one!. Our boat was in the shop for repairs, so we rented a boat from We Wan Chu at 7:30 AM on Sunday. Jake was the pilot and we started our trolling runs at the Bell Tower. We had a Fish Tech MSB 250, black, on one line and a Believer on the other line. The water was calm with air temperatures at 71 degrees and a green glaze of algae across the surface. After a few passes we headed to the opposite shoreline. At approximately 10:30 AM this giant fished crushed our lure and the 15 minute fight was on. Jake and I worked the fish together. We also successfully released this fish!

This fish measured out to be 49" and weighed 34 lbs.

The fish was very golden in color with deep red fins. The fish was very healthy with no signs of sores or stress.

More pics & memories of Haultain

2007-07-17T05:23:00.000-04:00

This is a great picture of my grandfather holding a northern pike he caught with my Uncle Cam in Canada in the 1970's. He was always proud of this fish. This was a 40"+ pike that he caught in a canoe! I thought of him a lot on our last fishing trip. I know he would have loved the setting: moose and loons in the water, incredible sunsets, and strong camp coffee. Clint and I enjoyed this trip and are grateful for the skills passed on to us by he and our Uncle Cam.

Here are some more pics I just got from the Fish Tek CEO in the mail yesterday. I also got a great bag of tallywackers for my GrizzleyTail
Thanks Angus!

This picture looks out from our dock. The water along the shore has a fair number of leeches that are visible, but rarely do they latch on to you. In the evening we would sit along this shoreline and solve all the world's problems. This picture was taken around 10:30.

This picture is Clint holding another nice pike. He was exclusively using Fish Tek tackle on 50lb superbraid line on a spinning reel. He really showed off his fishing prowess on this trip. Can you see the reflections of large raindrops on a metal roof in his eyes? He had the pleasure being on the topbunk the night before when we experienced several downpours on a metal roof.

This is an areial shot of Haultain and Lil' Haultain off to the east. In Lil' Haultain we made some interesting discoveries. One is the water was over 30' deep. Secondly, I pulled a 12 inch whitefish out of the mouth of a 24" pike. We did not know there was whitefish there, and later we saw large clouds of these fish on the deep holes in big Haultain. Thirdly, Angus and Clint got into a hand to otter combat with a family of otters that did not like their presence on the lake.

This bucket contains water from the lake. It is difficult to explain to others the color of the water in this lake. I know there is an official name for this type of water, maybe some could share it with me?

This is one of my favorite pictures. Pyrotechnic brothers Angus & Clint made sure that our evenings included a nice shoreline fire. This is a picture of Clint stoking the fire. This picture captures so many great evening memories I have from coming to this lake three times, and hopefully, God willing, I will come again.

Team Fish Tek-Northern Ontario Fishing

2007-07-12T06:48:00.000-04:00

For three days Clint, Angus, Shu and I caught about 200 northern pike. It was a great fishing trip to northern Ontario. We drove 10 hours, 630 miles to Cochrane, Ontario and flew via Air Cochrane 45 miles to a remote lake.

We caught all our fish on large spinner Fish Tek spinner baits. Mepps, Rapalas, Jakes, and Believers produced nothing! The dark MSB was the big producer. Clint caught the largest fish at 42" and Angus caught the meanest fish as it hauled him to the deck of his boat and almost into the water. Shu was dealing with strep like symptoms, but hauled in his fair share of pike out of the weeds.

The above pike came completely out of the water, briefly hitting Angus's troll, but his hands were covered with sunscreen so I dutifully stepped in to cast down this large pike.

This fish caught by Angus, hit the lure twice, and the third time he hit it like a heat seeking missile. It almost pulled him under the boat as it put up an incredible fight. He was laying under a log along the shore in the southern part of the lake.

Clint's Monster Pike at a hopping 42"
He caught this fish along an outside weedline in the morning.

An evening on Honeoye Lake

2007-06-02T05:55:00.000-04:00

Spent a few hours with Charlie, Shu, and Jake on Honeoye Lake last night csting for walleyes. We drifted across the western mid section of the lake casting. I hooked the only two fish. One was a 3 lb largemouth on a worm rig called an Erie Dearie The second fish was a 20 inch walleye caught an the age old classic jointed Silver Rapala About 10:00 the boys grew tired of their fathers conversation and we called it quits.

