Reports

Met Rory out here at around 10:45 am for a pike trip.  He has lived in different parts of the country and had never caught a northern before.  We had a good trip earlier this year in the spring targeting lake trout, and he’s had plenty of subsequent good fishing on his own out of his kayak for lakers as well as other species.  Pike are one of my favorite species to fish and guide for.  I like all the toothy critters – pike, pickerel and muskies.  I’m sure if I lived in Florida or around the Bahamas I’d spend time targeting barracuda – which look and act as if they were related to northerns.  I enjoy pike because they hit so hard, fight well, are a cool looking fish and are also good eating.  Muskies -both pure strain and tigers are great but they aren’t as numerous as pike.  With pike fishing I get more action.  I like pickerel a lot too, but pike commonly are larger unless you’re fishing a lake infested with “hammerhandles.”  We don’t deal with dink pike as much here as people do out in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

We started out with some strong winds and choppy conditions.  Fishing was tough to start but after 90 minutes or so Rory landed his first one – a 22″er.   Nice looking fish.  We had another small one after that – a 20″.  Rory actually was pretty sure he had a hit on his first cast of the day which was cool.   The third fish was a 28 1/2″er that we kept.  After that he caught a 25″ and a 30″ that we released.  Both of the larger fish had lamprey hits on them.  A few other nice fish were lost.  Weed growth and water levels are both still good.  All fish came on spoons today.   Water temp was 46 on the surface.  Next week is looking good weather-wise and I’m tentatively booked up from Monday through Wednesday.

Gift Certificates are available for any amount for the holidays!   To insure delivery before Christmas, order early this week!

You can see the lamprey scars on both fish.  I’m pretty sure the reason we’re not seeing a lot of big pike on Seneca Lake this year (or the last couple years for that matter) are the lampreys.  They do a number on the pike population here.