guff

At slow speed Just happen ed to stumble on a chunk of wood about 18 inches in diameter and about 20 inches thick out in the middle of north end of Seneca yesterday. Was almost impossible to see. Tried to lift into boat but way too waterlogged and thus heavy. Sure would have hated to hit it even at a slow speed.

Pike are excellent eating. We get around bones by cutting fillet in half length wise. Bottom half has no bones. We then cut the top half lengthwise but only deep enough to reach bones. With a fork and fingers separate 2 halves . Only one will have bones which can be pulled out easily. Works on decent size pickeral also

Hope you do better than I did Wednesday. 10 hours on Keuka jigging and bbrought home 4 Lakers. Wow. Lots of them just north of end of bluff on west branch but had serious lock jaw. I am blaming on the full moon.As good an excuse as any I figure. Ha Ha. They were in 160 - 170 fow. Good news was boat ran well for first 2015 trip. Bad news I have trailer light issues and trying to fix them is driving me up the wall.There is always something with a 25 year old rig. Say, might want to try hermit on here. I use his jigs and plastics most of the time. Good stuff.

Hey Guppy35 - Your baby/twig snap picture cracked me up. Wish I was computer savvy enough to send it out. Would get a lot of laughs. My son saw bucks 14 times (some more than once of course) last Saturday but big guys too far away. Dead during middle of week with hot temps. He is coming back tonight (from Mass.) and with the weather change i am guessing things will have picked up considerably.

If you Google "Cayuga Fisher" you will find a great tutorial on jigging. Unlike many others, I hardly ever use my trolling motor. I prefer to drift. If the wind is not too bad (unlike today) I will cast downwind and watch my fishfinder and see what the jig and fish are doing. I start reeling up just before the two meet. My old $200 Lowrance worked well. Moved up to a color finder now but the old one (black and white) was fine. Hermit's ( on "Cayuga Fisher" site ) chartreuse Lunker City Shakers and his super sharp 1 oz. jigs is pretty much my go to lure these days. Fishing buddy got a 34.5 inch laker on Seneca last week with that set up.

Lively 1- Felt your pain yesterday on Keuka. Hit the end of the bluff in the am. Screen was just packed with lake trout arches. Must have drifted over 500 fish. The only problem was they ALL had a serious case of lock jaw. Had 1 hit in 3 hours. Unbelievable. They were not even following the jig as it passed by them. Just not used to that on Keuka. Full moon probably did not help any but think it was more of a non-bite circumstance. These fish better start feeding pretty soon or they are are going to have a long, hard winter. So the bite was so bad we packed up and headed to the north end of Seneca but the wind/waves were so bad we sat and ate lunch in the state park and watched the waves roll in. Got to start hauling firewood now. Hope the Keuka lakers also realize winter is coming and start fattening up soon. Now that the laker fish advisory (women under 50 and kids under 15) is history I have a lot more takers for yummy Keuka lakers.

All the previous comments are good ones. But here is another technique you might want to try, especially if you are seeing lakers come to your jig then peel off before they hit it (which happens a lot). While drifting, I cast upwind as far as I can. I open the bail on my spinning reel and let the jig settle to the bottom. I then reel in, usually rather fast, for say 20-40 feet then open the bail and let the jig settle back to the bottom. I repeat this 4 or 5 times then reel all the way in. Seems to work well some times. My thought is that sometimes the lakers like the jig going more horizontal than vertical. Just another option. This is with a 1-1.5 oz. jig