First Outing on Honeoye Lake-Chase'n Crappie

2007-04-22T20:51:00.000-04:00

This AM we made our annual family outing for the crappie on Honeoye Lake. I was somewhat pessimistic about the day as yesterday my good friend was on Keuka Lake and he said the water temperature was only 39 degrees, hich is way too cold for crappie. We launched at the north end of the lake which is perfect as there is no line-no waiting and it is free! Hannah and Jake took turn driving as they are now licesnsed drivers. We drove to the south end of the lake and were greeted by 35 other boats, all hunkered down on a postage size piece of water. The water temperature was 49.5 degrees, but there was so much sun that by 10:00 AM the temperature was up to 53 degrees and that is when the action picked up. Too many people left early s there was no bite until the temperature hit this mark. The kids caught 13 and their Dad caught "0". Slip bobbers, minnows, and lots of hot cocoa seemed to win the day. The boat ran great and it was a real treat to have Jake drive the boat up on the trailer...no more Dad having to climb in the cold water to pull the boat on the trailer! So, let the games begin :-)

Winter Melancholy

2007-02-04T06:31:00.000-05:00

The wind is 20 mph outside, a fire in the fireplace, and it is snowing. I was just reviewing the Abu Garcia 6500 C4 reels on ebay feeling itchy to be wetting a line. The deep freeze outside allows me to drift into the winter melancholy that curses us warm water fisherman. I have been thinking about a great fishing trip I went on a few yers ago with the legendary adventurer Rob Walsh of Mayville, NY now residing in Fla. We took his boat out on the Stick Marsh and had a real day of 6-8 lb bass and 8-10 foot alligators. I recall the bait we used were live minnows that were 6 inches long and fished with a bobber. The marsh is full of sticks or in laymans terms, underwater trees! Not a place for rookie enthusiasts as across the surface it appears to be a seemingly simple body of water, but lurking inches below the surface are the blunt ends of sawed trees, leftover from when they created this marsh. That is a great body of water that feels good to think about during this cold snap.

Canandaigua Fishing In January

2007-01-07T16:47:00.000-05:00

What a beautiful day for fishing! Who can believe that on January 7th the water on Canandaigua would be 44 degrees and the air temperature 50 degrees?!

Today my neighbor Dave took Jake and I out in his boat for a day of fishing. My friend Dan Sharp of Honeoye Tackle recommended perch fishing on Canandaigua Lake and he was right on. We fished the north end of the lake near the Pump House from 8:00AM to 1:00 PM. A total of 12 keepers and probably another 12 were thrown back. A couple of surprises as I caught this nice smallmouth and a chain pickerel.

Jake was great! He was up at 6:00 AM, dressed in hunting pants and a 70's Army coat. He caught some real nice prch using a minnow and bottom weight. I never had to assist him with tangled lines or the like.

Musky and Pike Pondering

2006-12-24T09:10:00.000-05:00

I find myself thinking about the New Year and what fishing adventures await this year. My friend Dave wants to continue a pseudo tradition of fishing on New Years. We were introduced to perch on Seneca Lake last year, but not just any perch, MONSTER perch. The smallest perch we caught was 14". I guess there really are Jack Perch. We might go there on New Year.

My friend Shu and I are contemplating a return trip to Canada for some pike fishing. I am seriously considering a return the Cochrane as we always catch big pike up there. The picture below is of a 45" pike caught by Shu's nephew Dave. On the first cast! The newest In-Fisherman magazine purports the new Rapala X-rap Xtreme slashbait is THE bait for big suspended musky and pike. I think I might see if I can grab a few for my tackle box this year.

I love the New Year and planning out the strategy for the year! I am going to go back to the Ohio Musky show in Columbus with Jake again this spring. They had some good speakers and I learned quite a bit. I digitally recorded the speakers last year and listened to them on my iPod before every Musky outing. I found that I learned quite a bit from that.

I need to have my Abu Garcia reels. I have been using them for about three years now and I could really tell that they needed to be lubed by the end of the fall season. I am going to have to do my homework on who I can find to tune them up. I used a 7.5 foot St. Croix musky rod for the first time this fall. I LOVED it. I always kind of poo-pood the notion that there was a major difference in heavy casting rods, but there really is. If you like you can find St. Croix rods on the clearance rack at Gander Mountain during certain times of the year.

