Reports

I got out over the last couple days.  It was nice to have a break in the winter weather.

Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 1/14:  I was pretty psyched to hit Seneca with my fly-fishing gear for some salmon.  With the nice sunny conditions and light winds it should have been a question of how many fish I would catch, not if I would catch anything.  I had clear sunny skies right up until I drove down the hill into Watkins Glen, when it became overcast.   On top of that, the winds were up pretty good.  A good rule of thumb for fishing out of Watkins Glen is to double whatever the wind forecast is.  Sometimes I forget to do that.   5 to 8 mph out of the south will usually be around 10 to 16 mph.  And that’s what it was.

One boat was out trolling for salmon as I motored out.  It was in a productive area, so I’d guess whoever it was did well.  Overall I had good fishing but poor catching today.  On my first drift I encountered around 6 salmon.  I had two hits in one area and a couple hits and follows in another area.  One of the fish was decent.  When hits don’t hook up with salmon (especially repeated hits) it usually means the fish are small.  That appeared to be the case.  I stuck with my fly-fishing gear for the most part.  Conditions were very good for pike, but I kept at the salmon without any luck.  Winds got worse and a little rain fell.  Cloud cover also increased.  It just wasn’t my day for good salmon fishing.  The good news was seeing the young fish.  Salmon fishing should get better in 2021 and 2022.

Cayuga Lake out of Long Point 1/15:  After yesterday’s tough outing I was looking forward to doing some “catching” with my buddy Mike.  And catching is what we did!  Lake trout fishing was fantastic out of Long Point.  In less than two hours we landed 14 lakers up to 31″!  It was incredible fishing.  Mike landed a fat 28″er and I nabbed a 31″. Fish were great looking clean lakers (only one recent lamprey scar on a fish.)  We tried an area that I’ve never worked shallow for lakers and caught three more for a total of 17 fish in about 2+1/2 hours.  If that isn’t world class, I don’t know what is.

The most productive method for us was casting swimjigs – one of Mike’s specialties. I did nab a couple on blade baits but the swim jigs were tops today.

We wanted to get some pickerel for pickerel patties so we motored up north. Five boats were out perch fishing from Union Springs/Cayuga State Park.  I’m not sure how easy the launching was up there.  The lake is low, but guys were out in some bigger boats.  We nabbed 4 pickerel and a couple perch before heading back to Long Point.  If we’d had more time we would’ve perch fished.  We did find a group of them. Water temps are around 40/41 degrees on both Seneca and Cayuga Lakes.  Water level is good on Seneca and low on Cayuga.