Keuka Lake Ice fishing 3/6 out of Keuka State Park
Met my buddy Mike at the State Park around noon. We set up to jig lakers. The fishing was a bit slow for us today. Maybe we missed the hot bite or weren’t in the best areas but we worked for our fish. I wound up with 3 nice lakers and had another 3 close to the hole. One that hit right under the ice! Mike landed 2 and also dropped more. He was using a makeshift laker jigging set up and wasn’t real happy with the softer rod, feeling that he couldn’t get a good hookset. We worked from 100′ to 170′ and found fish – albeit one or two at all the depth ranges for the most part. We’d first drill a hole, then typically have some action, then have to move on. But we never had a lot going on under us. Fish didn’t seem too aggressive.
An angler we talked to that had fished early in the AM landed 20 to 30 fish. We were a day away from the full moon, so it’s likely that lakers are feeding heavily at night. We also met 3 anglers heading out after dark to give it a shot! I’d love to know how they did. The Bluff Area would be a great choice right now. The Bluff on the Penn Yan Arm maxes out at around 120′, so there’s no need to go deeper. It’s loaded with lakers and would be my pick (as an avid open water Keuka Lake angler) for finding larger numbers of hungry lake trout. I’m guessing I might give Keuka one more shot this winter through the ice.
I think this heavy ice-fishing pressure on Keuka’s lake trout is a good thing and will hopefully help to keep this large population of fish in check. We’ll see come open-water season if we see some more bait or bigger fish.