Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 11/25 PM
Well, the cold weather appears to be on its way right around Thanksgiving. Conditions looked good for giving Seneca Lake another shot today. Last week, when guide friend Kurt joined me, we fished mid-lake areas out of Severne. Today both of us wound up out of Watkins Glen (separately.) I started right with what I left off doing last time, targeting perch and also checking out some old lake trout areas near the south end of the lake. I gave the perch/trout about an hour and a half. I did not have any hits. In year’s past, I would sometimes have clients target lake trout out of Watkins from December through March when salmon fishing was slow or we wanted to try something different. I marked some lakers but they weren’t very active. I did not find any definite perch schools, but did mark some small bunches of fish that could have been perch. Water temps are right between 50 and 51 degrees. It’s likely that some salmon are still deep – I did mark balls of bait down 50′ (sometimes on bottom) with “hooks” aka fish, around them, which I’m pretty sure were salmon and/or perhaps a few lakers.
My favorite thing to do out here (and in general in the winter) is fly-fish for landlocked salmon. There’s no shortage of salmon on the lake this season, although many of them are in two size ranges – 14.5″ers and 11″ers. I only fished around 3 hours total today split between the perch/lakers and salmon, so I didn’t give it a great shot, but I landed some salmon on the fly and pulled my streamer away from a lot of young fish that I didn’t want to chance maiming. I don’t generally go barbless with my streamers, because big fish can run right at you and push slack into the line and get off, so we need all the help we can get sometimes, but with all these dinks around, it’s not a bad idea, even though some fish still get “gigged” a bit. Anyways, they were pretty much everywhere I fished. They are in excellent condition for their size – plump and clean. 2025/2026 should be exceptional salmon fishing out there, but this winter should also be very good. I love getting out on these lakes and airing out some fly-casts and was happy to see that both my left and right-handed casting was in good shape after a long lay-off.
Kurt and his client did well casting gear on some better quality fish. I’m happy to guide with gear as well as usual. It’s certainly more effective for covering water quicker and for deeper fish. A lot of larger fish are probably deeper now. I expect things to pick up a lot after this next cold spell. Stay tuned!