Seneca Lake 11/20
Got out here at around 11:30 am with fellow Finger Lakes guide Kurt Hoefig. Originally we were going to target pike on Conesus Lake, but with the days getting so short and water levels there likely quite low, I figured why not check on Seneca Lake. I had to drive to Rochester yesterday for an appointment and certainly wasn’t up for another 4 hour plus round trip. Anyhow, we want to stay on top of any changes going on here with the rapidly expanding goby population. We brought tackle for salmon/trout, perch and pike.
We covered a lot of lake today working water from 10′ out to 40+’ deep and had encouraging results. We were not able to generate any kind of shallow lake trout bite, nor did we encounter bass, perch or pike up shallow feeding on gobies. We did run into promising numbers of mostly young landlocked salmon. Kurt did have some sizeable beauties follow him in, plus he landed a chunky 21″, 16″ (spawner) and a few other nice salmon. He also caught a small wild rainbow. I also had a follow or two from salmon. Our action took place in a few different “zones.” so that was very encouraging. In one area, while Kurt was catching salmon, I was catching perch – lots of them, although most were small. I nabbed around 8 nice keepers in the 11″ to 12 1/2″ range and let go probably a dozen to two dozen more young perch. I’ve never run into as many small perch on this lake as I did today. It was one school, so who knows what’s happening in the rest of the lake, but either way, it’s good news for the future. We checked out one area for pike that had good weedgrowth about a month ago, but didn’t spend much time there since the weeds were gone.
I kept my nice perch and one of Kurt’s salmon that got a bit tangled in the net. The salmon was full of medium/small sized alewives and no gobies. The perch all came out of around 25′ to probably 40′ of water, so they had puked up whatever they were eating before I landed them. I’m guessing that they were on small gobies, but I don’t know for sure. The water temperatures are at 52/53 degrees. Water level is a little low. Water clarity is excellent. We expect good to very good salmon fishing on this lake from here on through March and likely into April and maybe early May. Fly-fishing and casting should both be very productive here!
Cold temperatures along with a lot of rain are in the forecast for this week and next. That should really get the bite for these fish going!