Keuka Lake 6/18 + Seneca Lake 6/19

First of all, the algae seems to be holding off on Cayuga Lake for now.  The inlet looked pretty discolored when I drove past it today, but the main lake still looks good and there is swimming going on at Taughannock Park and elsewhere.

6/18 Keuka Lake:  Guided Tom and his eleven-year-old son Sam for a full-day starting at 7 am.  The best place to be during this heat wave is on a lake with a nice breeze!  As long as the wind was blowing, it felt great out on Keuka Lake.  Tom's family has a rental house on Keuka Lake this week.  He's been jigging lakers for a while and I wanted to show him my approach, as well as give him the info to find and catch fish more consistently.  Keuka Lake has always been a tough lake for daytime fishing/jigging of lake trout in later-June and July.  August can also be tough here.  We marked plenty of fish (mostly suspended) in the Branchport Arm and later by the Bluff, but only two hookups and dropped fish were had - both by Sam.

The guys had slow bass fishing when they tried for a few hours yesterday.  Today I showed them a couple of effective methods to work on.  Bass fishing is really top-notch on Keuka Lake right now with plenty of large and smallmouth bass all along certain shoreline stretches!  The guys worked soft jerkbaits as well as hard ones and even spent a little time with swim jigs, but the fluke-type lures worked the best.  Dozens of follows were had along with quick hook-ups before a few better fish cooperated.  In one area, Sam took a cast and nabbed a hard-fighting 18.5" smallmouth!  We also had decent numbers of 12" to 15" fish.  The most fun was just watching the fish attack the lures.  Sam is a very good fisherman for being such a youngster and he got the whole day started with the first pickerel he'd caught in a couple of years.  Fun day and I'd call it great fishing but tougher catching.  As I'm writing this, I had a thank you email from Tom and he said today they nabbed a lake trout and a couple bass before breakfast and then a couple more nice bass later!  It's always great to hear when a guided trip pays long-lasting dividends!  This bite should continue to improve by the week with the steady weather pattern.

6/19 Seneca Lake:  After the relatively tough bite my clients had here on June 7th, along with some slower reports from friends, I wasn't quite sure what to expect here, but was optimistic.  We launched at 7 am in part to avoid the heat - which fortunately never became an issue for us today.  It was perfect on the lake with a nice southerly breeze!  Just splendid! I had Alex and his brother in-law Andrew on board today.  Alex has a long history on Seneca Lake and they purchased a place here down lake around Lodi.  I'm slowly but surely getting a decent network of good contacts throughout this lake!

I must hand it to the guys on their patience and positive attitude.  Andrew had a hook-up early on around Sampson State Park, but that was it for awhile.  A lot of short hits were experienced by both guys.  The afternoon rolled around and the guys hadn't landed a single fish!  Ouch!!!  Something changed around 1 pm and the fish started chasing well and committing!  The guys did great from around 1 pm until 3:30 pm when we knocked off.  It wound up being a good double-digit day with fish running from 19" to over 27".  Most fish were hatchery fish although we had a couple of wild ones.  Great end to the day!  No photos today - the guys have caught plenty of lakers in the past.