Good Ole Boys Bass Club

of

Central New York

Owasco Lake

Sunday, August 29th 2004

First, let me apologize. After raging on Tom for not getting any pictures for the Oswego River South tournament, at least he brought the camera.     Yes, I forgot the camera. I will report for my "whooping" when ordered.

Owasco Lake, like all the Finger Lakes, is one beautiful lake. The water is clean and clear, the scenery is great, and the houses along the lake are pre-mo.

The Lake is also a cold water fishery, with Lake Trout, Rainbow Trout, and now Walleye being the prime fishery. But there is also some Largemouth and Smallmouth bass in the lake, so our tournament committee chose this lake and the next one at Skaneateles Lake as our "test your merits" tournaments.

There are also very large bass in this lake. During pre-fishing, Tom Hudson caught and released a 6# largemouth, and 4 # smallmouths were also boated and released.

We had a wonderful day on the lake. Our complements to the city of Auburn. The launch at Emerson Park can handle 4 boats at a time with plenty of parking, and room to tie up while waiting to de-water.

We had less then perfect conditions. Heavy rains this summer and last week has put the lake level high. The outlet had a 5 mph current running down it, and the south end of the lake was quit muddy with the inlet pouring in. A SW breeze at 10 mph put a 1' chop on the north end of the lake and some of the boaters worked the points early to try to catch any smallmouth beating up on bait on those points. As the day wore on, everyone covered the whole lake, working weeds, points, drop offs and flats. And the lake did "test our merits".

The three members in contention for first place, came through again. Larry LaClair caught 3 bass, Ryan Smith and Jack Loughrey each caught 2 bass. The rest of us were lucky to catch one each. And to prove the blind hog theory, I stumbled onto a 3.89 pound largemouth that was large enough to take 1st place and big bass. That's my 15 minutes of fame.

So the final standings were.

Connell Raate        1st place            1 fish            3.89#

Larry LaClair           2nd place           3 fish           3.31#

Jack Loughrey        3rd place            2 fish           2.56#

Ryan Smith            4th place             2 fish           1.83#

Tom Hudson          5th place             1 fish           1.03#  

 How did Connell do it.

In one word, luck. I practiced with Larry a week ago, and he showed me how to properly work a drop shot rig. ( Thanks again Larry). I worked weed beds where the water dropped off from 5' to 20' and had a small 4" purple worm on the drop shot.

Buy the way, everyone who knows Jack Loughrey, ask him about his "meat ball".