Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 3/18 + 19

Guided half-day trips on Seneca Lake over the past two days targeting landlocked salmon on spinning gear. I was hoping to do a little fishing on my own after the trips, but due to a late start on Wednesday and strong winds (to 30 mph plus) today, that wasn't going to happen.  In a nutshell, a lot of fish seem to be moving around.  Conditions have been changing by the day from cold to warm; north winds to south winds and so on.  The past couple of days for us have featured lots of fish swarming around in certain areas - sometimes they're active, and other times they aren't.  The size of the fish we've been seeing has also been on the smaller side over the past two days - mostly 14" to 17" fish.  We've had encounters with some bigger ones - they're certainly around somewhere, but the little ones have been most cooperative and easy to locate.

3/18:  This trip was with Kendra and 10-year old Atlas, who happens to be a good young fisherman!  They joined me last summer on Owasco Lake and after a slow morning, they virtually doubled-up on lake trout during our last drop of the day with the jigs!  I told them that it was better to catch fish early in the trip, rather than expect last-minute heroics.  Our start time was at 10:30 am.  We were to meet at the Lucky Hare Brewpub at the Watkins Glen Marina - unfortunately Kendra (and I) found out via her smartphone GPS that there's another Lucky Hare Brewpub up the lake!  That's where they were at 10:30 am, so our trip was delayed for nearly an hour.

The delay probably helped our fishing!  The bite has often been better later in the day.  Kendra had a follow from a nice fish in short order.  We worked a few areas then finally got into a pod of 15" to 17" fish.   Young Atlas wound up landing his 3-fish limit of salmon, releasing one as well.  Kendra had a lot of hits and follows and managed to land a couple of fish too.  We almost had some bigger ones but they got off and in some cases didn't bite after following the lures.

3/19:  Started today at around 9:30 am with Joe and his son Joel.  I have been starting my 1/2-day trips later in the day, but the guys needed to be off of the water by 2 pm, hence the early start.  Another factor was the wind forecast - the winds were predicted to gust to over 30 mph today out of the south east.  The south east wind slams a lot of our best areas, so it can be very limiting.

We started right off with Joe having some hits and landing a couple salmon and losing one.  The fish he landed were right around the legal mark.  The guys were up for keeping one or two bigger ones if they caught them.  Unfortunately, we never landed any solids today.  Today epitomized the saying "good fishing but poor catching."  Joel had three or four hook-ups including a better fish or two, but they just got off.  Sometimes that happens!  It's part of fishing - I didn't notice him do anything wrong.  He probably had a good two dozen follows from salmon on the day as well!  Conditions got tough with strong gusty winds and the boat rockin' and rollin'.  It was like an amusement park ride.  We got back down lake and Joe hooked a couple more fish and landed another before we headed in at 2 pm.  Again - fun fishing, but the catching, especially of bigger fish, left something to be desired.

Odds and Ends:  I picked up my 2020 Crestliner from Silver Lake Marine last week.  They found that a live-well hose had become disconnected!  They had to remove some of the boat floor to do the repair.  My livewell pump also had elongated somehow and was leaking, likely due to freezing issues.  So my warning to all boaters is, 1.)  Have a good manual bilge pump onboard, incase your automatic bilge pump fails, and 2.) When going out in the winter, don't run your livewell or washdown system and also plug up all the drain holes (for the livewell) and so forth in the back of the boat before going out.  This helps to ensure that you do not get water in your hoses that can freeze and cause some potentially serious and costly issues.

Angling Zone Friend and multi-species/multi-lake guide Kurt Hoefig got out for a deep jigging trip and had a solid day in the usual early spring/late-winter depths/areas.  Cayuga Lake is very low but launchable out of Dean's Cove and Long Point.  I have people waiting for good days wind-wise.

My buddy Todd who is on Cayuga Inlet all the time for his job reports seeing large numbers of juvenile perch in one of the bays there.  He's been on the inlet for over 35 years and this is the first time he's ever seen that!  We had some jumbo perch in mid-December while targeting trout/salmon on the lower part of Cayuga Lake.  Are we finally seeing the south end perch fishery coming back?  Back in the 1950s when marshes/wetlands (aka "swamps") were filled around the Ithaca portion of Cayuga Lake, anglers lamented the loss of great bullhead and panfish fishing.  Northern pike were certainly harmed too.  We are gradually seeing some weedbeds getting re-established down there.  Hopefully these young perch are a sign of better things to come!

Now's the time to fly-fish and cast for Keuka Lake lake trout!  These are the best eating lake trout in the region as far as I'm concerned.  They aggressively grab streamers, jigs, stickbaits and swimbaits.  It's great fun and a unique opportunity to catch 100% wild lake trout that people are encouraged to harvest due to over-population concerns.  You can't beat that!