Oak Leaf Grubs ~ Crane Fly Larvae ~ Leatherjackets

There are a small group of Finger Lake fisherman/woman who can regularly go out and catch 12"+ per on a regular basis.  A lot goes into their success, but what most people do not realize is that the success is due quality of preparation and technique.  Their equipment is not expensive nor high end.

Myself I use an ultra-light rod and reel from Walmart with 4 pound test and tie a 4 pound fluorocarbon leader with two #6 Mosquito Hooks and a weight.

Quality bait is also essential.  I often reference the Outdoor Store in Bloomfield and Bubba's Bait in Pultney as my two favorite live bait stores.  There is however an incredible bait that the trophy perch fisherman use on a regular basis.  This bait is called oak leaf grubs, aka. leatherjackets, aka. crane fly larvae.

Finger Lake fisherman who catch the big ones use crane larvae bait in the winter and spring.  There is great classic regional lore around these baits.  People search high and low for these leatherjackets.  Once a fisherman finds them they never tell a soul where they found them, for if they do word gets out and their honey hole will get picked clean by other fisherman.

Today Johnny-boy and I took advantage of the unusually warm weather to go hunt for these elusive larvae.  I wanted to try a double secret location that I had stumbled upon previously.  With my grandfathers bamboo net and a dirt rake we hike down a stream until we came to a place where leaves were backed up against a log laying across the stream.  In five scoops we collected 107 grubs.  This should be good enough for two or three perch outings.

What is great about this location is that the grubs will be there every year.  That is why it is secret-secret where these locations are. Can't tell you where....  :-)

Super Trout on Super Bowl Sunday

Shu nice fish!

Super Bowl Sunday had Shu and I on Keuka Lake fishing for lake trout.  We used large shiners from the Outdoor Store as we specifically wanted trout that we could cook for the Super Bowl dinner Shu was hosting.  The wind shifted from the south to west late morning with a little snow in the air.  We caught two trout and probably lost 5 more.  Using the small perch rigs makes catching the trout so much fun.  5' rods with 4 pound mono test tied to 6 pound fluorocarbon leaders, no swivels, only hooks and our homemade weights.

One wild and one stocked lake trout

My DIY weights

The color of the two trout we kept were so different that it was the source of much conversation.  We could tell from the split fin of one that it was a stocked trout and the other must have been wild.
 Both of these trout had perch minnows in their belly.

I cooked the trout over low heat on Shu's Green Egg with garlic/lemon butter and Old Bay Seasoning.
Keuka Lake trout are very sweet, regardless of how they are cooked or smoked.  An incredible tasting fish.  We enjoyed the

perch in the belly of the trout

meal with my niece Abbey, Jessica, Bailey, my lovely wife, and Shu's lovely wife.  Plus the football game was pretty amazing too!

Annual Tradition & Jumbo Perch on Keuka Lake

Jessica putting on a clinic

For the last few years we have got into a tradition of going on a perch outing the day or two before Christmas.  Every year we seem to tear them up and this year was no different.  There was a strong south west wind on Keuka Lake so we decided to try fishing in Hammondsport as the water would be fishable.  We took our Grady White Offshore 24 with 6 passengers for a half hour and very bumpy ride  from Branchport .

Charlie, Jake M., and Jessica

It had been three months since I started the Grady White but she started right up.  We got this big old boat because we wanted to be able to take our kids and their friends fishing particularly in the winter months as that is the best time to fish.  This boat is also sturdy enough to be safe on the Finger Lakes no matter how bad the wind and waves might get.  This trip we had 4 "kids" three of whom are college football players and the Grady was perfect for this "big" group.  Jessica, Jake M., and Charlie stayed in the cuddy for our journey south/north.

Charlie and the Captain

The night before I stopped at the Outdoor Store in Bloomfield for 6 dozen minnows.  The fatheads were larger than usual, probably 2", and it was the last they had.  The predicted warmer weather had caused a run on people buying bait.  My friend and I both were concerned that the minnows were too big but in hind sight we believe the larger minnows attributed to the fact that,  of the 46 perch we caught, there were none smaller than 10 inches.

In the south end of Keuka Lake there are hundreds if not thousands of migratory birds.  It was beautiful to see the snow geese, swans, and large flocks of ducks coming and going all day long.  We poked around looking for the perch between depths of 12-20 feet.  Finally we setup at 25 feet on the outside edge of weed bed.  Two hours later and 46 10+inch perch in the boat we called it a day.  My daughter Jessica, the only female on the boat, put on a clinic by totally catching way more than anyone else.

That night a friend of mind, John, and I cleaned all the fish in the garage.  The kids want, and shall receive, a big perch fry for a Christmas meal.

