Well, I must say this has been the strangest four months in my hundred years on the planet…give or take thirty-three years. There is so much spin of important information going on I don’t know who to believe. The news organizations all seem to be slated in one direction or the other and any two people can listen to the same politician speak and come away with a completely different opinion of that person and what they just heard. It’s a troubling state of affairs.
The only thing I can say that won’t be changed forever by these recent events is the fantastic fishing we have here in New York state. That will remain the same,
New York’s bass season opened on Saturday, June 20. Here in New York it always starts on the third Saturday in June. We have some spectacular bass fishing water in upstate New York within a half a day’s drive in any direction. A bass angler could fish a different body of water every weekend for the whole summer and never come close to fishing all the excellent bass water we have here in upstate New York.
Lakes like Erie, any of the eleven Finger Lakes, Lake Champlain, Oneida Lake, not to mention my favorite…the St. Lawrence River, and the eastern half of Lake Ontario.
As a testimonial of how good they are… these waterways are favorite tournament stops for The Bassmaster Elite tournament trail. These are the best bass anglers in the world and could hold their tournaments anywhere in the country and always come to New York for at least one tournament. And if you want to add the other bass fishing organizations like the FLW or the College Bass Tournaments, there is a tournament every weekend somewhere in the state.
For the last fifty years, I have spent the opener of the New York bass season fishing the Thousand Islands area, though truth be told, I missed the last two years, fishing Lake Erie. This year I will be back where I belong, fishing somewhere between Chaumont Bay and the St. Lawrence River and the eastern end of Lake Ontario that connects them. I’m not being secretive, I just don’t know where in the Golden Triangle I will end up. Much depends on the winds. Being in the northeast corner on Lake Ontario there always seems to be some wind blowing. That section of Lake Ontario is where the biggest smallmouth bass live but the lake is almost always rough there. Chaumont Bay and the St. Lawrence river are much more sheltered and there is always an island or two to fish behind, depending on the wind direction.
In the first half of my half-century fishing that region, there was plenty of bass, but their size was nowhere near the giants that are being caught there now. The practice of catch and release plus the fact that these current bass are feeding on the protein-filled round goby, has allowed that end of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River smallmouths to grow to record-breaking size.
In August of 2016, Patrick Hildenbrand landed a Godzilla of a smallmouth bass weighing 8 pounds 4 ounces while fishing in the St. Lawrence River at Cape Vincent, New York. The fish, which measured at 21.5 inches long and 20.75 round, tied the New York State smallmouth record set in 1995 by Andrew Kartesz on Lake Erie. Hildenbrand says that he released the fish back into the river after taking its measurements, so she is still swimming and could be caught again.
Last year Bassmaster magazine released their rankings of the 100 best bass fisheries in the nation for 2019 and, New York’s St. Lawrence River has earned the prestigious top spot. Over the past seven years, the St. Lawrence River and the eastern end of Lake Ontario have been in the top 10 twice. But last year, New York’s amazing smallmouth fishery would not be denied as the No. 1 bass fishing destination in the country. The rankings identify the Top 10 lakes in the nation based on head-to-head comparisons.
Smallmouth bass are the main species in that area though there are plenty of largemouth as well. When fishing for smallies there, it’s always hard to beat live bait and a three inch minnow on a three-way rig is going to outproduce anything else you want to try. But if you prefer to use artificial baits, the “drop shot rig” is best bait going these days. That is a bait all the tournament anglers are using to win the most moola. You can watch all the TV fishing shows and read all the online or fishing magazines about new breakthrough lures but I want to know what the tournament anglers who are fishing for a living are using to catch bass. That’s what I want to use.
If you were to Google all the tournaments in the St. Lawrence River eastern end of Lake Ontario region over the last five years, you would find almost all have been won by anglers using a “drop shot rig” of some form or another. It is a simple set-up but if you don’t know what a drop shot rig is, rather than me explaining it badly, I suggest searching it on You Tube. You will find at least twenty videos from the best bass fishermen in the country showing you the easy rig.
Now get your bass moving … summer is flying already. But remember to spread out and pick your fishing partners wisely. There is still a nasty monster out there waiting in the wings to swoop back in on those being too careless.
