Cayuga Lake out of Long Point 11/23 + Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 11/24
Cayuga Lake: Guided Dave and Rich for the second 1/2 day of our two day run. We decided to go with the northern parts of Cayuga Lake after hitting the south end yesterday. We launched out of Long Point due to the low water levels that might have made it very difficult to go out of Union Springs or Cayuga Lake State Park.
We had some terrific action on pickerel on the north end of the lake. A few bass were also landed, but the pickerel action was superb with three doubles and around 24 or 25 fish landed – most being over 20″. We had four or five fish in the 24″ to 26″ range. They were all healthy looking and in great condition (fat!) Three nice largemouths to 17″+ were also landed. Fish came on spoons, stickbaits and swimbaits.
I talked to the guys and was wondering whether they enjoyed landing fewer numbers of large pike or great numbers of large pickerel. It was pretty much a draw, though Dave (who landed fewer pike and more pickerel) thought the pickerel fishing might have been more fun. Either way, it’s great to have the choices we have here!
After the trip I checked on lake trout action and landed three fish (one wild) in short order, though they were in the 18″ to 19″ range. 120′ of water was where I got them. I didn’t have much time to check deeper, but rest assured, good laker jigging can be had this time of year throughout the region.
Seneca Lake: Guided Ryan and his buddy Dave for a full day out of Watkins targeting pike. The winds were forecast to be hellacious today, but I felt we could do good just staying south. Pike fishing was tough to start with no action. We switched gears and targeted salmon for most of the day, with one good hit and a few follows, but still not much doing. Conditions got better for pike and we eventually landed some fish. Ryan caught a solid pickerel around 24″ or so and Dave landed two beautiful pike – one around 34″ and one at 32″. Tough fishing, since we had to deal with the strong winds and were basically stuck on the lake’s south end, but the air temps were awesome and we saw some nice rainbows (not the trout) in the sky throughout the day. Water temps ranged from 43 to 48.