Black Lake, NY Forum

Whats the deal with the water level? Its very low.

Hi all,
I’m new to this board but fished Black lake several times.
My dad and I will be up on 6/6-6/10, provides our trip to Quebec is definitely cancelled and very likely it will be. We booked with the Log Cabins and a backup.
We mainly fish for pike but it seems like they declined over the years. We have 1 musky catch from black and a few follows so it’s cool they seem to be coming back. We figured out how to catch gar a few years back and target them as well.
I’m hoping the water levels don’t lower any more cuz she’s looking low already but either way I’m ready to get out and happy that Black is open for business!

My dad and I will be up on 6/6-6/10. I’ll post our reports day to day if I have good reception.

We fished Wednesday through Saturday this past week. Two boats, each with 3 fishermen, this my 14th year with this group, our 7th at Black Lake. We spent 10 hours on the water each day, from mid-morning to 8:00pm. Most fishing done with live pike minnows, but many spoons and spinners thrown too. Our biggest thrill was finding a school of Gar at the south end of the lake that were consistent in trying to steal our bait. We managed to boat 8 of them, the largest two about 41”. We missed many more and had two or 3 break the line. The pike were elusive, maybe 10 caught during the 200+ man hours spent during the trip, the largest a very health 33”. We also caught a few handfuls of bass (largest around 5 Fat pounds), perch, bullhead and a few crappie.
The weather was a touch cooler this year, water temps rose to 55 while we were there. We were hoping that the lack of boats meant hungrier fish, but that didn’t seem to be the case. The pike, since that’s what we target, are definitely smaller and harder to catch in recent years. We love the lake, so we’ll be back, but if the fishing continues to deteriorate, it is going to be hard to spend four days with these results.

Rpt. Out 5/21 - 5/25

Weather was perfect 72-80. The water was low. We limited out on crappie each day, probably threw back more than we caught. There were a lot of small ones under 9". We didn't see many Northern Pike fisherman. One guy said they we're in like they normally are. Overall crappie fishing was great except for all the small ones, I did a lot of jigging more than minnow.

Sounds like you had a great trip. We come up for opening week of Bass fishing every year...only a few weeks away. If you don't mind me asking...how low was he water?

Thanks!

My dad and I are heading up on 6/6 for 4 days. Hopefully the pike are good and active then. The lake looks pretty low on the webcams so praying for some rain till then.

We were there during the same time, wether was perfect fishing not so much. Only got about 10 keepers per day. Had trouble locating them. Most of our fish were post spawn.

I also have been there for trips in 2020 but due to the uncertain conditions I have been not finish my trip as well.