Eric Rosario.com

Chodikee Lake

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:41:59 -0400

Weather: Sunny & Hot; 90*
Water Temp: Unknown
Bait(s): Senkos

NEW PALTZ, NY -- Launched about 7:15am and began fishing some lilly pads just off the break near the launch. Had an immediate slurp (not hard blow up) on a frog. My PIC (partner in crime) Bill nailed two pretty fast but because he was using inferior equipment he lost both fish. I handed him my $800 fishing rod combined with my $400 electronic reel spooled with the most expensive fishing line known to man and he landed an 8lb bass.

Ok, seriously Bill did hook into two bass shortly after we launched resulting in a loss but a quick change of his hook and he was landing bass like a pro. Some fish came from under the pads as they seemed to be looking for shade from the blistering sun. I managed only one fish on a frog in the area near the boat launch but it came from a small patch of open water between some lilly pads. We caught 2-3 near the lilly pads and decided to head toward the shoreline that seemed to have the most shade cover.

There was a strip of shoreline that I recalled seeing on the sonar as having lots of rocks or some form of cover under the water in about a 10ft depth so we fished that area and it was killer. At one point we were both pulling fish in together so that made for the highlight of our day. Numbers increased on the shaded shoreline quick but the sun continued to come up just as quick.

We ended the day with about 13 bass for about 5 hrs of fishing with no real significant sizes. Most of the fish were really small, however we did notice a posting near the boat launch that the water was treated for algae. We did see a green substance floating all over the lake which is very likely an attributing factor to why only the little guys were active today. All in all we had a great time despite my trolling motor burning out (the thing was literally smoking).

Chadwick Lake

Sat, 29 May 2010 15:39:50 -0400

Weather: Cloudy & Windy
Water Temp: Unknown
Bait(s): Rattletrap, Small Grub

NEWBURGH, NY -- My nephew & his dad have been wanting to take up fishing for some time now with no guide to get them started so I took them out for a day on the lake. I demonstrated like a pro how to use various baits and techniques, will they work...well that's a different story!

We arrived about 8am when the park opened for business and we quickly launched our boat. In the first five minutes I had 3 misses on a topwater lure which really had me thinking we were going to have a grand day if the fish were already hitting a lure in less than five mins. However, we struggled to find fish today...well the adults did but not my little nephew the new bass pro. The first fish was dad with a shameless blue gill but then my nephew who asked for a "napkin" to hold the blue gill completely takes us by storm by landing fish back to back!

See for yourself...

Video

My nephew really nailed 'em today! If you noticed in the video his dad had his own rod in his hand so everyone can clearly see my boy had control of his own bass baby! I'm still fired up from seeing him pull in that fish. We kinda let him fend for himself to see if he could get used to it since he seemed to be doing well on his own and boy he really showed us. By the time he landed his bass his dad and I were still skunked!

Beautiful fish...

LM @ Chadwick

After the thrill of seeing my 5yr old nephew land his fish we continued searching tirelessly for the elusive bass. We tried just about everything to no avail until finally we decided to call it a day about noon and that's when my nephew's dad started landing his bag of bass.

Here is dad's bass...

LM @ Chadwick

We ended the day with about 6 bass, 1 crappie and a blue gill. All the bass were small in size but my nephew and his dad have a new found love. I can't wait to see them both land their next bag of bass.

Lake "X"

Sun, 16 May 2010 16:53:42 -0400

Weather: Clear, Sunny & Windy
Water Temp: 62*
Bait(s): Everything!

NEWBURGH, NY -- Friend & I decided to hit a mystery lake this morning which we called lake "x" today as part of an ongoing joke we have. We launched about 5:15AM with calm waters catching crappie almost immediately. The lake was small so we fished slow and even ripped out the dash board to the boat and tossed it in to see if throwing the kitchen sink would hit a fish on the head & get us something. Unfortunately that didn't work because a fish didn't come up belly up after we did the toss.

About an hour and a half into fishing my buddy John FINALLY pulled what looked like a bass into the boat.

John

We fished until about 11am and the day turned into a Pickerel fest! We caught pickerel on top water, plastics, frogs...EVERYTHING! By end of day we only found about a handful of bass and about 100 pickerel. I won't embarrass my buddy and mention the lake but heck his photo is embarrassing enough since now you can see who he is. Hehe! :o)

We had a great time despite the terrible choice of lake which was my buddy's idea so we'll just blame him. Had it been a great day then it would have been MY idea. LOL!

