Keuka Lake 10/13 out of Branchport
Did two one-half day trips today out of the State Park. Started around 8:15 am with David and Bill. It was COLD!!! 28 degrees for an air temperature! There was a light breeze out of the south and plenty of steam/fog coming off of the lake. I watched a troller land what might have been a couple sublegal landlocked salmon near the boat launch at the State Park.
Our chilly run to the Bluff paid off. The guys had some very good action on some very good fish ranging from the usual 19″ to 22″ Keuka fish to a couple around 25″ to 26″. The usual plastics worked well.
My afternoon trip was a late booking with Tim and his wife Stephanie. We tried fishing around Branchport for awhile without much luck. For what it’s worth, there are loads of fish around the State Park, but oftentimes the bite is just better at the Bluff. There are just more feeding fish there and it’s much easier to stay in a productive zone.
BTW – I believe lake trout spawn over a long period of time on Keuka Lake. We find ripe fish here in mid-October and throughout November right up to Thanksgiving.
Anyways, we ran over to the Bluff and in short order some fish were hooked. Once one was landed, more fish kept coming. We ended up keeping a half dozen and releasing one and fish were hitting well when we left around 5:30. I’ve cleaned a lot of fish out of Keuka Lake over the past month. Most have nothing in their stomachs. A few have alewives varying from “peanuts” to large, older alewives. I’ve seen a couple sculpin.
I’ve never been a huge proponent of “matching the hatch” in terms of baitfish and trout/salmon. I know it can appear to be important when panfishing or bass fishing, but fish like trout and salmon are opportunistic predators. They aren’t going to swim past an injured 3″ alewife to get to a 5″er, or vice-versa. When I check stomach contents there’s usually an array of sizes of bait. If you only find one size, I think it’s less due to selectivity that it is to AVAILABILITY. This doesn’t mean that other factors don’t figure into determining the size or color of the lures we use.