Reports 5/14 – 5/17
In eleven years of guiding this has been my busiest May to date. I’m on the water virtually every day, due largely to the harsh winter and slow fishing in April. Angling is generally good to excellent in the region and the mixed bag fishing that can be had on nearly all the lakes is really a lot of fun. It’s a great feeling setting the hook and not knowing what the species is on the end of the line. Due to my busy schedule, I’m keeping these reports concise. Here’s the breakdown:
5/14 Seneca Lake out of Geneva AM Trip: Guided Pat and Chuck for a 1/2 day. The fishing was excellent with 6 or 7 solid lakers landed if my memory serves me correctly. The fish are all running large and most are wild. There are fish both deep and shallow on Seneca Lake but the majority are deep. Flatliners reported landing some salmon and a pike on the lake’s north end during the past week.
PM Trip: Guided the Hermans for the afternoon. After our tough trip a week or two ago, it was great to get the rods bent. They managed 15 solid lakers! And Eleonore landed a 31″ beauty. Nearly every trip on Seneca Lake for lakers over the past week has produced derby “board worthy” lunkers! Solid 10 to 11lb+ wild fish stuffed with bait. Seneca is living up to its reputation and Geneva remains the LAKE TROUT CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!!! We have released unharmed the majority of large lakers.
5/15 Skaneateles Lake: Guided Jerrit for a 1/2 day AM then I fished with my friend Anthony afterwards. We had a fun day from start to finish. The AM fishing was a little tough, but after a few hours the fish started hitting. Jerrit did a good job with the jig fishing and landed a couple lake trout, a rock bass and a handful of beautiful jumbo perch up to 1lb 6oz! Those fish made the day! Others were missed and dropped. The lake is high due to nearly 6″ of rain that fell in the region during storms the past week. Water temps shot up and a lot of bass will be moving up. Lakers are in shallow.
Our PM fishing was also lot of fun. We set up primarily for perch but Anthony landed a nice rainbow around 18″ or so. We landed 5 lakers, a bunch of mostly small perch (though we caught a few jumbos,) around 15 smallmouths to 18″ (most were small,) and a pickerel. The afternoon/evening bite was definitely hotter than the AM fishing and we were able to fish more areas. Surface temps were 47 degrees.
5/16 Seneca Lake out of Geneva AM: Guided David and Bill in the AM. I knew right where to go and the guys hammered lakers up to around 31″! Great morning of fishing and not much else to say. Good guys and fun day. Most of our action has been from 140′ to 160′.
PM Trip: Guided Michael for the afternoon trip. He tried Clute Park in the AM and managed a 26″ salmon that weighed 7lbs 10oz! That’s a PIG! Back in the early 2000s my best salmon were 26″ fish out of Cayuga that would typically weigh 6lbs. These fish are in much better condition and Cayuga’s in the old days weren’t bad! FYI: Lake Ontario’s trout and salmon are on the thin side this year. Seneca is producing FOOTBALLS! We got Michael a few lakers for the smoker and he nailed one around 31″ that we released. Small lampreys are common on Seneca Lake this year, but the fish have looked good. We looked around for pike and fished pretty hard but didn’t have any luck. Conditions weren’t great.
5/17 AM Seneca out of Watkins: Guided Michael again and we hoped for pike and maybe more salmon/browns. It wasn’t to be. The fog was brutal in the AM for most of the trip and the lake was as flat as glass. Miserable conditions that I usually won’t guide for most species, but Mike knew what we’d be up against and we gave it a great try. The large numbers of lakers have moved up the lake in all likelihood. We saw a few salmon and pike, but not many. If we’d had better conditions, I think we would’ve scored. Michael is a superb angler and one of the best I’ve guided.