Black Lake, NY Forum

hello,i been fishing black lake 10 years now 1 week each summer and twice a year a few times. was wondering if i went up the first week of september would the usual fishing spots produce the same and would the same tactics to catch bass and pike be the same as july fishing. thank you in advance for help. if not any advice would be appreciated.

Hi Frank,
I have fished in September and had good luck. The problem I had and will not go again in September is the duck hunters are out in full bay coverage. I like to fish the bays and every bay had a number of hunters with the flashy decoys spread all around. It is a big lake with lots of non bay fishing so don't hesitate if your fine with that. Good luck!

Bob-O wrote:Hi Frank,
I have fished in September and had good luck. The problem I had and will not go again in September is the duck hunters are out in full bay coverage. I like to fish the bays and every bay had a number of hunters with the flashy decoys spread all around. It is a big lake with lots of non bay fishing so don't hesitate if your fine with that. Good luck!

I find that hard to believe given the early season duck hunting doesn't open until the first weekend of October. Unless they were early season Honker hunting but that's usually done in the fields that time of year not on the lake.

Unless it's unusually cool, fish will likely still be in their summer patterns during the first week of September.

Bass will be spread out all over the entire lake ... just find cover and you'll find bass.

You can also fish the deeper rocks and breaks if that's your thing. Smallies, walleye, and pike will still be in the coolest water they can find at that time.

There have been quite a few early season goose hunters on the lake the past couple years in September.

Hi, we have spent the first three weeks of Sept. the last two years on Black Lake, and we have never seen a single hunter. I was shocked when I saw these posts, wondered if we're talking about the same lake!

OK folks...first I would not make anything like this up! Why! I just checked my records via pictures and found one of the dates to be September 21, 2003. On this trip we stayed at Janet and Mel's camp. I remember pulling in and seeing all the strange boats. 14 to 16 foot aluminum boats painted with camo and having camo tents on top with motors on long shafts. After getting out to fish we found that the bays like Lonsome and Big had a few of those boats with decoys with wings that would spin. The guy I was fishing with is a waterfowl hunter and would not let me even think about fishing where they were hunting. We also went another year late season in the early 2000's and it was the same. If they don't hunt waterfowl these days up there then sorry for the bad info!

I've been fishing Black lake for about 10 years. Every year I fish the second week and some years the second and third week (This is one of those years!!!) of September. Mostly the points, islands and shoals in the main lake, occasionally weedy bays and in all this time I have only seen waterfowl hunters three times and on those occasions they were motoring by on their way to wherever. Obviously I don't dispute that they're out there, but I have never encountered them other than as described. On occasion I've heard early morning shooting in the distance. I would also mention that 90% of my time there has been Bluebird days (Lucky!), not exactly great waterfowl hunting conditions, also mostly weekdays, so perhaps an overcast weekend is when you'd see more throughout the day. In any case I wouldn't be concerned, and if I did see a raft of dekes I'd fish elsewhere.