Skaneateles Lake 11/18
Guided my friend Eric and his dad David for a full day starting around 9 am. It was COLD out this AM! Cold! We were the only boat on the lake all day long – not a single other rig was in at the State Launch and we didn’t see anyone downlake.
Fishing wasn’t easy today. We started with some strong winds out of the west and plenty of chop along with boat control that wasn’t the easiest. But the fishing was good. David started things off on his 2nd cast with a picture perfect 17″ rainbow trout that jumped and put up a nice battle. Around 1/2 dozen big perch followed along with a dozen sizeable smallmouth bass to 17″. Trying some different areas produced two more nice rainbows to 21″ – one a colorful male and the other a silver beauty. A couple lakers were also in the mix. Best lures were the usual green pumpkin tube jigs (1/4 oz head) and olive hair jigs in 1/8 oz. I also like throwing 1/16 oz jigs, but they can be tougher to fish with. The sun was out and the wind eventually diminished, but it never warmed up much today.
Water temp was 50 degrees. The water level was good. One dock remains in – which is very convenient and my hat goes off to the State (again this year) for that. I can “walk the tightrope” on the cement dock structure, but it’s a major hassle and many guys love late fall fishing on this lake – so leaving a dock in makes sense. With the warm falls we’ve had it makes more sense than ever!