[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by bulletbob

There's a good reason they don't fish certain areas this time of year. During the spawn and for a time after when the bass are protecting the fry, when a bass is taken off the nest, Gobies come flying in by the hundreds and instantly destroy the nest, eating all the eggs in the time the bass has been removed from its nest, and they do the same to recently hatched fry... check it out on YT.. There is a guy that defends the gobies saying they don't ALWAYS raid nests , but he's full of crap.. They always do when present in an area... Anywhere there is rocky, pebbly ,broken rubble substrate the bottom is crawling with them, and they eat everything.. Not as bad in open sand, mud, or soft weedy bottom, but thats also not where the SMB are... More and more, locals in NY state do NOT bass fish in waters that are Goby infested, including me ,in the early season... Charters/guides still do, and for some crazy reason the state allows C/R tourneys as well, but those that live here know the score.. The Round Goby has out competed everything near shore, and that includes native minnow species, Perch , sunfish, Rock Bass, SMB and LMB that live in rocky areas.. Yes the bass eat gobies, and yes the bass are big from eating them, but the numbers of bass are WAY down from what they used to be.... If you want to fish the Finger or Great Lakes for bass, I would consider booking well after the fish are off the nests for good, in July or August... bob

Thanks for the info Bob. This is exactly what our guide explained as well and we actually caught a few Gobies. The Cormorants are also doing a number on the fishery to the extent most want a hunting season opened for them.

I've fished up in the 1000 Islands in August and it's lot harder to locate the fish in the Summer then in the spring since they are deep and out of the bays, but if you find them its game on.

We used two different methods on this trip. Drifting small green minnows on a 3 way set up and I tried a drop shot using a wacky rigged Watermelon Sinko. My drop shot was not doing all that well until our guide suggested I use one of his Berkley Powerbait worms in Goby color and tip hook rather then wacky rig it.