Kinzua report

Fished Willow and Sugar today before the rain came.
I didn't realize they were that far apart!

Anyways, water was 46-47 degrees. Had one follow but I'm pretty sure it was a big walleye, wasn't a muskie.

Maybe in another week the water temps will come up a little. I was sitting here thinking maybe I made a mistake by not driving down the other day.I would have gotten there after 1:00 p.m. and probably have been 2:00 p.m. before I got the first cast off.So I went to Chautauqua Creek for Steelhead instead,only to find the fish spawning. By the time I got back home it was to late to hook up the boat and drive to Kinzua for sure.I'll try next Sunday,but will check the water temps with Army Corps Site before I drive that way.

Capt. Larry

Hey Larry,

what temps you looking for? I was trying to rustle up someone here to make the trip with this Saturday but now I'm not sure... supposed to be a real warm spell starting soon, so they could climb quickly.

either way it sounds like kinzua/chappel bay might be better temp-wise than willow or sugar.

Toothy- how long did it take you to make that run bay-to-bay and at what speed?

Seemed like 15 minutes or so?
It's a good long ways between the two bays.

43MPH

15 minutes?! oh good, that's not bad at all. you should try some of our lakes up here HaHa...

I'm looking for water temps between 51 to 53 degrees.That's when I usualy start seeing the Muskies move up shallow.

Capt. Larry

The brief shallow water casting bite up there seems to taper off at around 62 degrees or so...Then, I think some of the larger fish move off the timber and begin following schools of bait fish and/or relating to the deeper creek mouths and bays adjacent to the main river channel.

Well, its confirmed - I'm going to give it a try this saturday, 51 degree water or not! with the warm weather and winds on Friday into Saturday, I'm thinking the temps could get close, especially back in those bays. Will make it a mix of casting shallower and probably a good bit of trolling either way...

I finally made the 3 hour trip on Saturday for a try on the res. Wolf run was closed so we launched at elijah. trolled in and out of the bays down to chappel then casted the deep and shallow portions of the chappel and the southern end of the kinzua arm down by the sunken trees.

in 6 hours we never saw a fish...or much of a sign of aquatic life for that matter. not even my partner who switched over to bass baits halfway through. but no one seemed to do any better from what we saw/heard.

main water was 48ish, shallows ranged from 50 to 60 degrees. The wind was a b*tch to say the least, blowing hard (30?), and always the wrong way when it wasn't swirling, (which it usually was).

oh well, was good to get out and throw some big baits nonetheless...beautiful area though.

It's a tough game there!
Last year at the Three Rivers Muskie Inc outing when I got the 52" it was my first year as a member so I had never fished it before with the group. I gave a shout out on the radio and none of them believed me thinking I was messing around since the previous like 3 or so years no muskies were caught. That's the only muskie I've ever got there. I don't spend much time there but I have tried some.
The 3 rivers guys are some good fisherman and some older guys there that fished it back in the day when it was good. So, some experienced people for sure that knew the fish back in the day. Over the last few years that's some large numbers of hours for one fish, but one that would be worth it. These guys fish hard and know their stuff, I just happened to be the lucky new guy.
I'm ready for a beating this year.....ha ha!!
The time spend would eventually be rewarded but ????? Is there better waters to spend time on. I guess it's what your after. Next PA record? Maybe? Fish numbers, I'm going somewhere else.

It sure is pretty there compared to the rat-race lakes with houses all around.

We need to get Red up there putting in painful hours and hours of fishing then TELL US WHERE THEY ALL ARE AT to cut down on our learning curve!!

No big secrets just GPS cords will be fine!!!:D:D

I beat my brains in up there (a few years ago) for at least 300 hours and had little luck. We hit more pike than muskies while trolling. I think night trolling would be the ticket for "reasonable" consistency.

Does it get that much pressure/boat traffic during the day that the fish are pressured, or is it so big/deep that it is tough to determine a pattern??

Big, deep, structureless, silted in creek channels, clear water, no weed beds, and lacking good shoreline timber. Big fish are either roaming or near bottom. Needle in the haysack scenario but the needles could make you a hero!

Ah sounds like my trips to Georgian Bay (except there is structure and weeds)....it's just so damn big it's tough to make sense of in a week!!! Thanks for the info Red.

