Reports

Guided Nat Jr. and Sr. over the past two days starting from 6:30 to 6:45 am and winding up after 11 am today and later on Friday. Water temps are around 72/73. Boat traffic has been fairly light, though was increasing substantially today (Saturday) as air temps warmed up.

Fishing started out quick on Friday, and slower today, but hit some good levels by 10 am on both days. We really covered some water and I didn’t fish any of the same areas on Friday vs. Saturday. Overall, there are loads of rockbass and a few perch in deeper water – from around 23′ on out to 45′ or so. There are smallmouths in these areas, but we had to weed through the aggressive panfish. Best smallmouth action for us was shallower – basically from beating the bank out to 15′ of water.

The usual smallmouth tactics did the trick – the best was probably the Superfluke, though tube jigs and dropshotting also produced well. Bass are eating perch fry in droves – one bass around 13″spit up nearly 20 fry! Also present in the livewell have been the usual loads of crayfish parts. Around a dozen bass were landed today and 1.5X that yesterday, plus the usual loads of rockbass (many nice sized ones) and bonus perch. Bass over 16″ were absent from our catches on both days. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these bigger fish were out in deeper water suspended feeding on perch fry.

bass Skaneateles Lake yellow perch