Fish turnoff sudden prolonged cold spell

I was catching nice pike consistently (5 to 12) pounds all thru August. The water temp was constant 74 degrees. Then September hit, bringing on cold temps the water suddenly dropped to 67 degrees and for nearly 2 weeks no fish. Anyone experience anything like this? I know they’ll start hitting soon, I usually do well when the water is in the 66 to 60 degree range (before turnover).
Thanks

joc:

Where were you locationally catching your pike during that timme period??? Were you catching them deep or deep weed edges??? I know that during the fall period they come shallower and start to use rocks in our neck of the woods… As for muskies at this time, they can still be shallow or offshore. The offshore fish start to come shallower too and the shallower fish become susceptible to topwaters and bucktails, which seems to have been the pattern most of the summer. I love the time that the water temps fall below 70* until you get close to turnover. Then luckily in our area which contains so many lakes we can switch from big to small as the lakes go through turnover… During turnover fish can move shallower or into sections of the lake that aren’t as deep.

Mark

I fish from the top of the deep weed line (where the deeper weeds became submerged) at ~ 8’ to the drop-off at about (16 to 20)’. From here it rolls on down to 40 feet. This is where I caught my pike and tiger-musky’s all thru August. Typically this is where I usually catch my fish in the fall as well. Spring is another story everything is in shallow (2 to 8)’ little if any weeds.
Conesus has very few rocky areas and is pretty much surrounded by weed beds of varying intensity. The weed beds that extend out into the deeper water with adjacent drop-offs are generally the hotspots for pike.
The only thing I can figure is the sudden and prolonged cold front must have turned the fish off, just guessing and thought I’d see if anyone on the forum had any thoughts? I’ve only caught 2 in 5 outings. Normally I get (2 to 4) per outing. Conesus is not a real high numbers lake but the size is there, with fish running (5 to 12) pounds, rarely a bigger one.
Unfortunately for pike fishing there is no other lake nearby. I occasionally fish Chautauqua Lake for muskies. It’s a 2.5 hour drive and I usually make a weekend of it when I do.

So nobody has ever run into this September phenomenon? Strange that it would only occur on Conesus Lake um. Tried some deeper trolling (I rarely troll, except for L-Trout) no luck.