Fishing together on Chautauqua Lake

“How’s the fishing?” I asked a fisherman leaving the canal system in the southern half of Chautauqua Lake. The middle-aged angler was touting some hefty rods with foot-long plugs visible above the profile of his 17-foot Lund, Ohio-registered boat. There were also vessels from Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and New York on the water that day.
The angler told me he caught musky earlier in the week, before the cold front blew in on Sunday night.
With southern basin Chautauqua Lake surface temperatures at 80 degrees recently, it is obvious why anglers familiar with controlled depth fishing techniques switch to sideplaners and lead core line or slide-divers and Dipsey divers.
On opening day of NYS musky season, with his line running 30 feet down in the deeper, summer-stratified water column of the northern Chautauqua Lake basin, New York Outdoor News contributor Rich Davenport found an incredible monster musky fish that measured 50 inches in length and weighed 33 pounds.
Davenport said his “Methuselah,” the name given by local musky hunters to monster musky at Chautauqua Lake, was heading for Jim Block at Buck Stops Here Taxidermy in Tonawanda.
Many anglers develop a passion for fishing after catching a fish for the first time. They can’t wait to try for more.
My 3-year-old granddaughter asked me, “Can you help me put a hook on my fishing pole?” With plenty of simple language, I helped her tie a Palomar knot to the hook and add a split and clip on a tiny rounds float that she won from the Tackle Treasure Box at a recent Teach-Me-To-Fish kids fishing clinic at Bison City Rod and Gun Club.
We headed for the refrigerator in the cabin where I had hidden worms from the ladies of the clan and we were soon back outside.
We quickly reduced one of the 7-inch mega worms we bought in Hamburg to a 1-inch piece. We carefully threaded the worm onto the hook and I said we were ready.
We dropped the line from the 3-foot-long fishing pole straight down by the dock. I explained, “OK, now we need to watch the bobber. When it goes down, we just pull up on the rod and reel the fish in.” The line hit the water and continued to go straight down. “Pull the rod up and reel,” I said. She did and yelled, “I got a fish, Mommy!”
That started chapter two in the fishing 101 class with my granddaughter, who asked, “Can we keep it?” The 6-inch sunfish was admittedly a cute critter.
I filled a bucket with water and dropped my granddaughter’s fish inside.
The passion develops from that first fish. Three fish and 10 minutes later, this happy, little bright-eyed youngster looked up at me and said, “I think I need to rest!”
Outdoor calendar: July 7 – 8: NYS Walleye Association Ameri-Can Lake Erie walleye tournament. For more information, call 875-8148.
Send information 10 days in advance to nugdor@yahoo.com.