Skaneateles Lake 6/4
Guided Dan K. today for the full-day. He was out with me on Skinny about a month ago and we were hoping for a repeat of the surprisingly good fishing we had then. Fishing today wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad – it was basically an “OK day.” We started by targeting smallmouth bass. Many of them were hitting short or at least not very aggressively- Dan would get one hit and not hook the fish. Bass are widely distributed around the lake. Dan’s fish ran from around 10″ to 16″. He probably landed around a dozen along with a couple rock bass and a 13″ perch. Larger (17″ to 19″) bass were definitely around – a lot of times the smaller of two fish would hit and the larger one would show itself as Dan fought the smaller one! Tube jigs did the trick. A pleasant surprise came with a couple lakers Dan landed in 15′ to 25′ of water casting 1/4 oz. tube jigs in green pumpkin. Dan filled his laker limit with a 20″ fish he jigged up in around 70′ of water. He also dropped 2 other solid lakers. These fish hit blue tube jigs with a red flake jigged vertically.
My buddy Craig was on the lake fishing bass exclusively. He eventually found a good pattern that yielded some big smallmouths. Jerkbaits and tube jigs worked well for him. Water temps were in the upper 50s – around 56 to 57. The north end of the lake was coldest.