Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 12/11 + Cayuga Lake out of Long Point 12/12
Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 12/11: Got out with my buddy Todd on Friday at around 10:30 am. He hadn’t fished Seneca before and I thought he would enjoy the fly-fishing. Fish remain available but they are running from 12″ to around 16″ long. Todd managed to land around 4 or 5 fish. We had one that was 15+1/2″ and wasn’t going to be releasable so we kept it. It had been feeding on very small alewives. I had follows with my flies (I used a larger fly in hopes of hooking bigger fish) but never hooked up. Later on I caught and released a 15″+ fish on gear. My buddy Mike shorefished over there on Saturday and reported the same size range of fish. At least they are clean with no signs of lamprey attacks, but then again, lampreys usually leave the younger fish alone. I will keep checking on Seneca periodically to see if we find any bigger fish. They are out there somewhere! Water temps remain warm for this time of year – they are around 45/46 degrees. This will change after the cold weather forecast this week.
Cayuga Lake out of Long Point 12/12: Got out here again with Todd, who brought his 8 year old son Dalton along for the ride. Had I known how windy it was going to get, I would’ve fished out of Taughannock. I hadn’t launched out of Long Point in a while, so I was curious to see how the fishing was. Conditions weren’t bad for fishing near the point but were really choppy on the west shore. I was hoping for some top-notch shallow lake trout fishing but it wasn’t happening. We found a few fish in relatively close but nothing close to past years in numbers. I’m not sure why. I have no idea what the gobies are doing – how deep they are and how abundant they are. I had a very tough time managing boat control in deep water with numerous 2 foot plus waves pounding us. We tried some other shallow areas that have been hot for lakers over the past couple seasons (including a week ago) and I landed one. As the wind subsided (a tiny bit) I set us up and we did some deeper fishing. Todd managed to land a fish and lose a couple others. We kept both lakers (the shallow caught one and deep one) and there wasn’t anything in their stomachs.
Winter fishing has been unpredictable on Cayuga Lake over the past half dozen years. The fish have a lot of food options and they take advantage of them. A stretch of water loaded with ravenous lakers one day (or week) can be devoid of fish the next day (or week.) It’s crazy. Stay tuned….