Week of 9/18-9/24

[Niagara-eyes]

What a strange week of fishing Black Lake. The weather changed so much on almost a daily basis it was hard to pattern any species we were fishing for. I will say that overall the fishing was a bit slow, but the sizes of the fish were much larger than I have experienced in past Sept. stays at BL.
The best fishing was for smallmouth, perch and crappie. I found several good spots that produced good sized fish fishing with live bait.....small crayfish or goldens. All these spots were shoals topping out at 3-5 feet and dropping into 15-17 feet. A good example is Wood shoal and the humps surrounding it. The smallmouth were near the top edges, the perch and crappies near the bottom or suspended off the sides. Using some light circle hooks and weight according to the wind, we just drifted into the shoal or out from it, watching for strikes. The best days for this fishing were tuesday and wed. with a hard blowing south/southwest wind. When the winds shifted back from the west/northwest the fishing slowed. Bass action was consistent all day under cloudy skies and our best day landed 18 smallmoutm from 14-19" and numbers of good perch(8-10") and better crappie(10-13"). The bass were in beautiful shape, fat and healthy.....all released.
Largemouth and pike fishing was very slow. Tried both summer and fall techniques but couldn't put a decent pattern together for either species. Worked shallow with spinners,spoons and topwater. Also tried deeper weeds with jigs and powerworms with little success. Fished deeper with live suckers for pike and couldn't get a strike.
When we couldn't catch fish any other way we went to our shoal pattern and caught fish.....so we stuck with that most of the week and had good success. If you are heading to the lake this weekend bring crayfish!! And gas up before you launch your boat, the gas dock at Sunnyside was closed.
I am guessing with the cooler weather coming up, traditional fall patterns will take hold for largemouth bass......I think they are in a bit of transition right now and not biting too well.

[BassSeeker]

Thanks for the report. We were there the previous week and our experience, at least regarding the bass was similar. We were catching on various shoals and poiints, mostly with crayfish but also lipless cranks, lipped shallow cranks, crayfish pattern jig/creature and chartreuse/white spinnerbaits. We looked for panfish and while we caught good numbers mostly north of the bridge the sizes weren't too great, very small perch, a few nice crappie and bluegill. We ere marking what we thought were several large schools of perhaps crappie suspended in about 17' of water but no luck, of course they may not have been what we thought or hoped they were. The smallies and few largemouth that we did catch were nearly all nice sized and released. All in all we were satiified.

[bulldog58]

I am heading to BL on Oct 9th. Is there a place to buy crayfish on the lake, we are staying at Pleasantview Cabins? I will give a report when I return, thanks for all the info I have received from this site.
Doug

[wildchild]

I know that Chapmans sells them, I am sure that there are others. Good luck.

[BassSeeker]

I am heading to BL on Oct 9th. Is there a place to buy crayfish on the lake, we are staying at Pleasantview Cabins? I will give a report when I return, thanks for all the info I have received from this site.
Doug

The Log Cabins has them, small, med and large at very good prices.

[ICE ADDICT]

We were there beginning of September, and ran into the same action as you Niagara. TONS of Crappie, several Smallies, only a few Largies, a couple Stink logs and the usual run of perch and gills/seeds to round out the catch. Of course it was SOOO HOT that week, we could barely make it out on the water past 10:30-11:00 each day! Blazing sun, dead calm and 90 degrees EVERY DAY!! Heck, it wasn't even good drinkin weather, let alone fishin'!! We got there right after a LOUSY week of weather which rose the lake level by three feet!! I think from what I heard this year up there, The fishing hasn't been real stable along with the CONSTANT weather changes...

[ragincajun]

Great report. Thanks for taking the time to put in so much detail. This thread is why I love this forum.

[nanookofnj]

We were up fishing Sat the 18th thru the 24th. Found the bass to still be in summer patterns. Fishing mostly shoals and rocky points, we found the LM were relating to our normal SM areas...sometimes better then the SM.

Fishing was tough on Dash Sunday with all the boats. Had a few guys move in within speaking distance of me early Sunday morning while I was alone on one of my favorite points so I moved out and let them have it. We managed to land 2 smallies and 1 LM totalling a little over 9lbs Sunday on senkos and tubes and found out from one of the older guys at camp that we would have actually placed with that bag.

I think Tuesday or Wed the wind shifted and set up out of the south which finally turned on the bite. Landing both SM and LM on YM top waters was a blast.

Thursday was the best day for smallies with multiple double header SM each drift in our usual spots with senkos and golden shiners doing most of the damage.

All in all a great week and all bass were reuturned unharmed.