Wappingers Lake: Not an April Lake

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 08:47:53 -0400

Weather: Clear & Cool 60*
Water Temp: 54*
Bait(s): Crankbait

WAPPINGERS FALL, NY -- Uncle & I had a bad itch to get out and fish, and that we did...Well he did! We launched about 8am fishing slow with some jerkbaits, even smaller profile plastic baits; Nada!

We fished shallow for a while, then focused on deeper water (about 12-15FT) for the rest of the afternoon. My uncle finally hooked into a nice fish about mid-day and boy was it a nice fish. He managed to land a really nice size smallie which was a real pleasant surprise since I've fished this lake a few times and have never personally pulled out a smallie of significant size.

null

After catching the smallie we kept seeing perch in the immediate area following our crankbaits so I naturally, not wanting to have NO fish for the day, stopped my cranks at the side of boat to allow the perch the opportunity to have a meal. So by 1pm we ended the day with my uncle's nice size smallie and I got two perch. I still say perch don't count but what the heck at least I got something other than a pan fish. :o)

The 2010 Frenzy About to Begin

Thu, 8 Apr 2010 10:03:24 -0400

I stop fishing early in the season last year, why I have no freakin idea! I think it may have had something to do with the fishing license increase, I probably figured since my license was expiring I might as well begin the winter hibernation early which explains my fear that I may have been fishing without a license end of last year. Now that I make a blog entry I realized I need not fear because I literally stopped fishing last September, what a shame!

Well I'm itching to get out & have every intention of getting out this weekend. So many lake choices in my immediate area but I'd really like to do even more fishing this year than I did last year. I've also got a few new buddies lined up that I'd like to take out on the water to catch some hawgs. Watch out for more reports, pictures & videos.

Lake Superior

Sat, 5 Sep 2009 19:12:37 -0400

Weather: Sunny & Warm 80*
Water Temp: 73-78*
Bait(s): Rattletrap

BETHEL, NY -- My buddy Bill & I originally planned on fishing White Lake but thought we'd probably not have a great time with all the boat traffic so Bill knew of a lake just down the road that only allows electric motors -- Lake Superior. I'd like to see a jet skier try to do their thing with an electric motor so that basically meant we'd have NO boat traffic.

We arrive a little later than planned and were in the water by 10am, yes we missed the early morning bite! This lake was brand new to us so we started fishing the shoreline immediately adjacent to the boat dock. The shoreline was very shallow (less than 5ft) out about 200 yards from the shoreline so we seemed to be fishing really far from land but it was only 5-8ft deep and that's were we found the fish.

This puppy came in at 4lbs...

Superior Lake Fish

We tried fishing plastic worms, spinnerbaits and a few other options but as we searched for our first fish we found we could only hook into fish using the rattletrap. Within two hours of being on the water we landed 2 bass & 1 pickerel. It was a struggle to find fish on a new lake but we had fun with it, check out our silly video of us making the best of the worst of conditions...

Lake Superior

We decided to call it a day by 3pm with only three fish in the boat because (1) the fishing was tough; no motivation to stay and (2) the wind started picking up so that was frustrating in itself. We agreed the early morning bit is best so we probably will get back to our routine of being out at 6am and done by noon.

Sylvan Lake

Sat, 8 Aug 2009 16:20:32 -0400

Weather: 78*
Water Temp: 78*
Bait(s): Senko & Power Worm

SYLVAN LAKE, NY -- Went to Sylvan lake with my buddy Bill launching at 6:30am. We began tossing some top water lures that produced a blow up but no hook ups. Weeds were looking good and plentiful so we tossed some soft baits into the weed lines and about 8am Bill was rewarded with a fish that was about 3lbs. It was a nice fight and Bill thought he wasn't going to get the fish in the boat. :o)

Bill

After this fish we fished hard to find more fish. The sun was fully up and we tried everything from cranks, top water and plastics. We continued to fish the weed edges in 15FT of water were there was a quick transition to about 6-8FT of water. We found 3 other fish on senkos and power worms before we ended the day at about 11AM. Really not much to our report today other than Bill had the biggest fish today and out did me in weight. A deserved grand day for Bill today for sure. I didn't think we'd find only four fish today; tough day for sure.

Canopus Lake

Sat, 1 Aug 2009 15:15:24 -0400

Weather: 83*
Water Temp: 76-79*
Bait(s): Senko, Hula Grub, Popper

CARMEL, NY -- Got out with Bill again this weekend for the second weekend in a row for some more bass action. We arrived at Canopus at 6AM sharp and began preparing to launch the boat. We were in the water within 15 mins and started fishing the small island near the boat launch with no bites. Less than half-hour on the water I caught our first fish of the day which got us excited and looking forward to a great day.

