Lively1

Seneca Mike and others, I have a seasonal cottage on Keuka (one the few left) and have spent the last 11 summers getting to know the lake and the fishery. I jig for lakers and bait fish for bass and panfish. Let me offer some observations: 1. I don't know if salmonids are done in Keuka, but they are certainly on the ropes. That's one thing everyone agrees on. The lake trout are skinny, and eating perch fry and tiny shrimp mainly. Anything over 20" is a rarity. 2. the sawbellies disappeared right after the back to back cold winters when the entire north half of the lake (from Branchport and Penn Yan to the Bluff) froze over for an extended period of time. Can't remember exactly the years but it was about 10-12 yrs ago. The alewives are known to be sensitive to dissolved oxygen levels which would be depleted during a lengthy ice-over. DEC believes this is what killed them off. Some of you may remember piles of dead sawbellies on the shore of Cayuga in the 60s and 70s. Also due to oxygen depletion. 3. I don't know how it compares to the 'old days' but I regularly catch smallmouth 17-18" and a few larger, and largemouth up to 4-1/2 pounds and 20" in Keuka. You may not catch a state record here, but I think the bass fishing is great. Last I heard I think there were a couple dozen bass tourneys on the lake each year. 4. The water in summer is usually incredibly clear, like an aquarium, with visibility to 15-20 feet. After the runoff from tropical storm Debby a few weeks ago, the water turned green and visibility went to more like 4-6 feet. This happens when the lake gets a burst of nutrients from runoff. It goes away in a week or two. 5. There is no Keuka Lake Pure Waters but there is the Keuka Lake Association (KLA). They have a water monitoring program in association with Keuka College. They work with the DEC. They have a website with data on the lake. They have a very active program going to control invasive weeds like starry stonewart. They sponsor boat launch stewards to encourage people to clean their boats and trailers. All good things. 6. There is some rental activity but it is mainly the older places. People need the rent money to pay the property taxes. The trend is the older homes get sold and replaced with trophy homes that sit idle most of the time. Plus baby boomers retiring and moving to the lake, wintering in Florida. Septic systems are upgraded every time an old house is replaced with a new house, so I doubt very much that nutrient loads due to septic systems have increased over the past 20-30 years. 7. Walleye are established in Keuka now. The latest DEC survey found all age groups from fry to adult. Seems logical this puts more pressure on the forage base. 8. There are still some sawbellies in the lake (I believe), but not able to return to previous numbers. Cisco stocking has not been a success, to date. Observations end, statement of my beliefs begins... Our Finger Lakes are dynamic systems, not static ones, and the best one can hope for is resilience, i.e. a lake returns to its former state after a perturbation. DEC, Soil & Water, zoning boards, volunteer stewards, etc. are working to control the variables that can be controlled (like nutrient load into the lake). Other factors like cold winters and tropical storms are acts of nature. Predator/prey cycles take years, not weeks or months, to resolve. So you have to be patient, and let nature respond to our best efforts. Meanwhile, we are blessed to live surrounded by so many great fishing opportunities, from Ontario and Erie, to the Fingers Lakes, the fall trib fishery, the Delaware system, our local warm water rivers and ponds.. not to mention across the border in northern PA. So while things may not be ideal in Keuka Lake, there is plenty to enjoy, there and elsewhere.

I've tried fishing live minnows for bass recently, and the bass seem to swallow the minnows headfirst, resulting in some (not all) gut hooked fish. I normally C&R so wondering if I can find a different hook to reduce gut hooking. I've tried extra wide gap worm hooks, and octopus circle with offset point hooks, and still get a mix of gut and lip hooked fish. Looking at octopus/circle hooks there are several features that can be combined in different ways on different hooks: 1) reverse offset eye or straight eye -- I understand offset is better if you want to snell the hook to your leader. Would it reduce gut hooking with the octopus hooks if I tied direct to the eye instead? Or better to just use straight eye hooks? 2) inline or offset point - does the offset point make it more likely to gut hook the fish even with a circle hook? Seems like it would. 3) circle point vs. straight point.. Circle is designed to reduce deep hooking. 4) size.. I've been using 3/0 and 4/0 hooks after starting with #2 and missing hooksets. Anyone have a recommendation for a good hook for nose hooking minnows and not gut hooking the fish? (Other than don't use live bait).. Of course my local sports store has a very limited selection of hooks right now anyway... Thanks fellas..

I've become successful jigging lakers on Keuka, with a learning curve of 8+ years. I started using the 1-1.5 oz jigs with 4-6" plastics that work well on Cayuga and Seneca, blind jigging in the AM, and might have caught 2-3 fish in a week. I got an old Hummingbird fishfinder, which helped a little, then upgraded my fish finder to a Garmin Echo 501c, and things got a lot better. Better resolution and sensitivity. Now I could see the jig and the fish. Be sure to use the 77 KHz transducer frequency as it goes deeper. You should be able to see individual fish on bottom in 120 FOW, and anywhere in between. You should also be able to see your jig as it falls and is reeled back up. A couple of other tweaks I made for Keuka that may be appropriate for Skaneatles also.. 1) I use a light action spinning outfit with 10 lb Sufix 835 braid which is very limp and I believe helps the jig fall easier, and has no coils/memory so you have max sensitivity. I use 8 lb flourocarbon as the leader, about 4 feet long. I find it easier to cast ahead of the boat when drifting with the spinning rod vs. the baitcaster ( I did use for a couple of years). 2) I have scaled down the jigs and baits to Northland unpainted 3/4 and 1 oz ball jigs with smaller plastics, like a 3" long curly tail or paddle tail grub. Brown in the spring and white in summer. Keuka lakers are overwhelmingly 18-20" size class, I think this is why the smaller baits work better. I've found there is a 'magic hour' in the AM when I do best jigging, around 7-8 AM.. You could do six in an hour and then nothing all day after that, though may get plenty of follows.. My basic technique is probably like most other jiggers.. fall to bottom on a tight line, let it sit on bottom for count of ten, doink in on bottom about ten times, raise it up slowly, and then reel up to surface, and repeat. Lately I had better results reeling quite slowly, just fast enough to get the paddle tail wiggling good. May-June a moderately quick retreive works. I rarely blind jig now, I will wait till I mark a fish or three under the boat, then drop the jig. If there is wind, I'll mark fish to get the depth dialed in then motor back upwind and drift over that same stretch, casting ahead of the boat so the jig hits a little before I get over it. Last tip - May into June is far better jigging than July-August. Fish bite much better and are not so deep - more like 45-85 FOW, vs. 85-130 FOW in summer.

