This past weekend, the New York State BASS Federation had a tournament at Sacket's Harbor on the east end of Lake Ontario. This location had alot of people concerned, because we were at the mercy of the weather. A strong westerly wind would make boating nearly impossible here. The weekend weather promised to be pretty good, however. I have never been here and had ALOT of work to do in the short time to learn it in.


Friday - Prefish Day 1

I launched the boat at 12:01 in the afternoon, this is the earliest we can get on the water for the official prefish period. Studying the map during the week leading up to this event, I located a nice shoal out by Galloo Island I wanted to check out first. The weather was perfect, nearly calm waters, misty rain, and cool temps. I made the 15 mile run out to the area, zig-zagged around using the GPS to grid out the area until I found the deep hump. In 20 minutes I had 2 small keepers, and one that went 3 1/2 or better. Time to get out of there. I moved to a nearby large shallower hump that came up to 9 feet or so. I got two well over 3 pounds on a spinnerbait, and my wife got 2 on a tube. Hers were abit bigger, one at 3 1/4 and the other was 4.1 pounds. In about an hour, I had a very nice sack, and decided to dedicate the rest of the day to duplicate this pattern elsewhere. I hopped shoal to shoal, but never really found the same rocky bottom conditions as I did in that first spot. I did alot of touring around, checking all the nearby islands, with only a small keeper here and there. I finished the day in the mouth of Chaumont Bay fishing some deeper weeds, and caught a medium sized pike on a tube. We loaded the boat at 6:00 after about 60 miles of travelling on the water.

Saturday - Prefish Day 2

I fished alone today, and launched the boat right at daybreak, around 5:30. Weather still great, near zero wind, but sunnier today. I headed back to the Galloo Island area to check other stuff I neglected to on Friday. Again, bottom content was not the same in these areas, and subsequently I did not catch anything either. During this time, however, I got to thinking that the deep hump I found the day before was not actually the hump I was looking for. I went back to that area I had success the day before, and found that other hump, which comes up to 23 feet out of 40. I fished it for 15 minutes and put two smallies over 3 1/2 pounds in the boat. Perfect, I thought, three seperate humps al near one another and all holding very large smallmouth. Before leaving that area, I went into shore of Galloo and fished a rocky flat with a very sharp drop into deep water. I threw a spinnerbait and caught a 2 3/4 right away, and awhile later had another one the same size follow it in. A well rounded area, lots of stuff to fish here, and good ones seem to be in here thick.

I then went back to Stoney Island where we put 2 small keepers in the boat on Friday fishing 10-12 feet with tubes. Throwing a spinnerbait in shallow, I caught another smal keeper on Saturday. I caught nothing deep here today though. Not an area I want to spend time in on Sunday. From here, I headed south down the main shore of Lake Ontario fishing areas that closely resembles structure I like on Erie. But once I get to these areas, I discover that the bottom content is much different than Erie, and did not catch anything down there after an hour or so. From there, I fished a big shoal off Henderson Bay, near the Islands. This looked decent with the hump coming up to 8 feet, with scattered weeds here and there. I was burning spinnerbaits here, but only landed one pike around 38 inches. A nice fish, but not what I'm after. It was a little after noon now, and thought I had found enough to get me through the tournament day.

At the re-registration meeting, I drew boater to boater, and boat 51 of 60 or so. My partner also had good fish in different areas. But even though he had a larger Ranger than me, with a bigger motor, we decide to take my boat. He said he was way down in the standings and I had more at stake.

Sunday - Tournament Day

Weather is exactly the same, near zero wind, and clouds giving way to sun. We take off and go directly to Galloo Island. I start on the shallow hump burning spinnerbaits. After 20 minutes I have one strong hit, but did not connect. We fished for a while longer, but nothing to show. I move out to one of the deep humps. After a 1/2 hour of dragging tubes, we both set the hook at the same time. He quickly reels in his small keeper, while I slowly bring in my larger fish. By the time I got it to the boat, I discovered it was a nice 3 pounder, but it released itself before we could get it in the net. Bummer!!! Our nice drifting wind died on us at this point, so we had to cast the tubes now. about 15 minutes later, I hook into another nice one. This time it came in the boat and was 3 3/4 pounds. Cool, they are still here I thought to myself. We moved to the second deep hump and we both put a small keeper in the boat. Those were the last fish we caught out there. We bounced around between all those spots several times, but came up with nothing. It is now 10:00 and I was not too proud to say my stuff was not working. I insisted we go to my partners fish before it was too late to put something solid together there. He agreed.

He showed me on the map where we were going, deep into Chaumont Bay, to hit some largemouth and smallmouth areas. Cruising to the first spot my low oil alram starts to sound. Uh-oh!!! Fortunately, we were far enough into Chaumont that marinas were all around us. We stopped at one and bought some. I put over 120 miles on the boat while prefishing and never thought about oil levels. I topped off the gallon and a half tank before leaving home thinking that would hold for quite awhile. Wrong!! Anyway, I was lucky we were close to a marina.

First area, I pop one nice 1 3/4 largemouth on a Texas rigged tube in 6 feet of weeds. Partner caught nothing. He then took me to another good largemouth spot. This area had a narrow band of weeds, and we were fishing the inside edge, the pockets within, and the outside edge all from the same drfit thru. He put the first 2 fish in the boat, but they were both smallies, quality 3 pound smallies, out of the weeds. I caught the next one, another 3 pounder. Another pass through the area produced a 5.1 pound largemouth for my partner and a missed opportunity for me. I set the hook with the tube, and pull the nose of a good 2-3 pound largemouth out of the weeds, but then the tube pulled out. Rats!! We move to the last area he wants to try before we ran out of time. He pops another smallie around 3 pounds, and loses one around 4 that leaped at least 4 feet out of the water right next to the boat. I caught two here, both around 8 inches.

Time runs out and we need to go to the weigh-in. I only managed 4 fish for 8.72 pounds. Not really what I expected after the prefish I had. My partner weighs 14.22 pounds for his limit, and fell just short of the money, but got a "goody bag". That lost 4 pounder cost dearly for him, as it would have put him around 7th or 8th place with mid 17's.

The real kicker is my dad. He had a horrible prefish. 1 small fish on Friday, and only a couple small ones on Saturday. He really had nothing for tx day. I gave him that spot on Stoney Island where I caught only small keepers prefishing. Well, he ends up bringing in 15.51 pounds good for 12th place, and caught 4 limits of smallmouth that day, with most of the bigger ones coming after noon. I had a decent spot, and didn't even know it!!! Maybe next time I will give up the "good spot" and elect to go to the crappy one

I learned alot though, and had a great weekend. I am anxious to make it back to this area again!

Off to Erie for the last Federation event!