Owasco Lake 5/9 + Seneca Lake out of Watkins 5/10
Did back to back full day trips, with more to come. The past two days have had something in common – tough bites. Working hard and having a little luck will put fish in the boat, but the weather played havoc with us today. Even Keuka Lake has been tough this year! That’s uncommon. Here’s the shakedown on the past two days:
5/9 Owasco Lake out of South Shore Marina: Guided Florian for the full day. I actually taught him how to fish with a laker jigging trip maybe 7 or 8 years ago. He doesn’t get out much and we had some “rust” to shake off on this trip. He was hoping for pike and trout. I thought that Owasco Lake would offer the best chances for him on both. Pike action was slow on the south end to start for us. It’s been up and down this past week from what I’ve heard. We also checked areas for trout with no luck. A fair number of boats were out and that did prevent us from hitting some places I like.
About halfway up the lake Florian had a pike come close to hitting his spoon – it was right behind it. No other grabs. The north end of the lake was also crowded with four boats on Martens Point.
We worked down the lake fishing hard. Over 7 hours rolled by with no fish in the boat and no hookups. Maybe a hit or two. On the south end I had Florian work the warm murky water and he hooked and landed a solid pike around 26″ on a spoon. We periodically checked on trout. Right before we called it a (long) day, Florian jigged up a very nice laker, probably also 26″. We kept both fish and they were full of alewives. The lakers we marked were for the most part suspended over deep water. Like roughly down 50′ over 130′ to 150′. Not an easy day, but persistence paid off!
5/10 Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen: Guided Mark I. for an abbreviated full day. He’s one of my best clients and we’ve shared a lot of memorable days on the water together. Today was enjoyable, but not productive. We worked a lot of areas for salmon with fly-fishing gear. Mark had a grab near the canal and that was it. We worked up the lake past Glenora and Peach Orchard with nothing to show. We planned on setting up for pike late in the day, but incoming thunderstorms put a stop to that. Mark’s an excellent angler and I felt we would’ve had some decent pike action, but it was not to be with the dangerous storms threatening to move through. Water around the canal was up to the low 60s. Most of the lake is around 39 to 40 degrees. There’s water around some bays and creek mouths in the low to mid-40s.