Skaneateles Lake 9/25
Did a full-day with Greg on Friday. He wanted to catch an 18″+ smallmouth bass. That’s easier to do on this lake from November through early June, but we gave it our best shot. It was nice to not have any set “parameters” on this trip. The last two trips I’ve done on this lake were #1, fly-fishing – which although effective, can have its limitations, especially when fish are deep and it’s very windy, and #2, I did a trip where we tried hard to catch fish on topwater – for the most part avoiding my favorite lure on this lake, a jig.
We worked throughout the entire lake, with Greg mainly throwing the tube. His goal was also to gain confidence throwing the tube jig. In the first couple hours he landed a few bass from 12″ to 15″. In some deeper water he landed an 18″ largemouth and a 19″ smallmouth. A few pickerel were also hooked and landed and we had some bite-offs. Pickerel appear to be more widely distributed than I’d seen them over the past 6 or 7 years. High point of the day was when Greg cast his jig to a drop-off and hooked “…a big fish.” After a great battle I slid the net under the behemoth largemouth. We took a quick couple photos and I put the slob up on my Tech-Scale. It went 6lbs 1 oz. We released the fish to fight again. The fish had another hole in her mouth – it had been caught and released before, so we are thankful to the previous sportsman, and hopefully the fish will make someone else’s day like it did ours.
We found most of our fish in or near deep water – roughly 15′ to 24′ or so. Water temps are descending quickly; I’ve been on the lake three times over the past 8 or 9 days and it’s dropped a degree every time I’ve been out. It’s around 67 now.