Looks like I will be fishing for a week on Black Lake near Hammond NY. I have no idea about this lake at all. The trip will be the last week of July. If anyone has any information please let me know. It will be greatly appreciated.

Brian,

I fished Black Lake 4th of July week quite a few years ago. There are LMB, SMB, Pike and panfish. Back then the lake turned pea-soup green in the summer so dark colors, large profiles, thumping blades and rattles all helped. I fished seasonal patterns and cought some of everything. The St Lawrence is very close too for a day trip.

This may help:

http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/billj/MYHOTSPOTS.html

http://www.fishinghotspots.com/index.html

The lake has a southwest to northeast orientation, and is separated in the middle by a bridge in Edwardsville. Its a shallow, weedy lake, with the deepest spot around 30' and an average depth of 10' or so. The part of the lake southwest of the bridge is rockier and deeper than the northeast section. My buddy has a cottage on the lake and I usually go at least once a year, although last year I was unable to. I've mostly fished the northeastern section since his boat is pretty small and that's where his cottage is. We catch a lot of LMB on plastics in the weeds and shallow running cranks. The pike will hit just about anything, and you might be surprised by the occasional channel cat or bowfin. The keeper length for bass is 15", and there's good numbers of fish within an inch either side of this. If you're just fun fishing its not a big deal, but If you're in a tourney I would imagine it would get frustrating catching lots of 14 1/2" fish that aren't keepers, lol. Overall, Its one of my favorite lakes. It's pretty well known throughout NY and gets a decent amount of pressure in the summer, especially on the weekends, but the southeast shoreline is almost completely undeveloped which really cuts down on the amount of pleasure boaters.