Guided Florian, Alysa and their daughter Eleonore for a half-day trip getting underway just after 7:30 am. When I saw how sunny it was, and a client/friend was texting me about getting fish on my drive over, I realized I probably should have started our trip earlier. After mentioning that to Alysa, she told me that probably wasn't going to happen! So I didn't feel too bad. As a guide, I work with clients to see when they want to fish - not everyone wants to get up at dark-thirty and be on the water at the crack of dawn. (If that's what needs to be done - I push it, e.g., when doing a musky or pike trip on a sunny, flat day.) Yesterday, I'm guessing that would have backfired anyways with the cloudy, changing (tough) AM conditions. They are casual fishermen who are up here on vacation. I literally taught Florian and Alysa how to fish (we started with laker jigging of all thing on Keuka Lake probably 14 or 15 years ago.) Today I showed Eleonore, who's 14 years old, how we do the jigging.
There was a lot of current moving around in the lake after yesterday's strong west winds. We had a huge swath of 47 to 49 degree water on the east side of the lake, meaning that lakers could easily be found from maybe 35' out to 90' and still feel completely "at home." We got off to a good start with Alysa (who hadn't fished with me in a dozen years - and probably hadn't fished at all in a long time,) landing a nice 25" laker. Florian and Alysa each caught a couple fish on the morning and each lost 2 to 3 hookups. Eleonore had one hit but that was it. She did a good job with the technique - it just wasn't her day. Fun morning, although slow at times. Our last fish came a 1/2 hour or so before we quit and fish seemed to be getting active again, then they slowed right back down for us.
