Reports 11/6 – 11/8
Fishing was fair to excellent over the past few days. The high winds and volumes of leaves in the water played havoc with us a bit on Friday, but conditions cleared up by Saturday. It is typical November fishing – some great opportunities for fun mixed-bag angling, but the weather plays a big role in success.
11/6 Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen: Guided Kevin and Drew for a full day targeting pike. We started just after 7 am. The original plan was to fish Skaneateles, but I wasn’t going to chance it there with potential 30 mph gusts out of the southwest, plus no docks in! So we decided to do Skinny on Saturday and go after pike today. (Launching at Owasco’s south shore was also out of the question due to low water – so Seneca it was.)
I’d by lying if I said fishing was easy today. It was tough. The guys had to work a lot of water, but eventually we had some action. Kevin finally had a hit, then landed a 29″ pike. They also had a couple follows. After a few hours went by, Drew landed a nice pickerel that was maybe 23″ or better. Then, fishing one of the same areas we’d worked previously, Drew landed a sold pike around 31″+ if I remember correctly. The guys were happy with our results given the strong winds and numerous leaves that really rendered some prime areas unfishable. The pike looked good today in terms of their condition.
11/7 Skaneateles Lake:
AM Trip: I met the guys (Kevin and Drew) at the ramp around 6:45 am. We launched the boat and headed south. The guys had their polarized sunglasses and were ready to work some jigs. The fishing was very good. In short order they landed 3 nice lake trout and started getting into some nice perch and smallmouth bass. No rainbows today, but the bass fishing was solid with a double in one area. We kept the lakers and perch and I’m sure the meals will be memorable! It’s tough to beat the table qualities of the fish from this lake!
PM Trip: My PM trip was with longtimers Ron and Matt, who nearly always time things well. Ron had a trip earlier this summer when he landed 47 solid lake trout! Tough to beat that and earlier in the year (in mid-March) the guys hit the landlockeds, a big brown and a bunch of northerns on Seneca, so they’ve been on a roll.
The winds made for tricky boat control and our rainbow trout area did not produce. We fished way down the lake and the guys got into some very nice smallmouth bass, a laker and some good perch. Matt caught a memorable 21″ smallmouth bass that really gave him a good battle.
11/8 Owasco Lake AM: Matt and Ron met me at 6:30 am and we launched out of Emerson Park. The guys wanted lake trout but were perfectly willing to give the pike a shot. Ron landed a 26″ solid, healthy northern on his first cast. The “dreaded first cast fish.” I’m not superstitious, but sure enough – that was the only pike landed. Matt had a hit or two (probably from a dink) but that was it.
Laker fishing started out promising with the guys each landing one, but then it slowed. Plenty of fish were around and Matt managed a second one before we wrapped things up. Lakers ran 22″ to 23″ and were down around 80′, though they are everywhere this time of year given the water temps – you can catch a laker in 150′, 100′, 50′ or even 5′ if you hit the right conditions.