Seneca 5/26, Cayuga 5/27, Skaneateles 5/28
Checked out Seneca out of Sampson for pike and lake trout on Friday. There still isn’t much of a pike bait going for me in the middle portions of the lake. I missed and dropped one solid fish and that was about it. There are some massive milfoil beds that are getting ready to come up! They will grow a lot over the next week. I expect the pike fishing to be like that of 2004 – we’ll probably have good fishing in mid-June. Time will tell….
The lake trout bite was good to excellent. There were some solid schools of baitfish moving up from Sampson down to Lodi point on the east shore. About 45′ to 90′ of water seemed best. I landed 4 nice fish and missed a few others. I killed my limit and didn’t fish after that, though the bite was starting to get really good 😉
Cayuga on the 27th was a guide trip with Dale and his son, Dale Jr – who’s 6 years old! Dale Jr. was chomping at the bit to go fishing, though I did warn his dad re: the unsettled conditions of the past week. Fog was the order of the day. We had very little action on the jigs – a couple fish chasing half-heartedly on the screen was it for the morning. Lots of marks around. Did some casting and Dale Jr. managed to hook into a nice 18″ brown. Pretty good for a 6 year old! Like a true sport he handed the rod to Dad after hooking the fish! They also caught a sublegal landlocked salmon. Laker action stayed slow. I checked areas including Millican, Long Point, Silos and areas in between from 25′ to 160′ of water without much action – except Millican. Some aggressive fish there, but we didn’t hook up.
Skaneateles Lake on Saturday was very enjoyable. I had Barbara and her husband Larry for 1/2 day. It looked like it might be a tough day given the calm sunny conditions. Barb hadn’t fished much since she was very young and I went over a bunch of different presentations/lures with her. Both horizontal light and vertical jigging, drop-shotting, stickbaits and tube fishing. We also worked on casting. She did a great job and found that a Rapala Husky Jerk was an effective lure. A couple smallmouths chased it up, and she saw one grab it – that was all it took to have a new “confidence bait.” She had some beautiful rainbows up to over 21″ chase the lure, but they didn’t grab it. Finally she nailed a nice 18″ bow on it. What a thrill! Larry and I worked on his fly-casting and lake presentation. We went over the differences between lake and stream fly-casting and fishing. By the end of the trip he was casting pretty decently. He had some nice follows from bass, trout and salmon and a grab or two but no fish landed. We’ll get them next time! At least Barbara managed to secure dinner….. 😉 Water temps are creeping into the mid-50s. I think the casting bite will hold up here for another couple weeks given the cool water temps. I’m hoping!