Fished in a club tournament today, with Southern Tier Bassmasters. We had 29 anglers competing. For more results, go to http://www.southerntierbass.com and go to the tournament section.

Conditions were mostly cloudy, with the threat of severe T-storms rolling through the area, all day. Winds were light, at the start, from the S/SW @ around 5-10. Water temp. was at 73 deg. in most places and air temps were in the upper 70's to around 80 deg.

I started the day, throwing a Spook, in one of my traditional smallmouth areas. With the second cast, I hooked up with a bass, but it turned out to be a largemouth. The next few blow-ups were all short strikes and even a color change was met with the same results.

I changed locations to a more traditional largemouth area and started flipping a 3 1/2" BassPro Tender tube along the outside edge of the weeds, in around 10-12 ft. My first hook-up was a nice 2 1/2 lb. smallmouth. Go figure!

I had to do a lot of moving around to get to my 5-fish limit, but had that in the well by about 10:30 am. I culled twice more, after that and ended in 4th place with 13.43 lbs. Generally, I thought fishing was off a little and you had to work for your bites. I caught fish, on a Spook, flipping a tube and also a T-rigged Senko. I also had two smallmouth, take a Zoom Fluke, but I lost both those fish.

Today was the opening day of the regular bass season in New York State. Despite that, traffic on the lake was surprisingly light.

Got on the water at 6:30 am and fished until the threat of T-storms forced me to the boat launch, around 1:30 pm. The day started with clear skies and light winds @  5-10 mph from the south. Water temp. was 69-72 deg. Air temp. was in the mid-70's before the storms rolled in.

I spent the first couple hours looking for the smallmouth, but just as I suspected, they were nowhere to be found. I did have 3 different fish take a swipe at my Fluke, but I never hooked up and could not tell what kind of fish it was. I tried a couple other baits around those areas, but never got a bite. So, I was off to "hunt" for some largemouth.

I found largemouth in 6-8 ft. of water, where there was good, healthy, green grass growing. The thicker the better and some was already to the surface. Perfect! Find those areas and you will find some largemouth.

I pitched a texas-rigged, 3 1/2" BassPro Tender Tube (green), with a 3/8 oz. tungsten weight on 15 lb. Berkley Big Game line. The rod was a 6 1/2 ft. MH Daiwa rod with a matching Daiwa reel. The bites were quite light and I missed several, because I could hardly feel them.

Things have changed drastically, since last weekend! Summer came with a vengeance. Today, air temps hovered in the upper 80's and the water temperature came up nearly a full 10 degrees. We started the day at 68 deg. and had 71 deg water by afternoon. Winds were light from the SW, to start, but quickly grew to 15-20 mph and switching to the west. Thunderstorm clouds threatened, in the distance, but that weather never materialized while we were on the water.

Despite the rapidly warming lake water, there were still some nice fish to be found in the shallows. We held the boat in 5-10 ft. and casted straight in toward the shore, with green tubes and white flukes, to catch an array of mixed smallmouth and largemouth bass. Although it was difficult to hold in that wind, the windy side of the lake was, by far, more productive. The best method to fish for these spring-time smallies and largemouth, is to just get on your electric motor and cover water, to find those active fish that are feeding up shallow. There are long stretches with no activity, but then suddenly, you will run into several fish in the same area. Both the smallmouth and largemouth ranged up to about 3 1/2 pounds, today.

Conditions today were mostly cloudy, breezy and somewhat blustery. Winds were SW-W @ 10-15mph with gusts to 20 mph at times. Water temps were still quite cold at 59-60 deg. Air temps hung in the upper 50's to low 60's.

The bass were not in any mood to chase anything, following the passing of a severe cold front. Yesterday afternoon brought some heavy T-storms to the area and air temperatures fell off by some 10 deg. We threw the normal variety of flukes, lipless cranks, jerk baits and spinnerbaits to no avail. A couple smallmouth did show themselves but did not jump on the presentations.

Green tubes on 8 lb. Berkley Vanish Fluorocarbon line and 1/8 oz. heads finally did the trick. Our best results were on the windblown side of the lake, where the wind blew directly into the shore. At times, it was difficult to hold the boat, but it proved to be the method to get bites. Most fish, both largemouth and smallmouth, were found in less than 5 ft. of water, casting straight in toward the shoreline. Most bites were very subtle and were difficult to detect, with the wind. You really had to watch your line for some unusual movement, or twitch or jump.

We ended up with a fairly successful outing, with quite a few smallmouth from 2-4 lbs and several largemouth in the same range. The one largemouth, that was lost right at the boat, at the very end of the day, I estimated at more than 6 lbs., by far the largest fish of the day.

Got the first trip out to Conesus, today. With highs in the 80's, it was just too nice to pass up a chance to get out on the water. It's been a long winter!

Water temps were at 52 deg. to start the day and about 56 deg. by day's end. The lake was virtually dead-flat for most of the day, with a south to south-east breeze picking up, toward the end. The wind really had no effect on the fishing.

Fishing was extremely tough, yet. We saw a lot of fish cruising the shallows (less than 4 ft.), particuarly Walleye. There were Walleye in the shallow flats, almost everywhere we went. We did manage 2 smallmouth and 2 largemouth bass, along with 2 Northern Pike. We caught them on a white Zoom Fluke and a drop-shot rig with a GULP! minnow. Long, tapering flats with a mix of rock and gravel, in 2-4 ft., held most all the fish. The best technique, this time of year, is to just get on the trolling motor and cover lots of water, to find any active fish. You will see lots of fish cruising the shallows, but only a few will bite. Good luck!

