Reports

Between some fun fishing earlier this month with my buddy Mike, 2 days on the water with my Cornell fishing classes and 17 guided trips in 20 days, I’ve spent nearly every day of this month on the water. I’m off tomorrow and will be out with Cornell classes both Monday and Tuesday then off for a couple days. During this time I’ll be “recharging my batteries” and then fishing on my own before the next (shorter) run of trips. I’m planning on checking out pike fishing on Seneca then doing some laker jigging and maybe other fishing on Owasco Lake. But who knows? Things will depend on the weather. Plenty of dates remain available in October and onwards.

Keuka Lake out of Hammondsport 9/19: Guided Ed and Brandon for a 1/2 day AM, then switched out Brandon for Alan for the remaining few hours. The guys rent a place on the lake annually and wanted to learn the jigging and maybe do some bass fishing. The jigging was productive, though not spectacular. Fish came steadily but slowly. Numbers of fish and bait were poor in Hammondsport. The Bluff area held a lot more fish. Fish came from around 65′ out to 115′.

The guys do a bit of shiner fishing for bass and usually do very well. The AM bass bite for their friends fishing shiners was slow though they did get a couple good pickerel, so I am guessing the front or whatever the weather pattern was, also affected the laker bite. Their live bait fishing is usually very productive and I didn’t think it would be worth targeting bass from what I could gather.

Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 9/20: I was looking forward to guiding “Bobberman Perry” and his pal Dave for the full day today. We had planned to launch out of Geneva, but the weather had other ideas! The wind was howling this AM out of the south. I was amped to fish out of Watkins Glen. The guys drove quite a ways – coming from the Buffalo area, spent the night at a hotel and spent good money on bait, so I figured we should at least give it a try despite the wind forecast.

Unfortunately we couldn’t get much going on the bobber bite. The bait the guys got wasn’t up to par – it was mainly 3″ shiners more suited for bass and large perch. Dave threw a spoon and spinnerbait off and on and momentarily lost a good fish on the spinnerbait, but other than that just one hit. Water temperatures (62 to 64 degrees) and weed growth looked pretty darn good for pike action. I think the pikin’ will be good this week and onwards, so I’ll be out on my own giving it a good shot with lures and streamers shortly. It was difficult still-fishing today with the wind, weed shards and mediocre bait, so I don’t see this report as indicative of the pike fishing in general. Still fishing with slip bobbers is also difficult when flats are covered with vegetation coming to within a couple feet of the surface. Stickbaits, swimbaits and spoons are more suited for the conditions.

bass Chain Pickerel keuka lake Northern Pike Seneca Lake