Keuka 6-26-14 "Sea of Fleas"

[Sk8man]

JB235 (Jim) and I left early this morning from his hoist only a couple hundred yards from trout territory on the Branchport arm of Keuka with the intention of trolling and then jigging for lakers. We set up 2 downriggers with medium spoons and each with sliders with small spoons and set them at 40 and 60 respectively. We also ran a wonder bread E-chip flasher with one of my homemade greens flies, and a top line out about 250 ft with NK28 spoon and a 5 color lead core with a Quick Strike 11. We trolled for about a half hour before I had to check a downrigger that popped....I figured small laker.....turned out to be fleas clumped so thick it triggered the release. I said screw it lets leave the lines in far a bit a and deal with it then...we trolled a while and then started pulling lines after no action. i had a small laker on the 40 ft downrigger and the pics below tell the rest of the story for folks who are unfamiliar with water fleas. We then cleaned up and went to the bluffs to jig. I had one 3 or4 lb laker a about 2 ft under the surface and he got off saving me from releasing him I had two other good hard hits on the jig with one started up but off and that was it. Most all fish we marked were suspended from 10 ft to 30 ft off bottom over 120 -130 ft out from the bluffs toward Marlena Point.  To sum up....I have never seen such thick fleas this early in the season in any body of water I've fished. Trolling is all but impossible with anything vertical in the water....diameter or material of line makes no difference....they were all the way up 60 ft of the 200 lb downrigger cable as well as on the 30 lb wire and everything else.

[ERABBIT]

Looks like the fish-hook type.... not good but they come and go faster than the other ones

[Bigfoot]

No doubt you removed every one of those fleas from your boat and your equipment before leaving the launch.........

Thanks for posting.

[Frogger]

Holy cow Les, that's crazy, you might want to take that Garlic idea someone suggested on another post I read and start spreading, whole lot of it, heck you'll be Italian in no time......

Sent from my iPad using Lake Ontario United

[Sk8man]

:smile:   Heck a couple of my kids ARE Italian Mike.

[paman]

Time to start jigging or don't you do that Les?

[Sk8man]

Yes  we jigged today and I had one almost break the surface and two other real good hits one of which I had started up. I think jigging now is the way to go with the fleas there in such abundance.