Keuka Lake AM + Seneca Lake out of Watkins PM 5/13
Keuka Lake AM: Guided Mike and his brother Tim this AM out of Branchport. We started at 8 am pretty shallow – around 70′ to 80′ and Mike landed a 24 1/2″ laker on his first drop of the jig. Within 5 to 10 minutes, Tim got one around 23 1/2″. Things were looking great. Then fishing slowed a lot. I ran the guys all the way to Hammondsport hoping we’d have some good to great action. The bait was gone and Tim landed one more fish. Fish were scattered and some were moving for the jigs, some chasing high, but most were inactive. We finished up at the Bluff with slow fishing. The Branchport fish were feeding and had fresh alewives – both large and small in them. Weird weather day. We did try deep too without any action.
Seneca out of Watkins PM: Met Jerry and Barbara at the launch at 3 pm for our evening salmon trip. Conditions looked good – mildly threatening a T-storm, but warm and windy (from the south.) The stream fly-fishing Jerry occasionally does didn’t translate well to the lake, so we wound up casting with spinning gear. I showed Barb how to cast and it didn’t take long before she was fishing effectively. Action was slow until Barb hooked a nice salmon around 4lbs or so. It jumped incredibly high – twice, before it got off. Jerry had a couple hits and follows too. We tried a little pike fishing but my hot pike area had dissipated – the water was cooler and clearer and the fish were gone. Some more casting resulted in Jerry hooking and losing a quality salmon around 4 to 5lbs. He did land a nice smallmouth near a creek mouth. Storms came just as we called it quits. There’s still some good salmon casting to be had this season!