Skaneateles Lake 11/18
Guided Mark I. for a full day of mostly fly-fishing. Conditions were near perfect and the fishing was top-notch. Within an hour Mark had landed a rainbow, salmon and a few lakers. On the day he wound up landing two salmon (21″ and 22″,) a couple rainbows (15″ and 17″+) and four lakers – all on olive woolly buggers fished on an intermediate line. A few nice perch were also landed.
It was nice seeing some smaller rainbows around. Of course we like to catch the big ones, but it’s good to see the younger fish doing well. Salmon have done well here over the past couple years and they are in good condition – nice and robust. The second salmon Mark caught jumped around 4 times! Awesome fight!
Water temps ranged from 50 to 52 degrees. The water here is still very warm for this time of year. That should change this week. The docks were removed and DEC’s Hotline reports that the gates could get closed (possibly for the season) on Monday or Tuesday if we receive significant snowfall. I hope that does not wind up being the case, given that the best fly-fishing is just starting here for salmon and rainbows. There’s always Mandana, but that launch is mediocre.