Seneca Lake/Watkins 10/25 + Cayuga Lake/Myers 10/26
10/25 Seneca Lake out of Watkins: Guided Perry and “Fireman Bob,” both from the Buffalo area for pike. Perry brings the bobbers and minnows, and over the past couple years our trips have gone well, primarily because he’s been able to obtain some good bait.
The guys arrived from Buffalo in the AM and it took a little while to get bait, so we might have missed some prime AM fishing, but before long we were underway. Had some slow fishing to start, but making a move paid off. We had a couple good runs around 11 am and Perry, being the nice guy he is, let Bob handle most of the fish. The first pike landed was a 35″ or 36″ beauty (if I remember right.) Then came one around 29″. A 32″ was also landed, along with a nice pickerel around 23″ to 24″. We did see a nice salmon around one of the minnows, so it won’t be long. Best fishing was midday and just before dark. Water temps range in the mid-50s. The pike fishing on Seneca is good now, not great but not bad.
10/26 Cayuga Lake out of Myers: Guided Mark today for a full day starting around 10 am. He’s busy in the AM so we decided to fish until dark. Although pike on the fly were our primary target, Mark was up for some bass too if that was the best call. Given the sunny conditions and steady 10 mph+ winds I thought the bass might offer the best action midday. We started with pike and Mark had a couple small bass chase the streamer. Then he hooked up with a fat 16″ smallmouth.
I set up some spinning rods with jerkbaits and Mark gave it a shot, after having worked the fly-rod for awhile without much to show. Mark hooked a big fish in short order but it got off. I’m guessing it was a decent pike, though we couldn’t tell. We didn’t do much on the bass in the areas we fished.
Fishing remained tough in the late PM, but finally about an hour before dark Mark connected with a 31″ northern on the fly. There are a lot of great weedbeds around on Cayuga Lake right now. As the weeds die back, the fishing should improve, but no matter what, the right conditions help a lot. Cooling temperatures will also help. The pike fishing certainly hasn’t been “gangbusters” yet this fall, but it rarely is on Cayuga. Land 4 to 6 solid pike in a day’s fishing here and you’ve had a good day, especially given that many of them range from 30″ to 37″.