Seneca 11/25 out of Watkins, Skaneateles 11/26
11/25 Seneca/Watkins: I fished from around 10 am till dark using fathead minnows. Perch fishing was very slow. I worked around 4 to 5 good perch areas with one light hit. They certainly didn’t want my minnows! Next time I’ll try some other stuff. I managed to land a couple chunky 16 1/2″ smallmouths and even one landlocked salmon around 13″ or so. Reports are that smallmouth bass fishing has been pretty good in general, though slow since Monday. Bass range from 10′ to 40′ from what I’ve heard. Water temps were around 49. Next time I’ll be hitting midlake areas.
11/26 Skaneateles Lake: It’s nice to see the State Launch still open. Rumor has it the DEC may keep the launch open longer in the future. Let’s hope that’s the case – after all, some of the best fishing here occurs from late fall through early spring. We saw two other trailers in the launch on this Thanksgiving Day. One boat was duck hunting. My buddy Mike and I started by perch fishing. We found fish right off the bat, but none of the 14″ perch I’m used to encountering on my jigs. We caught some Cayuga sized fish – mostly in 20′ to 30′ of water near the launch.
Later on, Mike did some fly-fishing for rainbows while I casted jigs. He landed a hard fighting 15″ beautiful bow and a nice bass on the flies. I landed two nice lakers – a 22″ fish and a 19″er. We did some more perch fishing way down the lake without great results. Midlake areas produced more perch and bass (near 5 Mile Point.) All in all, a fun day with good action from perch ranging in size from downright dinks to around 12″ – with most fish around 8″ to 11″. We had around 15 to 20 keepers and probably another 10 to 15 throwbacks. I still can’t fault Cayuga for some excellent perch action, though Skinny is also excellent. By the end of the day I was working 40′ of water and started hitting some good fish. Next time….