Week of 5/7/26 Fishing Report - Natural Outfitters

 

The bass action has been the star of the show here in western NY. The Finger Lakes, Lake Erie, and the Niagara River have all been producing quality bass for the past few weeks. In the Finger Lakes, it’s a mixed bag of largemouth and smallmouth, with largemouth being more dominant. On Lake Erie & the Niagara, it’s predominantly Smallmouth.

 

Anglers in the Finger Lakes should be fishing shallow as these fish have moved up into their pre-spawn feeding phase to fatten up for the spring. Hot baits are chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, shallow running crankbaits, jerkbaits, and a skirted jig. You can catch some smallmouth out deep, but keep your fishing to 10 feet and less. The water is warmer up shallow and its loaded with fish. I had a crew out last weekend for four days of bass fishing on Cayuga Lake. We had two days where we caught over 30 pounds for our combined five fish and the other two days we had over 25 pounds for our best five. We also boated our biggest largemouth of the year, a 7.14 pound best. This past week, I boated another 7.27 pound bass.

 

Lake Erie bass anglers should be concentrating on areas close to the harbors as the fish have started to move in close to shore. There are some bass offshore in 30-40 feet, but the weather needs to let you get to those fish. Anywhere from 8-30 feet is where we are catching the fish, with tubes, swimbaits, ned rigs and jerkbaits producing the best. Same is true on the Niagara river, but you are using the current to your advantage and drifting your baits in a natural presentation. Some walleyes are also in the mix as well.

 

On the panfish front, we have concluded our spring yellow perch fishing. Just wanted to thank everyone who sailed with me this spring as we had a final tally of 1,173 perch kept from the end of march to the end of april. We will bring back perch trips come mid september. Crappie and bluegill anglers have been having a ball on some of the finger lakes up in the shallows. Small swimbaits swam just above the emerging weeds have been the ticket, but when there’s wind, a trout magnet fished under a slip bobber produces best. We have had no problem limiting out on crappies and bluegills over the last few trips.