Northern Open: What’s next?

What’s next is finding out how the shakeout will fall into place between the smallmouth or largemouth fishing. Or both. 

What’s cool about fishing Oneida Lake this time of year is both species are in some phase of the spawn. Choosing between the two can be a trick and affect the outcome of a final tournament scorecard. 

Winning on a mixed bag here is unusual. There’s not a lot of time to dial into a pattern for smallmouth and another for largemouth. Those bass spawn in the canals, shallow flats and along the grassy shoreline. As with any spawining bite that focus eats up time. Especially if you are bed fishing. 

Farther out are the smallmouth. Those fish congregate around the lake’s many isolated rockpiles coverd in aquatic grass. Wind is a big factor out there, too. Too much makes boat positioning a challenge. Pinpoint casts are a must. Too little wind keeps the baitfish hid behind the safe refuge of the vegetation. The wind pushes them out into the open, making them vulnerable for the ambushing smallmouth. 

All that said the trend we’ll watch is to see which side of the bass fishing equaton comes to the top. Smallmouth or largemouth? We’ll see and it’ll be interesting.