Seneca Lake out of Lodi 7/21
I haven’t launched out of Lodi in probably 8 years, but I was pretty psyched to meet Merle and his son Ryan there for a 1/2 day AM trip. The point is a stocking site for salmonids. I used to fly-fish there a fair amount in the winter/spring before I bought a boat. The fishing was slow to fair; I’d catch a brown there once every 6 or 7 trips. Anyways, the launch is decent, but the slope is shallow. A truck needs to be backed in a long ways and loading the boat onto the trailer can be tough without getting in the water a ways, but it offers good access to Valois, Long Point and Severne.
Merle typically fishes off his dock and was hoping to learn the jigging and get into some bigger fish. I was disappointed to find my trolling motor was inoperative once we launched. Turns out that the batteries were shot. Normally they die a slow death, but this one kind of just convulsed out! Fortunately the wind was a nice 5 mph and made for a good drift.
Fishing was pretty slow. The cold front made for a tentative bite, and the laker numbers around Lodi don’t compare to those up north, so even if only 10% of the lakers are hitting, at Lodi that isn’t good. But we worked hard and Merle hooked a solid fish. It started coming to the surface and I knew it was a brown. I slid the net under a chunky 5 to 6lb 23″ clean brown. We were all psyched! Merle dropped a good laker after a strong battle. Ryan had some hits as well. A dink brown also came to the net. Overall the fishing was tough, but the guys saw the effectiveness of the technique and came home with a solid brown for the grill.