Seneca Lake out of Sampson 11/14 + 15
Guided two full day trips out here. Conditions really changed over the days from overcast skies and zero to light north winds on Tuesday to partly sunny conditions and strong south winds on Wednesday.
11/14: Guided Mike for the full day. It’s always fun to catch up with him since he is a fishing fanatic and finds ways to fish all over the country and catch some cool species. The main target was pike today but the pike did not cooperate very well with the lack of wind. He did manage four nice fish on the day – two early and two late. All hit spoons. I had him try some laker jigging during the middle of the day off of Sampson and he managed four nice lakers (all stocked fish) and had quite a few short hits too. All in all a good day but not the spectacular pike fishing I was hoping for given what we’d experienced over the past two weeks.
11/15: Guided Ryan – whom I have taken out several times in the past both on Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, and his friend Neil, whom I hadn’t met before. Ryan had yet to catch a northern pike. He came close a couple years ago out of Watkins Glen when his fishing partner Dave caught a couple mid-30 inch beauties and Ryan nabbed a fat large pickerel, but a pickerel isn’t a pike. The wind had the pike eating well – much moreso that yesterday and the guys’ first two hours of fishing provided some hot action. They landed 14 fish in fairly short order – all cookie cutter 24″ to 26″, maybe 27″ers. The wind really cranked up around noontime and the fishing got tougher. A few more were hooked by each of the guys but they managed to get off before they were landed. We wrapped up a couple hours early so the guys could make their 5 hour drive home. It was clear that the bite had subsided. Water temp is right around 49 degrees. It is time to dust off the Landlocked salmon tackle and start seeing how things are shaping up this year on Cayuga and Seneca. Can’t wait!