Skaneateles Lake 10/14 PM
Got out here on my own after an unexpected “cancellation.” I was on the water by 2 pm. It was nice seeing boats and jet skis being taken away for the season by their owners. The lake will pretty much just be a fishing lake over the next 6 months – just the way I like it. I decided to try an area or two for walleyes – just to see if I could nab one, then I went looking for rockbass and maybe a smallmouth or two for the table. A September/October dropshot fest for rockies and bass is becoming a favorite thing of mine to do over here. After 8 hours around Chaumont/Lake Ontario having maybe 7 or 8 hits from bass (albeit BIG bass) it felt good to get over here and at times literally have a hit EVERY CAST! Yes, the bass/rockbass fishing was that good.
Things went pretty much as planned. I had to fish deeper than I was hoping for bass. I worked 10′ to 35′ FOW with a dropshot rig and did very well. I landed around 20 smallmouths and probably as many rockbass today including some nice ones. Most bass were over 12″ but not much over. I had a few in the 15″ range and one or two around 16″. I had a hit on my dropshot and felt a decent fish on the line. It looked like perhaps I had foulhooked a sucker. It was white like a trout but had zero silver on it. Yep – it was a walleye. A 17.5″ one. I wasn’t sure what the regs were over here – was it only 18″ on Conesus and Owasco/Otisco or throughout the FLs? So I called my buddy Terry who was at work. He looked it up and yes, it was 18″ for all the FLs except Honeoye. What a shame! I had to release a fish that was progeny of illegally introduced walleyes. That fish could live to over 25 years old and devour countless rainbow trout and landlocked salmon. Oh well. Hopefully DEC will come forward with some regs on Skaneateles Lake to show that illegal introductions do not result in protection. It didn’t matter – about 5 minutes later I had another walleye – this one was around 19 1/2″ long! Straight to the frying pan it will go. So yes, there are likely a lot of walleyes here. I haven’t seen the usual walleye crowd show up (i.e. fat guys in Lunds 😉 but they will be here soon I am sure. Trollers I talked to mentioned taking 4 walleyes this summer while trolling for lakers/rainbows including a 5lber. Water temps here are ridiculously warm for this time of year – still around 65. Don’t expect much nearshore trout fishing for another couple weeks.