Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 1/13
Guided Mark for the full day starting around 7:30 am. Last time we were out (on November 16th,) he had some good fly-fishing for salmon. Yesterday, the forecast for today was calling for very windy conditions, but fortunately the wind forecast was downgraded this morning and moderate winds are what we encountered.
The fishing wasn’t easy to start. Mark worked some “historically” great areas and after an hour and a half he landed a hard fighting brown around 16.5″ long. He had a dink salmon chase his leader/line knot. Another hit was had up the lake, but the fishing was slow.
We tried some midday fly-fishing for pike without any grabs. A lot of cold, murky and downright muddy water was around. We tried for salmon again further up the lake and Mark had a solid salmon around 20″ follow him in. In over 60′ of water, he nailed another decent brown on a streamer. Lastly a small salmon around 11″ grabbed his fly. Fish were around but seemed neutral.
Pike fishing is what we did to end the day, and casting swimbaits/Sworming Hornets resulted in a few hookups on the northerns and one fish landed around 27″ to 28″. Water temps ranged from 39 to 41. Water level is down. Canal was starting to thaw out, but still iced over with the exception of the channel.