Guided Zach, Jeremy and Dominic out of Sampson State Park today starting just after 9 am. The big story today was the weather, or should I say, the lack of it. The forecast was calling for rain - lots of it, along with thunderstorms. We never had any rain today and no thunderstorms materialized, even late in the day. Unbelievable! Last night we had a good downpour, but it wasn't enough to help the streams at all. Our grass/vegetation appears to be getting just enough rain to keep it green, but the creeks need a lot more. If the weather patterns continue, stream/river anglers may want to look into doing some lake fishing.
Jeremy and Dominic were staying at a B+B on Seneca Lake, thus the plan. I wasn't sure how the fishing would materialize today, having not been on the lake targeting lake trout in a month (8/21 to be exact.) But fish were pretty much where we'd found them last month and we got right into some fish at Sampson. Dominic nabbed the first one, but it was on the smaller side (legal but small,) so we tried some other areas. We had a fair to good bite until the last two hours of the trip, where the bite got to be good to excellent, with fish hitting on most drops. We wound up with a very solid double-digit day. Two doubles were had. Everyone did very well! Best fish was Dom's 29"er to end the day. We actually cut the trip short by 30 to 45 minutes while they were still hitting well. These fish were pretty full of bait. Most probably weren't going to spawn this year. We only had a couple wild fish. Hatchery fish are currently supporting the Seneca Lake fishery. Most fish also ran 22" to 26". This population is steadily increasing and we should see plenty of 25" to 27" fish next year. Water level here is down. Lake surface temperature was 68 degrees. We had lakers from 85' out to 140'. Plenty of fish are suspended here as well - out over deeper water.
I still have September 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th and 30th available this month, and then we're onto October.
