Seneca Seneca South 6/1

[BrookTrout]

Got out for the first time on the lake yesterday.  Spent the afternoon before cleaning up the cottage and getting the boat ready for the year.  My boat dock is in need of serious repair but I cobbled together some temp repairs.  Good news was the boat ran great and weather mostly cooperated.  Bad news was fishing was pretty slow.  Started out deep but wasn't seeing much for bait so worked my way in closer.  Started marking bait balls in less than 60 FOW with a few arcs,  hooked up with a nice leaping salmon on a yozuri stick off 2 colors of lead just inside debris line from a tributary.  Fish ripped the inline board backwards and then nothing, thought he was off but he was running at the boat.  He surfaced in the prop wash leaping behind by dr cable and then wrapped up and self released on the cable but politely left the lure, fish looked to be 3-4lbs.  Boated one salmon about 16" with a lamprey near another point.  He came off a jointed rapala on the surface off an inline board in about 30fow.   Slow day but I didn't get skunked and no major issues so I'll take it.  Did notice lots of alewives in the shallows later that day.  Water temps were 53-58.  

 

On my way home I stopped and fly fished a local stream which was a lot more productive, got about 1/2 dozen cookie cutter stockie browns that were surface feeding on a variety of bugs including some big cahills and march browns.  Got chased off by thunder/lightening...  

[shaneo19]

Nice report.  The alewives are all over next to shore right now.  Especially at night.  If you shine a light in the water after dark I bet you will see hundreds if not thousands of them.  I am very confident the problem with fishing on Seneca the past few years is a big predator/baitfish imbalance.  Way to many alewives and too few trout.  Best explanation for the cause of this imbalance is lampreys.  Unfortunately the alewives are predators to recently hatched fish as well.  Hopefully the lamprey treatments last year will turn it around soon.  They may need to increase trout stocking for a few years to balance things out as well. 

[BrookTrout]

I agree that the major immediate issue is lamprey predation.  Top that with abundant bait and you get tough fishing,  I think Seneca will be on the upswing in the next couple years ...