Well, the Hotspot over the holiday weekend had to be area of the buoys at nine mile point. There was a lot of boats but a lot of fish as well. The bite was early so getting there before dawn made all the difference.
The best baits are a black silver white belly smithwick, fished on the surface about 150 feet behind the boat. Mix this up with some dreamweaver & raider spoons in black and silver, black silver, white belly, Lemon lime, Monkey Puke, Bloody death and Bitter lemon. Fish them 10 to 40 feet down off of the downriggers, depending on were you find bait and run 2.0 to 2.3 mph. There is no run-off and the temps resemble early April, not late May. Water temp is 40 to 50 degrees. Cold
The salmon hotspot, if there is one, has been 100 to 200 feet of water from Oswego to Fair Haven. Spin Drs & E-chip attractors with Atomik flies in Sweet Pea Glow, #41, Green/ Green and White/Blue are working, along with NK 28's in the Die hard pattern. 50 to 75 down and also the leadcore 5 to 7 colors back of the mini board has been good. There is also a good number of steelhead prowling the upper water column.
Sandy Pond anglers have been catching walleye close to the channel along with some nice catches of crappies and bluegills
The walleye fishing on Oneida Lake is up and down with the hard wind we experienced in the past week. The best areas have been the mouth of the Barge Canal, or the mouths of Fish Creek and Oneida Creek. Work 320 to 30 FOW with jigs and sonar's.
Now is the time to schedule a lake charter. The fishing is excellent and area charter captains are available for lake charters. Take the kids fishing, it will be a quality experience that they will not forget.
A few kings have been mixed right in with the browns!!
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Western New York fishing report by Jay Peck – www.jaypeckguides.com
The cold weather this past week has slowdown the fishing in all the area trout streams. Judging by this week's weather forecast, all of our hatches should be back on schedule. Look for March Browns, gray foxes, and sulfur on the Genesee River, Oatka Creek and Spring brook. Once water temperatures get back to normal the next few weeks should provide some of the best dry fly fishing of the season.
Those of you were looking for a little bit of bass fishing take a look at the Oak Orchard River. There has been good numbers of small moth bass holding in all the main pools. Keep in mind the season is close and all bass fishing is catch and release. For flies use all the woolly buggers and bunny streamers left over from steelhead fishing.
The word from the Lake is that the fishing has suffered from and lot of wind this past week. Despite the wind the salmon fishing is starting to set up. There has been constant reports of Chinook salmon being caught and 80 to 100 feet of water. If someone is interested there's still plenty of Brown trout fishing to be had.