Cato Yet?

[Captain Hook]

Any one fishing in Cato yet, this year?...

[joejv4]

Welcome back to the NY forum!
Only been out once, see: http://crappie.com/crappie/showthread.php?t=63850 for the report.

Going to Fair Haven pond after bullhead tonight. Hope to hit either Otter or Duck this weekend.

George isn't letting anybody out on the pond yet because the water's still too high and the ground is too wet. It would get pretty torn-up real quick down there, so I can't blame him.

Managed a couple steelies out of Maxwell creek this spring, so at least I know I haven't forgotten how to catch a fish

[Captain Hook]

George is down here with ME! He'll be back in May...

[joejv4]

George is down here with ME! He'll be back in May...

Ahhh... who is the lady running the shop? It wasn't George that came out and said "no-can-do", it was the lady from the shop. I figured she was going by whatever George told her

It's been dry all week so far. The Seneca river is back down to normal levels, so I'm hoping maybe Saturday or Sunday, it'll be OK to hit the pond.

If George is there with you, could you ask him a quick question. When the shop is closed, where should we put the launch fee? When he's home, I always would stick it in the door jam of his house... but don't want it hanging in his door for a couple weeks.

[Captain Hook]

That's his daughter Sue. Sue, and her husband Tom run the Shop when he's down here. I'll ask George about the launch fee...

[joejv4]

Stopped by there yesterday to see if we could get down there, ran into Tom. He said he'd graded the road and would start letting folks down there Saturday.

We scooted over to Otter and had a good outing. I was strictly fishing for crappie, my wife and son for bass. grand totals for the roughly 2 hours we were out...

Me: lost count, well over a hundred crappie and a couple dinky bass
Val: 8 bass and a crappie
Brad: 6 bass and a walleye

the crappie were everywhere, caught them on every cast. Only problem was, I only got one that was legal. The rest were all 6" - 8". Almost wondering if they may be overpopulated and stunted in Otter.

[Captain Hook]

I'll bet you that about mid or end of summer they'll be legal. Then you can thin them out...:D

[joejv4]

Oh yeah! Hoping to do some thinning over on the pond tomorrow.

[Captain Hook]

Sue said you hit the Pond first thing this morning. How did you do?! All the Florida boys knock 'em dead down here with crickets! I'm going to order 500 when I get home (this Wednsday)...and some meal worms and red wigglers. I do a LOT of perch fishing at home (Skaneateles lake) and want to try them on the Perch, too...:D

[joejv4]

Sue said you hit the Pond first thing this morning. How did you do?! All the Florida boys knock 'em dead down here with crickets! I'm going to order 500 when I get home (this Wednsday)...and some meal worms and red wigglers. I do a LOT of perch fishing at home (Skaneateles lake) and want to try them on the Perch, too...:D

Yep, we spent a couple hours Saturday morning, my son and I, and quit at 15 apiece so we would be below our limits and could go back out in the afternoon. Once we hit 30 fish, we started culling the ones that were "just" legal and replacing them with ones that were 10" inches.

In the afternoon, we brought one of our neighbors with us and we got 45 more to hit all of our limits.

My son, Brad, got the big fish of the day - this nice 12" female:


We couldn't have asked for nicer weather: 87, sunny, very little wind.

The water is pretty close to normal level now, and the fish are already in shallow. The males are getting dark and the females have eggs, but aren't quite ready yet.

We used 1.5" chartreuse tubes on 1/32 oz mini tube heads (BPS Squirming Squirts tubes on BPS Tender Tube jig heads). We caught a fish on just about every cast. They were around all the submerged wood down near the outlet.

By the way, my dogwood tree has buds on it - so I'm not too surprised the fish are starting to move into spawning areas. By the time it blooms, the spawn should be in full swing. Some folks say it's an old wives-tale, but from experience, it isn't too far off the mark. My guess is that the dogwoods need the same sort of conditions to start budding, then blooming, as the crappie need to start heading for the spawning grounds (hours of daylight, daytime/nighttime temps rainfall, etc.).

I'm thinking that by mid-May, the spawn will begin to wind down, and be done by probably the beginning of June. You need to get yourself up here!!!

See ya soon!!!