Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 3/19
We had fun fly-fishing Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen for Landlocked Salmon today. We didn’t do as well as last Thursday, but the fishing was good. The sporadic and at times non-existent wind hurt the fishing today. Water temps are rising and up around 40 degrees. The south end had upwards of 46. Fish are scattered around the perimeter of the lake. Smelt patterns cast on intermediate, Type 3 sinking lines and a Rio Deep 7 produced action for us. I landed one fish around 20″ and missed a half dozen hits. My buddy Mike did better, landing 3 nice fish including a fish just under 5lbs at 24 1/4″. They are predominantly feeding on young of the year alewives. The high point of the day was watching a school of what appeared to be at least 50 to 70 salmon in the 16″ to 18″ range swim under the boat! It was like seeing perch! Just unbelievable. As mentioned before, this strain of salmon schools heavily – they probably are with the same group of fish they were stocked with! Perch fishing was reportedly slow today.