Seneca Lake out of Sampson State Park 12/5 PM

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12/5 Seneca Lake out of Sampson State Park:  Over the past few years, around this time of the year I've checked on lake trout jigging on Seneca Lake.  With alewives usually in deep water this time of year, it's a good time to see what's out there in terms of fish.  I had what appeared to be pretty good conditions and gave the jigging around an hour and 40 minutes.  I marked fair numbers of fish out from 120' to 150' of water.  I had numerous follows from what had to be lake trout, but they weren't hitting very well.  I had three hits, none of which were very solid - basically some tail grabs.  So not much has changed here as far as I can tell.

Lake trout stocking rates were increased in 2020.  These fish will be three years old and probably around 14" long in the spring 0f 2022.  At this point they should be starting to gradually eat their share of alewives.  We'll see what happens.  Sampson State Park has been developed into a Park/Campground with lots of small cabins and campers.  For better or worse this is what we have over here now.  I have no idea what the boat traffic is like here in the summer, but with Seneca Lake's volatile weather and seas, it probably won't be too much of a factor.

I checked on a pike area that I hadn't fished this season and had no action.  Weed growth really varies on the Finger Lakes each year.  I went to one of the areas I fished last time and had some good action for around a half hour before trying another area, which yielded a hit and a follow.  I wrapped my day up after 4 hours.   Water levels are still good.  Water temp is 37.9 degrees.  Out of the four pike I landed, the largest one had some serious lamprey wounds.  As the lake trout population builds in this lake, it will help to divert some of the lamprey attacks.  Lampreys prefer fish with small scales of no scales.   Seneca strain lake trout have a history with lampreys and surviving their attacks.