Seneca Saturday Derby Report

[Followed The Waves]

Ugh.  Fished from 6am to 6pm north of Sampson.  Managed a 4lb Laker and lost my tail.  Lots of good marks but just couldn't get them to go.  Clean boat was pretty as the fog burned off.  Waiting for the wind to die down before heading out.  Good luck to all!

 

Tail

 

Marks

 

Boat

[Reel Doc]

51 minutes ago, Followed The Waves said:

Ugh.  Fished from 6am to 6pm north of Sampson.  Managed a 4lb Laker and lost my tail.  Lots of good marks but just couldn't get them to go.  Clean boat was pretty as the fog burned off.  Waiting for the wind to die down before heading out.  Good luck to all!

 

Tail

 

Marks

 

Boat

12 hours of fishing and 1 in the boat.  I salute you on patience and perseverance.   Good luck today!

[Ahab]

It only takes one fish to win.  Good luck.

[Fishstix]

One hit .one fish.Sunday.  Long twelve hours.

[Followed The Waves]

Couldn't get out till 1 Sunday.  Fished till 7 without a hit.  As of this morning, looks like a LL salmon is winning overall.  Tough fishing!

[cinnamon fish]

I fished Seneca Big Fish Friday, landed 2 small rainbows and one LL salmon 6.74 pounds.  
Saturday, I had another big landlocked, maybe bigger than the day before, but broke my line halfway in the net.  The rest of Saturday brought only one 15" laker.
Sunday morning landed a 5.6 lb lake trout, and then nothing for 12 hours.  Kicker motor started acting up, as wind picked up.
Tough weekend but man, those salmon are super aggressive if you can find them.  A lightning bolt of excitement, all of a sudden, in the midst of next to nothing.
Good luck to all and congrats to the winners!

[Fishstix]

Fished memorial day 6 am till 10;30  . No hits .

Hard to believe we could not catch a 10lb laker or any laker.

Congrats to winners.

[Ahab]

Congrats on your one fish. Ya win nick.

[Spange]

Ok, I don't feel so bad about my performance now, lol.  Only caught 4 lakers all weekend in 4-5 lb range.  Verrrrry slow.

[Sk8man]

It was the toughest Seneca derby out of the 50 or so I've fished. We only fished the first two days and only two 5-6 lb lakers to show for it and lost another with no other hits Even three Seth Greens with a total of 15 Suttons didn't get a hit trolling from the north end to Sampson. I did however learn an important lesson: You always hear the motto "Don't leave fish to find fish"  and I've been a believer in that over the years, but it can be a mistake too and bite you in the butt if you get too fixated on it. We stayed on the fish most of which looked like lakers hugging bottom and huge pods of bait extending from 10 ft below surface to the bottom in 40-75 ft at the north end, and just kept working it in different directions and with many different setups for most of the two days. The two lakers we caught, and the one that was lost were all on Cowbell setups. None of the other stuff worked no matter what speed or direction or lure type or size. The bottom line seemed to be that the fish were stuffed on bait which was right nearby so why would they expend extra energy to chase artificials? I inhibited my instinct to go deeper along the bottom and out where i normally fish and it was a major mistake but the lesson will stay with me A lot of really top notch fisherpersons did not do as well as usual so it is easy to blame it on the conditions ( and suppress the fact that I screwed up)

Edited May 29, 2020 by Sk8man

[Spange]

I was also thinking that the fish are feeding easily on plentiful bait.  Saw massive bait clouds.  Spent most of the time fishing 40-50 fow, which seemed where we marked the most fish and bait.  All 4 fish came on cowbell setups for us.  Kept 3 fish for the table: one had 21 sculpin in his gut!, one had 7 sawbellies, and the third was empty and hungry. At least no lamprey!