Ostego Lake

[jdesa38845]

Hi -

I'm new to the area, and was wondering if anyone would be able to provide me with information regarding ostego lake ice-fishing?

Where to park?
What types of fish?
Tactics?
Bait stores?

Any other information would be appreciated.

[ol crawdad]

Where to park:  In town by the boat launch, 3 mile point, GlimmerGlass State Park
What to fish for:  Browns, rainbows, lakers, steelhead, pickeral, perch, and occasionally someone whacks a walleye, altho I have yet to see one.
Tactics:  Jigging laker jigs like tube jigs, kastmasters, etc.  Tip-ups.
Bait:  Depends on the way you go.  I know on 28 south of Milford is Jerry's Bait. 

[jdesa38845]

Thank you very much ol crawdad!

I appreciate it.

[ChenBassHead]

Let me clarify some things.....first of all, it's OTSEGO lake....not OSTEGO  Secondly, there are no rainbows or steelhead in the lake. There are Landlocked Atlantic Salmon however...also, the occasional whitefish and cisco will come through the hole.

This is a deep lake, dropping to about 170 feet in the deepest spot.  The surface area is around 4000 acres. This lake doesn't always freeze well, so be careful...

-Zach

[ol crawdad]

Secondly, there are no rainbows or steelhead in the lake. There are Landlocked Atlantic Salmon however...also, the occasional whitefish and cisco will come through the hole.

This is a deep lake, dropping to about 170 feet in the deepest spot.  The surface area is around 4000 acres. This lake doesn't always freeze well, so be careful...

-Zach

Oops, I didn't mean steelhead, I meant LL salmon - my bad.  Now maybe there is no printed material about the rainbows, but they are DEFINITELY in there.  I have caught them, and I have pictures somewhere.  Also, nowhere have I ever seen mentioned about PIKE being in there, but I have caught one over 6 pounds, and some ol'timers I know say they used to catch pike in there years ago.  (I have to add they were in a local VFW and slightly pickled, but I definitely have caught one.  I have a pic to prove it too, with 5 mile point in the background)

[ol crawdad]

Thanks for the 2nd SB.  It's funny, but we cannot catch any browns from in there, which we hear a lot about, but we do catch the rainbows, which we rarely hear about.  We finally caught one brown last year, and my pop thought it was a brookie, while I held it was a brown (we are not avid trout fishers) and you guys confirmed it was a brown by the pics.  Now I gotta search thousands of pics to find some 'bows! (and that pike pic)

[ol crawdad]

bigredWORKING?!  Say it ain't so!! 

[ChenBassHead]

Come to think of it, I remember ready that the very rare rainbow comes from Otsego...My guess is that they come from either White Creek or Cripple Creek, both of which do hold some rainbows. This is like the discussion about people catching browns and brookies in Oneida Lake. Obviously, something in the lake is more appealing than the creek, and they venture out. As far as the pike goes, that's definitely the first I've heard of there being any pike in there. But, you never do know...I was fishing the north end of the lake, and got talking to a guy who told me he caught a 36" tiger muskie from there...I don't know the truth behind it, but it's definitely possible, since I believe it's connected to Canadarago through some creeks.   Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Historically, there are supposed to be some burbot in there as well, although trawling and electrofishing over the past 5 years has produced nothing. However, that's not to say that there aren't any left in there. It's not exactly easy to drag a net effectively through depths of 170 feet. They do have a really big one in the Biological Field Station actually, in a jar.

I spent some time last year working at the Biological Field Station (located in Rat Cove) and talked with biologists quite a bit. The walleyes are definitely there. In fact, they've said that the populations are easily fishable. The thing is, these fish are hard to target in this lake, because they just do not relate to structure. They were implemented as a souce of predation for the alewives (and to restore a historical fishery). Being that they focus on the alewives, they suspend, and follow the alewife schools. The growth rate of these fish is also incredible. They said that the walleyes here have an unlimited food supply in the alewives, and they just gorge themselves. They had one in the freezer that was caught in a gill net that was 12-13 lbs.

-Zach

[ol crawdad]

Yeah CBH, the pike was a surprise.  I thought it was the biggest pickeral I ever caught, when I caught it, and I mentioned to my Dad and bud that were with me that it smelled like a pike and had the same red in the fins like larger pike, but I didn't notice it WAS a pike, until I got the pics developed.  I think the 35 degrees and occasional rain that day had my brain on hold, til it could defrost.

[depthchargedriller]

i herd that the white fish there are called otsego bass... and you have to use really heavy tackle to get down to them because they are in like 90 fow. my dad told me that his family used to go there for them and they would use lead core line and what not. we got some whitefish up when my dad and I were fishing at senneterre Quebec, and we kept some of the big ones we got that were ranging from 9 to 12 inches. well needless to say they werent that good, but the lodge owner said they were really good. who knows maybe its a Texas thing  . so anyway now that i went off track i was wondering if they are the same thing. i guess it will be kind of hard to know what I'm talking about since none of ya saw the fish but they didn't look tasty.

depthcharge

[ChenBassHead]

Okay, something about the whitefish in Otsego. Two years ago, Bussman and I were fishing for lakers, and he caught a whitefish. He brought it home and noticed that it had a particularly foul odor. This fish was basically rotten on the inside. The reason? Lake Whitefish are primarily planktivores (meaning the generally only feed on plankton). Occasionally, they'll eat small fish or invertebrates, but prefer plankton. However alewives, of which there are literally tens of millions in this lake, are also planktivores. The sheer volume of plankton eaten daily by this population leaves very little food for the whitefish.  That explains why the fish are becoming increasingly rarer (is that even a word?  )in Otsego Lake. The fish are starving, and dying, and unless something drastic happens to the alewife populations (which is pretty much guaranteed not to happen), the whitefish are going to continue to decline. This is straight from the biologists located on the lake.

-Zach

[AugustWest]

Cool link SB. The alewives that the walleyes gorge themselves on, render them non-fertile. There is something in the alewives that does this. This is one of the reasons the Finger Lakes cannot self sustain walleye populations without continuous stocking. At least that is what I have been told.