The Chautauqua Lake Musky Hunters Club has been quiet lately. I hope things are well with the group as they serve an important mission for those of us who love musky fishing on Chautauqua Lake.

Chautauqua Lake Musky Fishing Continues

2006-10-11T23:10:00.000-04:00

The one that got away....

Well, my brother Clint and I fished the northern end of Chautauqua Lake on Monday. It was a beautiful day with lots of sun, peak colors, and geese on their migration. The water temperature was 59 degrees on the surface and the moon was waning, but almost full. I only had one hit and it was a beautiful 40+ inch muskellunge. This fish struck on the eastern weedline on a large spinner bait that I was ripping across the top of the weeds in 12 feet of water.

An interesting, and maybe noteworthy observation, was that this fish struck in the last half an hour of the moon set. On my way to Mayville, the night before, I was listening to a Muskie First podcast and one of the experts explained that the musky bite turns on the last and first 30 minutes of a moon rise/set. hhhhmmmm.......

Chautauqua Lake Musky Fishing

2006-09-19T22:13:00.000-04:00

On September 17 my brother Clint and I spent a large part of the day on Chautauqua Lake musky fishing. It was overcast and the lake was crowded with bass boats for a local tournament. We had a 36' fish follow a crankbait all the way to the boat near Midway, and a huge fish came up on a large spinner bait during the second turn of a figure 8 from under the boat in 6' of water.

Weird water as the surface water temperature was 67 degrees. I dropped a sensor down 24 feet and it was 65 degrees...thinking this wierd I went to deeper water and did the same thing at 55 feet...again 65 degrees. All I could figure was that the lake was turning over, which makes for challenging fishing, but it seems early to me for this type of transition

Easter Sunday at Aunt Kay's Pond

2006-04-24T22:47:00.000-04:00

Travis did a great job with breaking out his tackle box and sharing his best Jitterbug baits with us. Hannah caught this nice lunker as it was sunning in the shallows. Jessica and Jake did just as well. Ole' Bob was comfortable watching from the hilltop as Jake scared him yelling at a nice bass he lost. We had a great time! Thanks Travis, and thanks Aunt Kay for a wonderful Easter!

Chautauqua Lake Crappies

2006-04-17T19:40:00.000-04:00

Today the kids and I successfully got into the crappies. We put in on Cha u tauqua Lake at Mayville and went promptly to Mud Creek. Winds were 20MPH. The lake was rough but the creek was great. Water temperature was 53 degrees and the creek was full of fish. Three hours with minnows on slip bobbers and the kids landed 60+ fish.

The stream was very shallow at 2-3 feet in depth. We caught all our fish by the marina and discovered the channel had filled in a great deal by the bridge over the creek where it appears silt has filled it in to a depth less than 12 inches. This is a recent development as two years ago it was much deeper. I am not sure why this is the case. The stream was full of thousands of minnows, perch, and crappies. Jake had his first crack of filleting fish and did a great job. Jessica and Hannah both perfected their spin casting with slip bobbers.

April 15 on Honeoye Lake

2006-04-14T13:38:00.000-04:00

This AM we launched at the North end and wet the first line by 6:30 AM at the south end. We joined 6 other boats. Water temperature was 52 degrees. We fished for three hours with only bass and perch to show for our efforts. No crappie nor did we see anyone catch any fish.

We then went to the famous "red barn ledge" and dropped anchor alongside five other boats. Two guys using jigs, juice, and a slip bobbers caught at least 20 crappie. We continued to clobber the perch and bass, but no crappie. I guess minnows were not on the diet today. The water temp was 47 degrees here and the fish seemed to be in 10-12 feet of water.

The rain was on/off and we pulled the boat at 12:30...caught a lot of fish, but no crappie yet.

Honeoye Lake Crappie Fishing

2006-04-09T14:17:00.000-04:00

Today was our first crack at the crappie fishing on Honeoye Lake. Last year my notes showed that we had our banner days at the end of March. Dan Sharp at Honeoye Lake Bait & Tackle gave us some great tips.

This AM we started at 9:30 because it was such a cold night. Beautiful day, north wind about 5 mph, and there was nobody at the north ramp. We went to the south end and there were a total of five boats. The warmest water we found was 44.2 degrees. Nobody appeared to be catching any...we left at 1:00 without a bite, but will try again Friday.

Later on today I had a buddy tell me that his friend caught 50+ crappie and perch on the south end of Keuka Lake!!!