Skaneateles Lake 8/23
Guided Leo and Ada for a full day starting at 8 am. We usually do a “catch ’em and eat ’em” mission here in late August loading up on large rockbass and a few smallmouths. Drop-shotting was the ticket today for the most part. Leo’s first drop resulted in a fine 19″ smallmouth. The size went down from there. They landed around 15 smallies, with roughly 70% being legal fish, though most were on the smaller end of legal (12″ to 14″.) Rock bass really turned on around 10 am and we were able to land plenty of solid 9″ to 10″+ rockos along with a ton of throwbacks. One decent perch was also caught. Boat traffic was light here. About 20′ to 35′ FOW was best for us. We tried shallow and found a few smallies and rock bass as well. The cold front likely had a lot of the larger smallmouths in a negative “mood” today. Usually we catch a lot more quality (15″+) bass here. Surface temp was 73 degrees. It was windy with north winds funneling down the lake gusting into the upper teens and low 20s at times.