Seneca Lake out of Geneva 7/16 + Skaneateles Lake 7/17 AM
Seneca Lake 7/16: Did a morning trip starting at 6 am with Tom and his uncle Bob. With the weird weather over the past few days I didn’t know what to expect. A cold front came through last night, but oftentimes the first day of the front is still good fishing. The trout bit great late last week. Maybe this would slow them down. But nope, fishing was excellent throughout the AM and was steady to downright great right into the afternoon. The action is certainly making up for the slow laker fishing we experienced in May.
The guys kept 4 fish and wound up releasing another dozen up to around 31″. Most were wild and we had an inordinate number of large, 27″ to 28″ fish. One fish was lost by Bob that appeared to be a real solid brown trout. We had lakers in as shallow as 55′ of water (though we were along dropoffs, so the fish likely came from deeper water.) Best activity ran from 80′ or so out to 115′ or 120′. Two or three other boats were out fishing – that was it!
My PM trip was booked at the last minute on the prior day and was with Andrew and Jessica who keep their boat in Watkins Glen. I was wondering how good the PM bite would be after the good AM fishing, but there was no need to worry. By the day’s end 8 or 9 more solid lakers were landed. The fishing got hot just before we called it a day with Jessica landing 3 nice 26″ to 27″ers. Andy was complaining about his sore wrist! That’s a good day of fishing!
The Chamber of Commerce boat launch area and “circle” was torn up while we were out. It will be repaved soon. Don’t be surprised if it’s closed for a day or two sometimes this next week or two.
Skaneateles Lake 7/17: Guided Amelia and her brother Stanley for a morning 1/2 day. They have a place on the lake and Amelia has been wanting to get into fishing and fly-fishing. After literally teaching Amelia how to cast, it was great watching her really launch some jigs! We worked on fishing tubes, soft jerkbaits and dropshotting. All produced fish. The AM fishing was very good with bass from shallow to 20′ or so. We kept a couple for the table and they had been feasting on the usual crayfish.
In the parking lot I ran into a friend who was trolling and had landed a nice salmon, lakers and some other nice fish. He even caught a couple nice smallmouths out over 200′ FOW eating perch fry. Skaneateles perch fry are just that – fry! They are tiny – around 1/2″ each. It’s hard to believe that the gamefish in this lake live on those things. It’s like eating popcorn and peanuts one at a time and nothing bigger. Water temps on the lakes remain cool – 71 degrees on top.