Reports 11/4 – 11/6
Fishing is generally good to excellent in the region, though some days are still tough for various reasons. It’s a great time to be out if you don’t mind the cold – the lakes are super quiet and the scenery is gorgeous. Open dates remain throughout the month and into the winter.
11/4 Cayuga Lake out of Union Springs: Guided Kevin and Drew on Cayuga Lake for pickerel and bonus fish. The guys have been out with me a few times before and this time Kevin just wanted action, so off to Cayuga Lake we went for some pickerel and whatever else decided to bite.
Fishing today was downright excellent. A few doubles and at times a fish on every cast made for a busy day for this guide. The guys managed to land over 30 pickerel to nearly 24″ long. Six nice largemouth bass up to 20″ were also boated along with some perch. The fishing was so good the guys decided to call it a day early so they could relax back at camp with a few drinks. Great day!
11/5 Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen: You might ask yourself why I’d guide out of Watkins Glen for pike after Greg’s tough day last Saturday, but I had met Mark I. over at Waneta Lake for a crack at some muskies on the fly when we encountered a musky tournament over there. Yep – the parking lot was loaded with trailers. Waneta is a small lake and to me it fishes small – not really a great place for a musky derby and definitely not a great place to try to fly-fish alongside a bunch of guys casting gear. We said heck with it and went over to Watkins.
Fishing on Seneca was tough. First off, I hadn’t brought pike gear – just a new SAGE musky rod I had purchased and Mark brought his musky stuff. So we didn’t have some of our best weapons – like a floating line/Clouser set up or a Type 6 full sinking line. We also had leaves and a lot of debris on the east shore of the lake – not great for fly-fishing. Lastly our winds were swirling and non-existent at times. But we gave it our best shot. We saw a couple fish that may have been pike and Mark had encounters with a small bass and a perch – so there was some life in the lake, but no grabs. Very tough day but beautiful to be out.
11/6 Skaneateles Lake: Guided Greg for a half day today then I fished another couple hours afterwards. The target today was a rainbow trout and Greg accomplished that on his 3rd cast with a 22″ beauty that he released. He also caught lake trout, smallmouth bass and perch today. I managed a couple cool doubles – a laker and a perch on one and a couple 14″ perch on another cast, both while using perch rigs. I also nabbed a 19″ smallmouth. Greg took a couple bass on jerkbaits as well. Tubes, jerkbaits and perch set-ups did the trick today. Shore guys are getting rainbows as well. A few guys were over at Lourdes Camp.