Not trying to steer you away from it but there are much better places to contact muskies than Kinzua. If you are chasing a big fish and have the patience of Job, Kinzua is the place. You could have 500 boats on it and still have plenty of room.

I know what you mean Red, patience pays off, and I've already had a good lesson or five in that. I like seeing a variety of water, so I've started a log on different lakes with some of the info I get off of here and other sites, just in case I decide to take a look one day. Thanks again.

I knew it was a low odds proposition from the start but a closed NY season, without a jet and no time for an overnite trip left me with few options for fishable waters.
in hindsight we probably should have done more searching for the bait in the open water and fished around there but then again its so large you could spend the whole day searching...

I just never would have expected it to be so tough for all species. I really thought some bass would be back in the xmas trees or some SM in the 20 to 30 ft water among the stone. WOW was I wrong LOL.

we went into warren for fuel and saw the outflow past the dam looked reasonably navigable. is that an area that is able to be explored (and productive) with a std outboard?

oh and I think we had our first clue what we were in for when we got there on, and on an 80 degree day we pretty much had the place to ourselves...

That section of river is 99 percent jet boat territory. The launch right at the tailwater access could handle a prop but you still have to move slowly, watch your graph and be prepared to shut it down.

It probably is not worth the trip towing a prop boat just to fish a 300 yard section. You would be better off fishing from shore closer to the dam.

oh 300 yds. ahh no. thought that deeper water continued on farther down a couple miles. but I didn't get to continuously stare at the water while towing the rig on those backroads...

oh well i'll find a new spot to try for next year...pike and tiger open this weekend so Im set for the rest of this year. any other northern PA reccommendations besides P and C over towards ohio. east of the res would be ideal.

You might want to give Cowanesque Reservoir a shot. It has some big muskies and is East of Kinzua. The main Corps of Engineers web site is listed below:


http://www.nab.usace.army.mil/recreation/cowanesque.htm

I Just thought I would share a Kinzua story that would get some hearts pumping. A few years back my brother and I bought my father a downrigger for his cabin cruiser. Him and my mom spend most of their summers at Kinzua almost every other weekend and for 1 or 2 weeks a year on vacation. The summer we bought him the down rigger, we decided to try it with a giant spoon on it. a spoon which I still have. The treble hook was an 8/0. I know alot more about fishing musky now that I have targeting them for about 2 years and I still have a lot more to learn. But, we didn't know much about fishing for them at all when we bought the downrigger, or the fact that not many musky fisherman even use them. We thought we might get a Lake Trout using this tackle. Well, we were in front of Willow bay trying the down rigger going back and forth from the sandy beach to point across the sandy beach and doing a triandle out towards the middle of the lake. We did this for about 4 hours when we had something hit the giant spoon we had out between 35-40 foot down. We had a lot of line out and I believe it was 50 lb braid line. The fight astoundingly long and I remember it to this day. It was probably 8 minutes, but it seemed like 30. We finally saw a giant flash of a fish about 6 to 7 feet down. The green water made it very hard to tell what it was. (I have fished musky the last two years and my biggest is only 43" to date, but it didnt take but 1 minute to get that fish to the boat with 80 lb power pro and the right tackle.) This fish had to be alot bigger. Any how, after we saw the flash, the drag started to get pulled out as if we had a giant lake trout on, but I have recently found out from the NYS DEC, that there are no lake trout in Kinzua. After 2 more minutes of trying to get this fish to the boat, the line went limp. We pulled the spoon in to see we had our drag set too tight. 2 of the 3 hooks on the 8/0 treble were bent straight. Either we snagged the first giant paddle fish out of Kinzua or we had a good sized musky on. It is since that day that I thirst to troll that lake with Plows using a down rigger like Rich Clarke does up in the St. Lawrence River, in about 60 ft of water. I would do it near the dam and the kinzua arm, maybe even right out in open water like we were in the north end in front of Willow bay. I don't know if it was a musky to this day, or what it was, but it was one hell of a fight. For a fish to pull out drag like that and take that long to get the boat with the drag set too tight even, it must have been 40 lbs plus. Would have been nice to see a Kinzua Pig. I will be attempting this downrigging manuver this summer since I finally have a down rigger for my own boat. Hopefully I catch something that will out weigh the amount of money I lose in Plows and Perch baits I lose to the bottom of the lake. Wish me luck.


Kaz~