Skaneateles Lake 11/8 + Seneca Lake 11/9 AM
11/8 Skaneateles Lake: Guided Mark for the full day. He was after a rainbow trout on the fly. It was cold out to start with air temps hovering around 34 degrees. A couple other boats were out. We worked a lot of areas. First fish of the day was a perch around 10″. Then Mark caught a tiny 7″ rainbow. Another area produced an 18″ to 19″ laker and a good grab from what was likely a rainbow. Then came an 18″ + Landlocked salmon and a rainbow around 16″ that jumped and got off. But no rainbows landed until nearly 4 pm, when Mark connected with a beauty. The fish fought tremendously. After numerous netting attempts I finally landed the 20″ bow. Not a monster, but a monster fight! One of the most beautiful rainbows I’ve ever seen.
Mark was out with me last week pike fishing. He’s a skilled and determined angler as well as a terrific fly-caster. I’ve touted Skaneateles for years for the great fly-fishing opportunities, but I feel I need to reiterate that this fishing is generally quite a challenge. You EARN your fish on this lake, whether fly-casting or casting light jigs. The scenery and water color that’s beyond compare make any day on this lake special!
11/9 AM Seneca Lake: Guided Noah for 1/2 day out of Watkins starting at 6:40 am. He’d never caught a pike and wanted to check it off of his bucket list. He managed to land 3 solid northerns today casting spoons. All were nice fish from 29″ to around 32″. He had some other hits as well. Great hits and good battles. We saw a landlocked salmon or two along with a bass today in one area. The lake isn’t fishing as “stupid easy” for pike as it was from 2006 to 2008, but the fish are plentiful and running large and generally looking healthy. I’ll actually take what Seneca is putting out now over any pike action I’ve seen on this lake since I started fishing it regularly (around 1986.) If these fish survive the disease issues we’ve seen here in the past, we’ll be catching 40″+ fish here fairly regularly. Let’s keep our fingers crossed! Water temps are around 51. A few guys were out targeting perch – it’s safe to say that it’s a good time to do that here and throughout the state.