I finally got back out to Conesus Lake, to fish a tournament there, with a good friend. This can be a tough weekend on Conesus, but it proved otherwise on this outing.

We had water temps at 64.1 deg. with a 10 mph SE to SW wind. The forecast for later was strong westerly winds with gusts to 30 mph. The skies were mostly to partly cloudy. By the end of the day, it turned to mostly sunny.

A 30 mph wind, would pretty much destroy our chances of fishing our better areas on the east side of the lake, so we opted to start there, while we had the chance. For a while, the wind speed and direction was almost ideal to "drag tubes" for smallmouth. It started out a little slow, for the first hour or so, but the smallmouth bite did appear and we figured a little something out. Most of our fish came from around 12-15 ft. In the process of trying to drag up those beautiful Conesus Fall smallmouth, we ended up with a limit of largemouth, too. One of those ended up the "lunker" for the tournament at 5 lbs/even.

We fished this area all day, until about the last hour, when the west wind really started cranking up and it became unbearable and virtually unfishable. We went to the more-protected west side of the lake and proceeded to catch several more smallmouth in around 18-19 feet, using the same presentation. One of those fish culled out a smaller fish, for a total tournament bag, 5 fish, 18 lb. 14 oz.

Nice day on the lake and the smallmouth bite is getting started. It sould only get better from here on in, until the lake locks into ice for a winter's nap.

We had mostly sunny skies, with light SW breezes and unusually warm air temperatures, for this time of year. Highs reached the low to mid-80's and felt more like summer that fall. Surface water temps. reached 74 degrees, in most locations on the lake.

The bite was "typical" Honeoye........ tons of largemouth bass, everywhere, but no real size. But, if you are just looking to catch a ton-of-fish, this is the place. Especially if you have a youngster. We caught largemouth anywhere from 3 feet to 19 feet. The shallow bite resulted from flipping texas-rigged tubes (green) into thick weed pockets, to whacky-rigged Senkos on the outside edge, to a 3/4 oz. football head jig, in the deeper water.

Today's conditons were partly cloudy and a threat of T-storms. Winds were very light from the SW. The predicted storms never came while we were on the water. Lake surface temperature has climbed to 70-72 deg. with a calm surface to a slight ripple.

Some smallmouth were still available in the shallow flats with close access to deep water. We caught most fish in 3 ft. or less on a variety of baits, including white Zoom flukes, Bomber A crankbait, green tube and a #8 Husky Jerk. There were the occasional largemouth bass mixed in also. The smallmouth, today, ranged up to about 3 lbs.

I got on Conesus, for the first time of the season. With the new Catch & Release regulations in New York and a 20" size limit on Lake Erie, these waters are becoming more attractive to early-seaon anglers.

Conditions were overcast with a SW wind at approx. 7-15 mph. Water temperature was between 66 and 67 deg., depending on where you were on the lake. Visibility was generally very clear, except along some schorelines, where the wave action had stirred up the soil. There were also some shorelines where cottage owners were installing their boat docks after the winter and had muddied up the water.

Generally, I found the bass to have moved extremely shallow, with largemouth and smallmouth mixed in together. The largemouth were generally small fish, with the smallmouth actually dominating in size. The fish were sitting in less than 3 ft. of water, with some next to the bank. Both the largemouth and smallmouth fell victim to a white Zoom Fluke, retrieved erratically, from the bank to the boat. A fire tiger pattern Frenzy lipless crankbait also accounted for a couple fish. I fished the Zoom Fluke on a 6 1/2 ft. MH baitcasting outfit, spooled with 10 lb. Berkley XT line.

The fishing on Honeoye is really getting tough. Water temperatures have dropped to 40-41 deg. This day proved to be real challenging, with a steady south wind at 25-30 mph and gusts to near 40 mph. It's about as rough as I've ever seen this lake! But, with a drift sock dragging behind the boat, a few smallmouth were catchable in about 17 ft., by dragging green tubes on the bottom, over rocky points.

In a tournament today, big largemouth dominated the weigh-in. Several "toads" were brought in, the largest of which, weighing in at 5.93 lbs. The report from the angler was that they were caught very deep.

I concentrated on the smallmouth and caught some nice fish, up to 4 lbs. We need a few more degrees to drop off the water temperature, which is still at 52-53 deg., before the bigger smallmouth pick up the tempo. Tubes in 13-21 ft. took the smallies and a jig and pig combo reportedly was responsible for most of the largemouth.

The water temperature is falling and the smallmouth bite is picking up. Current surface temperature is 52-54 deg. The quantity of smallmouth, in their usual hangouts, doesn't seem to be quite there yet, but the quality is definitely improving. Today's outing produced smallmouth in the 3-4 lb. range, with the smallest fish around 2 lbs. and the largest of the day, a little over 4 lbs. Dragging tube baits in 23-25 ft. accounted for most of the fish.

The bass bite is a bit slow as of this date. With water temps hovering between 59-60 deg., the largemouth seem to have slowed down. Some good smallmouth have started their annual move toward shoreline structure and can be found between 20 to 28 feet. They are still widely scattered and perseverance is the name of the game. Tube baits are accounting for most of the fish.