Guided Scott for close to a full-day today starting just after 7 am. I had him bring some bass gear along as well. The lake trout appeared finicky to start. Scott managed to land three fish, but he easily had another dozen hits/short hookups. Friends were out trolling/jigging and also reported slow action to start. We worked a few miles worth of lake then I had Scott try an area for bass, without luck. We tried a few areas with nothing doing. In one area, in around 10' of water over some weeds along a drop-off, Scott hooked a decent fish. It didn't look like a bass when he first saw it - it was a nice northern pike! Scott had been asking me about pike, since he hadn't caught one in a good 6 years. Well today the Seneca fish gods smiled on him! If I believed there was a pattern here, I would guide it, but I think it was just a lucky fish. If you spend a day thoroughly fishing for bass here in the summer, you'll likely encounter a northern or two, but I don't think targeting them in the summer using conventional tactics will work well. Too many of them go down to the thermocline and feed on alewives in my opinion.
As a last shot before going lake trout fishing again, I pulled Scott into a good bass area. Lo and behold, he hooked fish on his first and second casts! The area was loaded and he had his best largemouth bass fishing ever, landing around 32 or 33 fish! Most were 11" to 12", but we had some up around 13" to 14". He also nabbed a 16" fat smallmouth. So we lucked into a hot bite! We went back to give the lake trout a try and just couldn't get much going. A few silver fish did chase up Scott's jigs.
