Keuka Lake out of Keuka State Park 6/19

Reports

Guided John and Anzie today for a 1/2 day starting at 10 am. I brought some bass gear as well as laker stuff. Going laker jigging at 10 am on Keuka Lake this time of year can be tough. Bass after a cold front like the one that just rolled through can also be tough. But John (1/2 of the Hermans – who do a fair number of trips a year with me) didn’t care to show up at 6 am, so we worked with the cards we were dealt with. They knew what the deal was!

I’ve been sticking around the northern part of the Branchport Arm a bit more than usual this year instead of making the run to the bluff and fishing has been working out well. We marked a fair number of lakers and bait from around 65′ on out. 85′ was productive. John and Anzie each landed a fish around 18.5″. They missed/lost several as well, so I was happy.

I had them fish bass/pickerel a bit. Working some alewife patterned tube jigs and Superflukes was tough, but John managed to raise a couple decent smallmouth bass and hook a pickerel. We spent about 2 hours on lakers and 2 hours on bass.

One interesting thing we saw were carp rolling around on the surface along the slick lines from Guyanoga Creek. That’s pretty common, but what wasn’t was the depth they were in! The carp were suspended in anywhere from 85′ to 125′ or more water. That was the first time I’d seen that. And there were a lot of them doing it. We’ve seen carp swimming in 400′ of water on the surface going across Seneca or Cayuga Lakes. We’ve even seen gar do that. But these carp looked like they might have even been feeding.

Water temps hit around 65 degrees on top. The thermocline remains solid – it’s here to stay. A few loons remain around – we could hear them. That was neat.