Reports

I just wrapped up an 18-hour day on the water; I’ve been ridiculously busy over the holiday. Fishing was tough to say the least! Here’s how things shaped up:

5/22: Guided Bob and Joanie on Seneca Lake out of Sampson. They’ve fished with me a few times in the past, on both Cayuga and Owasco Lakes. We tried some casting for pike without any action from northerns. One pickerel and one nice lake trout found their way onto the end of Bob’s alewife tube jig. We fished up north for lakers and Joanie caught a nice one jigging. After the trip, I met up with my old fishing buddy Phil and we did some laker jigging. The jigging picked up a bit and we managed to land around a half dozen lakers – mostly 22″ to 25″ incl. one 29″ fish. We checked a pike area and I picked up one nice northern plus a 14″ perch. The perch and pike were shallow. The most interesting part of the day was watching a laker whack an apple core I’d tossed overboard. It looked like a baitfish!

5/23: Guided the Herman’s for a full day on Cayuga out of Dean’s Cove. Fishing was slow. We jigged lakers with John Herman catching a solid 29″ fish in shallow, but overall it was tough going. We covered a lot of water and marked few fish and very little bait. The few fish we marked weren’t very active. AES Cayuga was discharging cold water, which doesn’t help anything. John also caught a nice smallmouth and a few perch to 12″ in a shallow bay. I couldn’t believe that people were wakeboarding in the 49 degree water near AES! Wow.

5/24 AM: Guided Ron and his son Matt on Seneca Lake out of Sampson. We started with some pike fishing. Matt had a follow or two from a couple good fish in short order, but no grabs. After an hour of pike fishing, we headed north for some lake trout. Ron did well, landing two 29″ fish and one around 25″. Matt landed a 24″. We had fun and found fish between around 50′ and 120′.

5/24 PM: Did a trip with Erica and Elliot out of Sampson as well. Erica is another “Wine Enthusiast” employee. They were in town for a little R and R and some wine tasting. They’re based in NYC and had never fished before! We got a late start and things weren’t looking good. Lakers were chasing but not hitting. As things got dark, it was time to pick up and lo and behold Erica landed a nice 3lb + laker! So we avoided the skunk.

5/25 AM: Guided Ed and John for the Seneca Lake Memorial Day Derby Day 3. Fishing was very tough. We marked lakers but couldn’t get them to grab. John lost a good fish in deep water. One fish was landed on the day. And we fished hard!

5/25 PM: Guided Greg, Tom and Dennis for some lakers on Cayuga. The wind was blowing good out of the north when we started and things didn’t look great. Greg has a place on the lake and I went over the jigging technique with him. We worked a lot of areas from Silos down to past Long Point. We tried from 40′ out to 150′. 100′ to 105′ produced one 29″+ fish for Greg. No other hookups were had.

bass Deep Jigging Northern Pike Seneca Lake Memorial Derby yellow perch