Chautauqua

I'm planning to fish Chautauqua this weekend for the second time ever and was checking with LJ and some other archives about fishing this time of the year. It appears that most people are fishing the open water trolling bite, and then Larry posted something about the schools of bait had moved a little farther south into the "narrows". I have the hotspot map and was checking out some other areas of the lake and was wondering if it would be worth giving some other spot a shot in the dark or try to work the areas where the bait has been around recently?? I'm just looking for a little direction?? Thanks!!

Typical August stuff going on up there.......the bite gets tougher as the baitfish are more plentiful.

My partner has been having some very good action by downsizing to larger walleye sticks and running 2.2-2.8 in the top 20 feet of the column. He is still using his musky gear but has downsized his trolling leaders to 80lb. fluoro to accomodate the smaller stickbaits and has backed way off the drag as to not pull the smaller hooks out of the fish. He is banging many bonus walleye in the 5-8 pound class while they suspend around the shallower bait pods. Find the bait and the predators will be close by............

ThreeRiversEsox,

I was at Chautauqua from August 3-12 with my brothers. Between getting chased off the lake from crazy storms and flash flooding, we were able to move about 25 muskies over those days. We had trouble getting the fish to bite as we only caught 4 muskies. We spent most of our time in 15-18' of water off the weedlines throwing bucktails. The action was picking up when I was leaving to return to Illinois to go back to work. We were starting to get the fish to hit when ripping crankbaits as fast as we could along the edges and in weed pockets. We spent most of our time working the North end of the lake as the Southern end was in an algae bloom. Most of the fish we moved were in the mid 30's. We moved a few mid 40's. I did manage to catch a personal best which was just a hair short of 50" and had a 22" girth. Water temps were in the mid-70's. Most of our action was in the mid afternoon (2pm-4pm) and evening (6-9pm).

I was there for a week at the beginning of the month. in the N basin the skees were literally stacking up suspended outside the center of the deep holes that had bait in them. this was in the AM and they seemed to move on elsewhere around midday. we had success trolling midsize baits back about 80 ft around 4+ mph...

Nice fish! Congrats on your new PB.

Thanks for your help guys!! We had a few follows and finally got a fish to eat ripping jerkbaits pretty fast on the edges. You got it right with the dodging storms up there, it's amazing when you see them rollin in on ya. That fish is a beauty, you got har casting?? Excellent!!