I've recently run into multiple obvious scams in the 'boats for sale - by owner' section on Craigslist recently. Typically its a nice looking fishing boat at a very nice price. The 'seller' has recently been widowed or divorced and moved out of state, and the boat will be delivered via eBay motors or some such.. The first question you should ask when inquiring about a used boat is 'where is it and when can I come look at it'. That will weed out this type of scam right away.

Probably not. The boat I saw had a hard-top cabin which is not so common on Keuka.

Do the rainbows and salmon range into the east arm of the lake? Or do you need to go down into the main stem closer to H'sport?

The dog clutch in my Alpha One is slipping a bit when engaging in the forward direction. It sometimes engages right away (one clunk), sometimes it takes two or three clunks before engaging. Just started doing it this year (few weeks ago). It has not disengaged or slipped at all at higher revs/running speed however. This is the advice I seek: Is this a serious problem needing immediate attention or can it wait till July/August? (will be a long wait for service now anyway) When these fail is it gradual or all at once? Will continuing to operate this way damage anything other than the dog clutch? Is there an adjustment to the shifter cable I can try or is this best left to a pro? Thanks.

Wasn't you I saw then but thank you for the report. I did well jigging on bottom in 75-105 FOW this past week. Autopsied a few fish and found nothing identifiable.

Someone was up and down the East arm of Keuka most of the day Saturday running a planer board, dipsey, riggers, you name it. Running the planer boards on the inside toward shore. Don't see many people running planer boards, we don't have brown trout to speak of, so I was thinking planer boards for bass? Then this morning, I was jigging off a point in 85 FOW and there was a big splash near shore, very close to a boat lift. I tossed my jig over, and a decent laker nailed it on the sink. So maybe they were running the boards in close for lake trout? If the skipper of that boat is reading, how did you make out? Must have been out there 8-10 hours.

Keuka water temp on the east arm is 48-50 degrees per my fishfinder earlier today. You can always check the Keuka Lake Association website to get a temp reading from the water intake near Penn Yan, also. Sorry don't know about the State Park launch. I would assume so, but can't say for sure. I pretty sure the Penn Yan launch is open given all the bass boats running around this weekend.

Datacenters generate lots of heat and need cooling. Maybe lake water will flow there again before too long.

Had a blast jigging for lakers on Keuka Lake this past weekend.. Boated about three dozen in three days. Nearly all the fish were caught in 50-65 FOW, near bottom, though one chased the jig up and smacked it at a depth of 20 feet. All were the typical size for Keuka: 18-24 inches. Don't know what they were eating as they were all released. First day I found a bunch of fish in one location, next couple of days they were more scattered and had to try several spots, getting a few each place. This is all on the east arm. Saw a few boats trolling and a few flipping docks for bass.. Anyone else do anything?

I find the wind on Keuka (east arm anyway) tends to blow up or down the lake more than you would expect, even though the weather forecast reports NW or SW winds. With a NW wind I would stick to the west shore as you suggested, if you are looking for less chop/drift, but don't be surprised if it is blowing down the lake. That's not all bad though. With the right wind, it can work out so you drift by the docks are just the right speed to fish them without using the trolling motor a lot.

Thanks! Just ordered the PVC coated bag.

I plan to upgrade my old boat net with a new bag. Both PVC coated and rubber types are said to be less damaging to the fish (I mostly C&R) and less prone to tangling hooks and tackle. Prices are about the same. This shows the different options: https://www.egofishing.com/replacement-parts/?filters=mesh_pvc_coated_nylon Any pros or cons from people that have used either one?

Thanks, now I know.

I saw several boats out trolling during the FLTA tourney Sunday on Keuka. One I noticed was running two sets of planer boards. I thought those were mainly for winter/spring after the lake turns over and fish are in the top 20-30 feet. I'm curious if they were running lures deeper off of them somehow, or conversely were picking up fish higher up? Not a troller myself, just curious.

Two more data points. The KLA website shows a temp of 57 degrees on the east branch yesterday (measured 20 feet down at the Penn Yan water intake.) And yesterday afternoon in 6 inches of water near shore (east branch), the water temp was 61.

In reference to the "empty stomachs" observations.. This has been the case in fish I've caught since the hard winters of '14 and '15 in which Keuka froze over most of its length. DEC attributes this event to the decline in sawbellies and lakers. When I have looked at stomach contents I've found a sludge or mush that looks like fish poop. Put a sample of that in a bowl with some water, stir it up, and you will find a bunch of mysis shrimp. They are about the size of a very small ant. This is what the lakers are eating. The shrimp live near lake bottom during the day, and migrate up the water column at night, forming rather tight bands which makes it easier to eat.

BulletBob - Thanks for this post. My fly rod was failing me this past weekend on Keuka, so I went 'old school' and got some worms and crayfish.. Had a blast catching rockies, sunfish, bass, & perch.