Great early Summer Fishing on Keuka Lake

It has been a great early summer of fishing.  We have caught huge smallmouth, perch, 1lb sunfish, lake trout, pickerel, largemouth, bullhead, and crappie.  With the exception of the lake trout we have been catching everything off the infamous finger lake perch rigs using fatheads from either the Outdoor Store in Bloomfield or Bubba's Bait near Branchport.  Both are excellent bait stores and would recommend them.

Jake great fish!

The pickerel have been fun to catch and I finally am getting much better at cleaning them.  They have the y bones of the Esox family that make they extremely difficult to clean.  I found a you-tube video of a person cleaning an Oneida Lake pickerel to be very helpful.  Pickerel are excellent to eat.  My friend swears by pickerel patties.

Ben's nice trout

Charlies 1st lake trout

Cole from the dock!?!

Uncle Matt with "doubles"

Almost spooled me on 2lb test

Dan with a huge rock bass

3 deer swimming across lake

What has been particularly fun is that I have been able to fish a lot with close friends, family and all three of my godsons.  One early morning at about 6:00am on the east side of the fork I was anchored about 20 yards off shore and I saw three deer walk down to the water's edge. I thought they were getting a drink when I watched them slowly walk out into the water and started swimming across the lake.  I could not believe it!! i thought I had seen it all.  After 30 minutes I lost sight of them heading to the opposite shoreline, almost a mile away.  30 minutes later I could not believe my eyes as I watched them swim all the way back across the lake to where they started!!!  Unbelievable.

Rare largemouth

The fish are moving into deeper water as the water temperature warms up.  The perch and smallmouth are hanging around 25 feet deep now.  I jigged up a lake trout last Saturday that was 160' deep.  Overcast days generally outproduce the sunny days for us.

Big big big small mouth July 2016

Lake trout in shallow water on Keuka Lake

One of two for the day

Shu with a nice bass

Thursday I enjoyed a special day of fishing with my sone Jake and good friend Shu.  We got our minnows at our favorite bait store, The Outdoor Store in Bloomfield.  The bright sunny day illuminated starkly the depth breaks in the water.  Green color was 5-10, brown was less than 3 feet, and the dark blue was the deep water.  We fished the north end in Branchport and the lake trout hit the minnows right on the edge of the shallow bars, brown water, and the deep blue water.  We caught them on ultra-light rods with 2 pound test so it made for exceptional fun pulling them in.

Trout fillets in "secret" brine

The trout had different color fillets, one fish had light orange color and the other pink.  Reading around the internet it seems that fish that eat more crustaceans tend to be light orange and pink colored trout eat more minnows.  I will have to do some more digging to confirm.  I smoked the trout and made a great dip out of it for our weekend NCAA basketball trip to Ehrhardts, in the Poconos.

Two trout with different color fillets

Father/Son ~great time

Catching up during the winter blahs

It is in the evening on a cold February night and I have a few minutes to catch up with my blog writing.  On Christmas Eve we went out to Keuka Lake looking for perch.  Hannah caught the only fish but it was very fun to be fishing on a 60 degree day.  The perch fishing has been very tough this fall and winter on Canandaigua, Keuka, and Seneca lakes.  Lots of speculation about this being due to invasive species having a negative impact on the perch population.  Severne has produced NOTHING in a year.  The south end of Canandaigua produced a brown trout for ma and a laker for Jessica.  Both were caught on large jigs.

Highlights of hunting season 2015.  Hannah got her first and the biggest buck of deer camp!!!

Fun Memorial Day on Seneca and Keuka lakes

Just got back from five days of fishing with a group of fathers & sons.  Five days before we left there was a bad storm in the region, especially in Branchport and Penn Yan.  It rained as much as 8 inches in one hour.  The result was lots of washouts and high water that resulted in Keuka Lake having a motorboat ban for the weekend and Seneca Lake had a 5 MPH speed limit.

Jake and Charlie with their perch caught while kayaking

Taylor's first cast 

What we did was trailered Mr. Flanagan's Lund and our Grady White over to Severne Point on Seneca Lake. The weather was stunningly beautiful and the boating ban made for a strangely surreal and calm setting on the lakes.  I have to admit I enjoyed the absence of jet skiers and speed boats, etc.  Friday night Dave made the camp venison prime rib sandwiches.  He smoked the roasts and red peppers than thinly sliced them his meat slicer that he had brought down just for this meal.  Unfortunately the next day Dave fell getting out of his boat and broke 3 ribs.  That was disappointing for sure.

Jake with his 2.5lb, 16 inch perch

At night the boys had fun staying up late and netting alewives that were attracted to the green underwater lights that Shu had put in around his dock.  We enjoyed nightly bon fires and healthy games of cards.  The deep fryer and Green Egg were used nightly for fish, chips, and venison.

 Discovered a great bait shop called 

Bubbas Bait Shop
10519 Cty Rt 76
Hammondsport, NY  607 868 7088

Great people and the bait was priced very fair.  I will still use the Outdoor Store for bait enroute to the Finger Lakes, but once I am there I will be using Bubba's for sure.