Here I was showing Bill my first fish and calling him out to out fish me today...
Canopus Fish

We fished the shoreline from across the boat launch and continued along the road catching a bunch of fish in a nice weed patch that was located near a brick wall of some type in the water. We got about 4 fish in this area, then moved around relatively fast to see what the entire lake looked like since it was our first time at the lake. Initially I wondered if the lake had a good weed population and found that the lake does have a lot of weeds but in good balance; not too much & not too little.

We made our way around the lake and decided to really pick out the rock island directly across the lake from the boat launch. We fished the rock island and further down really slow picking off fish after fish. The pattern we seemed to put together was that fish were coming off weed edges with the senko and on the popper within scattered weeds. The top water bite lasted well into 9AM and the action was pretty steady. We were leaving with 9 fish in the boat until I got a call, stopped the boat and Bill made a few casts to catch 2 more fish back-to-back. We finally ended our day at 11AM with 11 fish in the boat. We had a great time as last weekend with good fishing and great weather. Unfortunately all the fish were SMALL!!

Round Lake

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:54:15 -0400

Weather: Sunny & Warm 80*
Water Temp: 76-77*
Bait(s): Senko, Tube, Spinner & Frog

MONROE, NY -- Met up with my buddy Bill to fish Round Lake where he hasn't been to in many, many years. The last time I visited Round Lake was exactly one year ago to this date and fishing was much better this year.

We arrived to the boat launch at 6am and about 20 mins later we were on the water. Within the first half hour I hooked up with the first fish of many to follow...

BooBee

Nothing was of huge size, they were actually all smaller fish that we caught today. Last year the few I caught were small as well so it leaves me wondering if Round Lake has any bigger fish; which I'm sure it does (it must have). We fished the center island on the lake and worked our way around most of the shoreline landing fish pretty often considering we were not out long. The fish were picking up tubes and senkos with little effort so we almost didn't know that we had fish on until we lifted our rod tips. Bill was worried he wasn't going to find a fish until this bad boy made his appearance...

Bill

There was no solid pattern that we could put together cause the fish were coming from everywhere; lilly pads, wood, rocks, etc. Several baits worked so they were not picky to see a certain presentation. We had a great time and ended our day fishing the lilly pads landing another two fish. We headed for the boat launch at 11am with a total of ten fish in the boat for our day; not bad at all. I actually expected a bad day because there was a posting at the boat launch that weed treatment had taken place only 3 days ago so it warned of swimming until treatment had settled.

Glenmere Lake

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:36:00 -0400

Weather: 72* & Very Windy
Water Temp: 80*
Bait(s): Tube

FLORIDA, NY -- Had to take my defensive driving course yesterday to keep my auto insurance discount so fishing today was my only option. Since I don't like to miss Sunday services for fishing I left for the lake at about 2pm and met up with a friend. We got to Glenmere lake about 3:15 and were in the water in a matter of minutes. This was both our first times at the lake and from the initial appearance it was a nice size lake. The lake has posted hours at the front gate showing; open 7AM & closing 9PM. The gate does lock so it appears someone does maintain it's opening and closing so don't expect to fish this lake prior to 7AM.

After launching the boat we headed for a point I had seen on a map that I thought would produce for us. Within the first 45 mins we both landed fish, my fish was barely a keeper but my buddy landed a nice keeper; probably about 2.5lbs (we didn't weigh it).

Glenmere Bass

My fish wasn't photo worthy but my friend enjoyed landing his bass. Take a look and see how much fun he had landing his fish...

Glenmere Lake Video

After helping my buddy land his fish we continue searching for the elusive bass. From what I expected the lake was going to be very weedy, however it's not weedy but rather choked up with lilly pads all over the place. Weeds would have been easier to navigate through with the trolling motor but since it was lilly pads that were actually all over the place, the trolling motor prop kept getting wrapped with lilly pads. I ended up having to row us around as if we were on a reservoir where rowing is the only means of propulsion.

The wind was absolutely brutal and without the use of the trolling motor rowing was a pain in the neck! We tried doing the best we could despite the heavy winds and simply could not find any fish. We found calmer water about 6PM and gave it a shot and finally called it a day at 6:30PM with only 2 fish in the boat. Glenmere looks like a very promising lake if the water is dead calm. For windy conditions this is not the lake to be at unless you have a 55lb thrust troller that can probably manage the heavy lilly pad coverage throughout the lake.

I definitely want to give this lake another shot on a hot summer day when the wind is zero and I can maneuver around the lilly patches and work both open water and the heavy lilly pad coverage with a frog. Overall it was a tough 3hrs on the water because of the wind combined with the poor ability for my 30lb troller to cut thru the lillys.