Sorry this is a late report, but I was reminded that I forgot to post up here by one of my FCS brothers.

Oneida Lake....

Rains had dropped water temps a bit, to 74-76°, and many of us didn't have a clue, myself included.

I noticed most boats gathering at launch for the end had TONS of gear on their decks.  Looked like we weren't the only ones having trouble scratching out five bites.  If it was a pickerel tournament, I would have been the KVD of the club, LOL.

OK, here's the results.

Bill L. and "FNG" Felix had a nice limit for the day, coming in 3rd with a mixed bag weighing 11-1.  Bill reports "black worms" as his bait.  Nothing new there!

Dan S. and rookie FCS'er George had a great looking bag weighing in at 12-4.  They capitalized on an early topwater bite to have a limit by 8 AM.  From there, George reported upgrading all day with plastics.  Sounds like they had the plan, just not the bigger fish.

Nguyen and Partner Ron W. mad another strong showing, boating 12-13 worth of fish, anchored by a 3-9 largemouth that took lunker.  No word on techniques, but my guess is a Sammy was thrown most of the day, LOL.

Final results:

Some pics:

1st place: Ron and Nguyan with the lunker, and Ron's fish he claims to be a meanmouth.

Two more from their winning bag.

2nd place: Bill and Felix enjoying their winnings.

3rd place: Dan receives gas money from TD Perry.

Some more pics:

Congrats guys.  Nguyen is on a tear this year!

Excellent report.

Great post!

;D ;D ;D

Thanks guys.

My buddy Jim won another small club tourney that day, with three that went almost ten pounds.  And he didn't start fishing until his partner had five in the well.  He was a guest on this trail, and volunteered his boat when our friend Hank's broke down days before, so he wasn't fishing for points like Hank was, so he wanted to be sure he had a limit.

This is Jim's home lake, and he fishes it two or three days a week, and even he said it was one of the toughest days in years.  There was a Northeast ABA tournament there as well, with about 40 boats, and their winning weight was around 10 lbs.

Two of Jim's better fish:

Those are a bunch of healthy fish getting their picture taken, some pretty tough fishing though, huh? At first look I thought you had Jeff Gordon fishing your tourneys.

Another one reminds me of Burley.

I wish everybody in the world could meet my friend Jim.  He's that special, not just as a fisherman, but as a friend, and a human being.  Simply put, class.  Product of great parents.

Jim and his dad:

Nice report. Looks like fun.

Interesting looking meanmouth.

Jim have anything to say about the tough bite?

Here's a quick article I wrote up for the club on Ron's weird fish:

I did a little research on "meanmouth bass."  My current understanding of what a meanmouth is, a cross between a Kentucky spotted bass (Micropterus punctulatus) and a small mouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu).  These are naturally occurring crosses that occur especially where the spotted bass is a contaminant species, from natural means or otherwise.  One interesting tidbit is the bit about them not being allowed in tournaments.  This link explains that it was disallowed due to not qualifying for both size limits for each species.  It was a keeper smallmouth, but not a keeper spot, not that it wasn't a "true bass."

http://www.catfish1.com/forums/f342/meanmouth-bass-16061.html

I did find some hearsay information about researchers crossing smallmouth bass with largemouth bass (Micropterus salmonoides) over 20 years ago, but details are sketchy.  There were reports of these fish attacking dogs and humans, and stocks were destroyed.  DEC confirms that no largemouth x smallmouth have ever been developed here or released into NY waters, including Oneida Lake.

So what the hell is Ron's weird bass?  Its not a modern meanmouth, since the spotted bass' natural range only goes as far north as Virginia, which was my original argument.  Could it be a naturally occurring hybrid?  Maybe, but most people that I talked, and have fished the spawn will tell you that smallmouth and largemouth have a definite spawn site preference that don't really overlap, and the timing for each species' spawn is different.  I would argue that last point, since given not so ideal conditions, bass will fulfill the urge to spawn, and I see this all over the bays off Lake Ontario.  Smallmouth beds and largemouth beds right next to each other.  These two fish were locked on beds on either side of a dock, last year:

http://plan-b.smugmug.com/Travel/Port-Bay-w-Burnie/20090522-PortBay-04/544979829_AqgFS-XL.jpg

http://plan-b.smugmug.com/Travel/Port-Bay-w-Burnie/20090522-PortBay-01/543369716_wTEhM-XL-1.jpg

I wouldn't call Ron's bass a meanmouth, since conventional naming has that reserved for spot x smallie hybrids, but just maybe it is a LMB X SMB.  I have a book from college that has identification keys for most of the species of fish in New York state.  Below is the full resolution picture of Ron's fish.  I'll have to check on what parameters need to collected to complete the key, and whether it can even be completed using the image file, but we might be able to get a few details that point one way or another, or toward both. 

http://plan-b.smugmug.com/Flower-City-Sportsman/FCS-Oneida-Lake-7252010/13091304_H3WnP#948839603_G7ZJa-O-LB

The only observation I made was that the upper maxillary was indeed past the eye when the mouth was in the closed position, hence my immediate largemouth identification.  But, I'm willing to dig further.

Nothing really important, but interesting, if you are interested.

And Brutus, rock bass are Centrarchids in good standing.  Centrarchidae, or the freshwater Sunfish family includes pumpkin seeds, blue gills, all species of black bass, crappie, and pygmy sunfish:

http://www.fishbase.org/identification/specieslist.cfm?famcode=302&areacode=&spines=&fins=

A really cool link that lumps all species of freshwater fish in New York State:

http://pond.dnr.cornell.edu/nyfish/fish.html

Another cool site for identifying fish:

http://www.wiscfish.org/fishid/frames.aspx

See you guys Friday AM for Black Lake!!!!

From Jim:

"Toughest day on this lake that I can remember!"