Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 4/16
Guided Mike for a 1/2 day today. The forecasted strong southerlies made WG the place to go. The fishing wasn’t bad today, but the conditions changed continually and the strong winds and rain made for tough angling. The winds weren’t bad when we started at 8:15 am and I had Mike try some laker jigging. The bite wasn’t great, but he had one fish grab his jig three times and not get hooked. Fish were moving for the jigs a little, but not much for the most part.
Mike did some salmon casting and had a hit from a good fish which then followed the stickbait to the boat. It looked to be a salmon or brown in the 21″ to 23″ range. A large pike also followed in Mike’s stickbait. We tried lakers and Mike managed to hook up again, but the fish got off. That was it for the morning. Some opportunities, but we fell short. It’s amazing how a day can go either way! It was cold and wet and there was only one other boat out that I could see.
Due to the rain and T-Storms in the area, my PM trip was postponed, so I got a chance to do a little fishing on my own. As is often the case, the conditions changed for the better in the afternoon, at least for awhile – the winds died down a bit, the rain stopped and the sun came out. I did some salmon fly-fishing in some areas we didn’t have time to fish in the AM and managed to hook 3, mostly small salmon. It was fun getting the hard hits on my new Type 3 sinking line. I also gave a new Intermediate line a few casts without luck. Changing out an old fly-line and fishing a new one is one of the small pleasures in a fly-fisherman’s life. Lines tend to deteriorate slowly and the process often goes unnoticed until things get bad!
I did some laker jigging and managed to land two fish – a 19.5″er and a 27″. I kept the small one for the table and it was loaded with alewives. Both fish were stocked. There are clearly different populations of lake trout on this lake. The fish we catch up north from now until mid-July are 95% wild. These fish follow around the alewives, both up and down the lake. Most fish I catch in “lesser habitats” are stocked. It’s interesting, but I’d venture a guess that 75% of the lakers around Watkins Glen right now (that we’ve been catching) are stocked fish.