Reports

I headed over to Seneca Lake yesterday with gear for pike, lake trout and smallmouth bass.  I checked on lake trout for a half-hour and marked some but didn’t have any action.  I tried one area for bass also without action (the water was pretty discolored.)  Since I had good pike fishing conditions, I decided to give them a go.  I generally fished places I haven’t fished nor guided for pike in probably 14 years or more.

In fairly short order I landed a 31″ northern.  The fish was generally clean.  In another area I nabbed a 25″er and a solid 32″er.  Both fish looked good.   There were no signs of any lamprey activity on the fish.  It’s been a long time since Seneca Lake has produced consistent solid fish in the 30″ to 40″ range.  If the lamprey numbers stay down and the pike can stay healthy, we may start seeing some beauties over the next few years.  We can only hope!  Plenty of green milfoil is still around.  Water temperatures were 56 degrees on top.  Needless to say, Seneca Lake surface temps are generally the exact same as Cayuga Lake, given both lakes proximity to each other and similar sizes/shapes and tributary locations.

This steady Indian Summer weather can be very good to excellent lake trout jigging. These are also good smallmouth bass fishing conditions.  November 18th – 25th remain open as does the last week in November and then we’re off to December.