“We don’t like fishing those conditions here, because of how it repositions the fish, but we are oftentimes forced to fish that way.” Shifting shoals “East is least here, and it threw a complete curve ball in what I planned to do,” he said. He ditched his plan to begin with a topwater pattern after the wind kicked up on the main lake, blowing strong from the east.
Hughes took 3rd place after Day 1 with 18-2. “We still use horizontal tactics but the vertical presentations are much more productive.” “That’s changed our bait selection to more finesse choices,” said Thomas Hughes, a local angler from Cicero, N.Y. That made reaction baits an ideal choice. Previously, perch gathered in large schools and roamed about the lake, with the smallmouth ambushing them from the concealment of the isolated vegetation growing over offshore rockpiles. Anglers are also shifting their bait selection to line up with goby behavior. The smallmouth diet shifting from perch isn’t the only factor that is changing the fishing dynamics at Oneida Lake. There are so many in the lake that the smallmouth have transitioned from perch to goby as their primary forage. The smallmouth are looking down, and for, the bottom-dwelling exotic first discovered in the lake in 2013. The blooming population of round goby is the reason why. The Pennsylvania angler took 5th place with 17-11. “The smallmouth are looking down, not up,” Tom Knee said. That semi-pattern is less likely to be happening. In previous summertime derbies on Oneida, the presence of diving gulls was a giveaway of schooling and feeding smallmouth, which pushed perch to the surface. Here are other notable happenings from Day 1. “I don’t really fish much for smallmouth, so I’ve adapted something that I do for offshore largemouth back home to this tournament,” said Stoker, of Cisco, Texas. Saving the day was key, as Stoker sits currently in 3rd place in the Northern division of the Falcon Rods Angler of the Year standings. Stoker went back out and filled his limit. “Those guys were great and got me back on the water in no time,” Stoker said.
S s s oneida install#
While Stoker’s limit swam around in his livewell, the tournament service crews performed at NASCAR pit crew speed to install the new gel batteries and get him back in action. The sales associates recommended a battery store in Syracuse, and Stoker phoned ahead to have them ready for pickup. His first stop at an outdoor sporting goods retailer was a bust. Stoker had no other choice than to return to the shore and go shopping for new batteries, after receiving the okay from Senior Tournament Manager Chris Bowes. The lithium batteries in his boat went kaput, leaving him without power for his trolling motor. After catching a limit weighing 14 pounds by 8:30 a.m., Spike Stoker went on a shopping spree, returning around noon to fill out his Day 1 limit of 17 pounds, 2 ounces at the Bassmaster Open underway on Oneida Lake.
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