Reports

It’s always great seeing “Pepperidge Farms Tom” and today was no exception. It’s nice to see that my hard (for me!) butterfly drill swim sets at Cornell and careful eating of select fruits and vegetables has all been for nothing, as it is time to start demolishing Milanos and other tasty items by the bagful.

I had some trepidation regarding where to fish today for the best action. I’ve seen damn tough pike fishing with sunny, calm conditions and even with overcast calm conditions at times. The forecast made me leery, but we chose Watkins for pike. Fishing started out great (we started at 10:30 am in hopes of the wind coming up.) Tom landed 5 pike in short order, mostly on stickbaits. Fish ranged from 24″ to 29″ and are hitting hard and fighting good. He missed others. In short, it was very good to excellent fishing to start. Some bass around 10″ to 12″ were also in the mix. Tom also managed one jumbo perch.

As the sun came out and wind died, we tried some laker jigging near Valois without any action. Fish were there. Another pike or two were missed and finally as it was getting dark Tom hooked a very solid fish – a nice 36″ northern! Got a few photos and released it. All fish were let go today. Alewives are starting to invade the shallows – we saw a nice ball of them and there were other signs of them being around. Bass and perch are on some of the points. Water temp was back up around 64/65 today.

As an added note, I’ve had my Cornell Classes out over the past couple weeks shorefishing. Action has been slow at the Whitney Point Reservoir Spillway. The water level is low. Best action on smallmouths has been on the school side. My class has caught some small smallmouths and even a largemouth on the old Agway side. The rockbass are absent. A lot of carp have been milling around. No sign of walleyes yet – at least for us.

bass Northern Pike Seneca Lake yellow perch