Skaneateles Lake 4/26 – 4/27
Did a couple guide trips over the past two days. I’ll be back on Skaneateles Lake on Saturday, so I’m pretty in tune with what’s going on over there.
I had Bill in the boat on Wednesday. He wanted to learn how to fly-cast as well as fish during the same day. Not an easy task, but I did my best. My recommendation is to learn casting out in the yard – not on the water, because that way it’s much easier to focus on the mechanics of the cast without worrying about missing fish and the wind and other factors.
We worked on the casting/fishing and Bill did impress me with his ability to digest a lot of info. He mixed up the fly-fishing with some (horizontal) jigging as well. He had a few nice fish come for the flies. He wound up landing a couple small salmon and a smallmouth on the jigs.
Today was the exact opposite! I had Trevor and his friend Foster on board. Foster is probably the best fly-caster I’ve ever seen in person. He’s competed in fly-casting competitions with the best, so it was nice seeing that my rod really wasn’t holding me back like I thought…. 😉 The fishing was decent, not bad but not spectacular. The guys landed some nice rainbows, salmon and a few smallmouths. The fish made up for what they lacked in size with exhuberance. (Though most of the fish were legal.) We did pick up a nice rainbow off the “wall” at the north end of the lake – so shore fishing should be very good up there.
The fishing on this lake has slowed up a little bit over the past 2 weeks – at least my style of fishing working jigs and streamers. The lake has not warmed up over the last week. Wind and a general lack of sun haven’t helped. We really didn’t find any great patterns going on. There are a few fish in the shallows, some in the deeps and some in between. After the trip ended I spent a couple hours probing some areas I usually don’t fish, using flies and jigs. I caught a nice laker and a perch, but rainbows/salmon were scarce.