Reports

Fished for around 4 hours out of Sampson State Park today targeting pike.  As much as I’d love to sit down and enjoy a nice relaxing dinner on Thanksgiving, the weather looked too good not to fish for at least a half day today.  I have fished very little on my own this summer and fall, due mostly to a heavy guiding schedule which was accompanied with a lot of unfishable days, cancellations and rescheduling.

I had a great day today casting with gear.  Seneca’s water temperature was 49 degrees.  The lake level is still high.  There are some good “leaf lines” out on the lake along with some debris floating around.  I fished four different main areas (i.e. places necessitating decent boat runs) and had a couple hookups and one nice fish landed in my first area.  I got into fish hot and heavy in my second area and then didn’t see anything in the last two places I tried.  Conditions changed throughout my time on the water, so that could have played into it.  I wound up landing 9 solid pike – one was sublegal and a couple were around 22″ to 24″.  My best four ran 28″ to 31″.  The larger fish all had lamprey wounds.   I lost and missed quite a few fish as well.  Needless to say, nobody else was out on the lake.  The weedgrowth is still ample and if you didn’t know we were almost into December, you’d think it was mid-October out there.  The lake remains pretty full of milfoil.