Reports

Today was a gorgeous day for this time of year, so I decided to check on Keuka Lake.  I love keeping a limit of wild lakers here when I can this time of year!  I freeze most of them and get to have baked trout once a week over the next five weeks.  There are no better eating lake trout in the Finger Lakes as far as I’m concerned.  I’ve never met any fish eater that doesn’t think that the fish here aren’t exceptional on the table.  Keuka fish can be tough to catch in the summertime, but from November through April, the fishing for them is usually top-notch.  This time of year, they’re spawning – and these fish hit good while in “spawn-mode” as opposed to most area lakers.   By February, they are recovered from the spawn and the fly-fishing and regular spin-casting can be terrific here for them.

I worked areas around the State Park to start and within an hour after starting at 12:30 pm, I had landed three nice fish up to 26.5″ and missed/lost a few more.  I released the big one, since there’s so little for fish to eat in this lake, I’d imagine a big one might do better here, since it’d be able to eat bigger forage.  I tried some areas around the Bluff with bladebaits and jigs hoping for bass and/or a walleye.  No luck there apart from a nice perch.  I tried some pike gear around some of the weedbeds along submerged points and had what appeared to be pickerel following my lure in.  This lake doesn’t have a lot of pike, but it’s produced some monsters over the decades, so I figured, “Why not give it a shot?”

On the way back towards the launch, I filled out the rest of my lake trout limit – mission accomplished!  The water level here is remarkably good compared to the other Finger Lakes.  Surface temps are at 53 degrees.