Black Lake, NY Forum

Been enjoying fishing black lake in May for past 10 years. I am looking for some advice on how lake Temp impacts the pike fishing. Have had mixed results year to year in May. Usually fish live bait with bobber. Thanks!

We are at the lake every May - the week before Memorial Day. We target crappie but every year we catch a few northern pike. I know it's not quite an answer to your question but they seem to bite every year at that time.

I offer this answer to you. I have been going up on opening week for twenty years and the bite is always different each year. The season opens right after spawn so the water temp in my opinion is a small factor on the bite. They do tend to sun them selves in the shallow bays but that’s more like sight fishing than the general bite. We do not use live bait, we throw spoons. If you get the opportunity to try wind drifting the bays and weed edge shore lines try it you might be surprised. If you search the forum under my user name you will find many years of daily reports for opening pike week. In those reports I give water temperature as well as locations and depth. I will be up this Friday and will be posting my usual reports for this coming week. Good luck to you.

I too have been going up for well over 20 years in May, and every year is a new year for sure. I still enjoy watching bobbers for a break, but have been more into throwing for a while now. Spoons are definitely the best producer over the years (and probably the most cost effective), but some years they just don't work as well. Spinners, jerk bait, crank bait, jigs and tubes all stay in rotation until I find what works. Last year was top water....and those are the glorious years, to me at least.

As for temp, I used to believe 50 was the number. Now I know, you just need to find what works when it's colder. I absolutely killed them in fairhaven yesterday with temps around 46.

#4 or #5 Bucktail Mepps spinner baits have worked the best for me.

Was just up from Friday, 5/3-5/8. Water temps when we left were at 55*.

We caught our limit on pike 5/5 and 5/6 using a combination of spoons and inline spinners. You'll have to play around with color configuration depending on conditions. We targeted crappie and perch using minnows and twister tails. We did good but had to work at it, they were still staging in deeper water.

We had a great week, a tad slow, but great.