Erie's pre-spawn bass, like their cousins everywhere, go for a variety of presentations in June. But tube jigs and weighted spinnerbaits retrieved at a moderate pace can usually be counted on for a few hookups.

Hit the lake on a reasonably calm day, and you stand an excellent chance of catching a lunker smallmouth or two. But if you arrive in the middle of a strong westerly wind, you may resolve never to return. Locals figure on rough water about one day in two, or even two days out of three.

Lake Erie is accessible at many pay-launch ramps along the New York shore. And there are good publicly owned facilities, too, such as the Westfield municipal ramp in Barcelona and the pier at the village of Dunkirk, both off Route 5 in Chautauqua County.

Farther north in Erie County, the same highway will take you to the Sturgeon Point livery in Derby. Several marinas in Buffalo harbor also charge a small fee for put-ins.

For information on accommodations along the Chautauqua County coast, call the county's visitor bureau, at (716) 753-4304. The DEC's Region 9 fisheries office in Olean at (716) 372-0645 can provide an update on local fishing conditions or refer anglers to someone who is knowledgeable.

HONEOYE LAKE
My good friends Frank and Melody Tennity of Byron have been New York-to-Florida snowbirds for two years now. They rave about Deep South fishing for bass and crappies. But the Tennitys, who are licensed fishing guides and frequent bass tournament competitors, wouldn't think of selling their camp on Honeoye Lake to live in Florida year 'round.

"For hooking lots of nice, medium-sized largemouths, I don't know of any place that's much better than Honeoye," said Frank.

On several occasions, he and Melody have shown me what their backyard lake has to offer, and I've gone home happy every time. Honeoye Lake -- a 4 1/2-mile-long, mile-wide body of water that's part of the famous Finger Lakes chain -- is simply loaded with largemouths in the 1- to 3-pound range.

Bigger fish are present, but not easy to catch, probably because the small- and medium-sized bass get to your lure before the others have a chance to open their maws. Anglers who know how to work weedy cover can readily catch 30 to 40 bass that are legal-sized or better in a day on Honeoye Lake.

Perhaps the nicest thing about Honeoye is its near-shore weed cover. After putting in your boat at the state launch on East Lake Road, at the lake's south end, you can immediately start casting into weedbed openings, no matter whether you decide to work your way up the east shore or cut across to the opposite side.

Virtually every one of those little openings will harbor a bass or two. I love to use motor oil- and pumpkin-color plastic jerkbaits in Honeoye. But the Tennitys often catch their biggest Honeoye largemouth of the day on a jig-and-pig, or a surface popper.

Anglers who lack confidence in their fish-finding ability should feel a lot better about themselves after their first Honeoye outing, since the entire shore of the lake is "fishy"-looking. Like most lakes, however, this one has some local favorite fish magnets.

The best of these, I'm told by Team Tennity, are California Point, which is about halfway down the west shore via West Lake Road, and Log Cabin Point, the one about two-thirds of the way up the east shore from the boat launch.

To get a free contour map from the DEC's office in Avon, call (585) 226-2466, or simply download a copy from the DEC's Web site at www.dec.state.ny.us.