Trolling Keuka

I should have stayed in bed cuz I brought out the skunk! Looked like a banner morning to be on the water, got to Keuka Lake State Park launch at 5:30am with the wind light and variable. I decided to set up in front of the state park after seeing some marks 60- 70' down. Got the riggers parked at 60' and 70', surface temp was 66* and down temp was 50* at 60'. I found some marks up higher so after about 10 minutes I moved 1 rigger up to 40' range and found 1 line full of fleas! Decided to pull the rigger rods and they were full of fleas. I switched over to wire divers and the light and variable wind was gone and changed to strong winds out of the south. Ran big weenie flies and spin dr's for a bit with no hits. The wire divers weren't down for more than 20 minutes and they were full of fleas too. I changed back to the riggers with flea flicker line and try to save the day. No suck luck. The last straw was when I was cleaning the fleas off the wire and a bunch flung off the wire and hit me in the face . Pulled the riggers with flea flicker that were also full of fleas and off the water at 7:45am. After only 15 minutes in the water Better luck next time. Off to Seneca on 6/29 with Jason and looking forward to it

Jason - I hope you do get out on Friday. I'm still hoping are schedules match up some time soon and I can get out with you. Zebedee - I'm not sure how close to the east side I was because of the haze/fog but I do recall marking a lot more fish on the east side vs. the west side. I do recall seeing a shallow(I'm guessing that what it is) marker buoy on the west side, maybe near Belhurst that seemed to be way out of place. It was WAY out there. There was a lot of fog and I'm sure I was between that and shore on my 1st troll south. I didn't want to chance it when the fog lifted so I never got that close again. Is that suppose to be there or did it break loose?

Took the day off from work and decided to give Seneca a shot. Launched from the chamber of commerce on the north end about 5:30am. Wind was light and variable, fog starting to roll in and surface temp was 50. I have fished this end in a long time so I set up in 20 fow and went south. Decided to try spoons since a buddy did well last week on them. Trolled down the west side with no takers. Switched over to spin dr/flies. 1st riggered fired with mt dew crush and big weenie toxic shock...1st laker of the morning down 30' over 40-50 fow. Moved over to the east side and decided to switch back to spoons and my light action downrigger rods after no more hits. All heck broke loose! 1st rigger with greasy chicken wing stinger fires down 50 over 60 fow. The fight is on and the 2nd rigger fires with a black/white honeybee....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Doubled up! Back and forth for 20 minutes or so and land both of them. Decided I better call my buddy who decided work was more important that fishing . After a quick chat and some good nature ribbing it's time to set the rods. Get the honeybee back down to 42' over 60-70 fow. Start the 2nd rod and #1 rigger fire again. After an awesome fight I land nice laker over 6lbs. Of the water by 9:30, 4 for 4. All fished released to fight another day. Gonna be back there real soon. Didn't mark a lot of bait. Lots of scum and debris in the water. 1st laker on the double 2nd laker on the double Hot spoons of the morning

I couldn't agree more! I took tomorrow off so I can give Seneca a shot in the morning.

How old is your little guy? My son is going to be 3 in July and I've been running two rods for him this year. He does a fine job bringing in Keuka fish. I have a rod holder from cabelas that fits in the pedestal base for him. That's a lot easier for both of us. He can reel the fish and I can drive the boat. The two rods I run for him are off downriggers with only a spoon. He knows those are his and the wire rods are mine. I just don't think he is strong enough yet to bring in all the other stuff (dipsy, flasher, etc.) attached to the line as well as a fish. If my daughter who is 6 goes with us, I run 4 rods off the downriggers for them and nothing for me. I would rather watch them and it just awesome to watch them!

Nice! [ Post made via Mobile Device ]

I just had to get to the lake after the new big weenie flies showed up in the mail. There was a good wind out of the north so I figured I would stick to wire divers. Two rods in the water by 6:45pm. I had to do a east/west troll to keep my gps speed between 2.0 and 2.5 mph. If I trolled south the speed went to 3.0 and above. I sent the toxic shock fly out on a black diver set at 2, 150' behind a mtw dew spin dr. Within minutes the 1st fish was on and I boated a 3lb laker. Next hit came in front of the state park as I was getting ready to pull lines. Another 3-4lb laker on the toxic shock fly. This time the wire was at about 205'. As I was putting away the rod the other wire rod fired. When I got to the rod no one was home. Last hit was on blue dolphin behind a white/green spin dr on a black diver 1.5 setting out 150'. Off the water at 8:30pm and I think the fishing was just picking up as I was leaving. Thanks to jason with some hints/tips on think I'm switching over and running more flies/divers now!

Fished Keuka after work with the family. Fished from 5:30pm until 8pm launching from the state park. We stayed right in the area of the park. Kids were excited since they got to eat dinner on the boat. Surface temp was 59 degrees, 47 degrees at 57'. Marked a few small pods of bait up around 20' and 30'. Never really found a lot of marks during the short trip. Riggers were parked @ 61' and 48'. Liam picked up 2 small lakers, 1st one came on a black/white honeybee and 2nd came on a white/blue glow stinger. time for a sandwich after the fight...nice hat! wont' give his sister a chance sunset on keuka

The state park does not have a cleaning station [ Post made via Mobile Device ]

I pretty much fish keuka religiously too. I agree with Ray that there is the mega boat traffic and 99.9% of the blow boats and pleasure boaters have no clue. It's only going to get worse. I'm normally first one at the keuka lake state park launch and off by 9am. I can't take the boat traffic. I'll pick up a bunch of small to medium size laker and the occasionally smallmouth on the dipsy diver. I troll slow like Ray said, I'm around 2.0 mph on GPS and 1.5 mph and lower on SNT. So far this year black/purple honeybee has done well. I've been fishing deep...bottom. Other say they are up in the top 40'. I haven't been on keuka in about a week so the report may be a little old I'm thinking about trailering more to Seneca an C'dga during the summer but then again I'm less that 5 minutes from the keuka lake state park launch so I'm normally torn what to do. Ray do you normally launch from Severn in the summer? I'm wondering how busy the launch is on a Sunday morning at sunrise and how hard is it to load when I'm done for the day.

I was on a white 25 foot sports-craft

It was a struggle for us all weekend long . We could never get a program going which made for long days. We boat 4 lakers and 2 LL salmon. Even our stuff that always produces fish never produced anything. We fished south of Severn, Dresden, and Sampson. Cdgn troller, we were in Dresden at some time during each of the 3 days but I don't recall seeing your boat. We got a hot tip from Jason on location, depth, color, etc that produced some fish. Biggest fish for us was just over 8 pounds. Fishing was poor but we had lots of good , , and . Looking forward to the next derby.

Nick, Got any of these left?

I put a sub troll on this year. I have been very happy with it. Do a search on the site and you will find a ton of topics about sub troll and the depth raider.

I'll be there on a buddy's boat. Our crew will be in a white with blue stripe 25' Sportcraft, launching out of Severne boat launch. We normally launch from Severne but we may try Geneva 1 day. I'm not sure about a channel for the VHF radio, we usually leave it off and use our cell phones. I can't wait either since you brought it up.

Not me. I went out Sunday morning. I had to work until 8am so I brought the boat to work and left from there. I decided I would try the Penn Yan side. I wished I didn't...I got skunked and it was a circus at the launch. I had one release but dropped shortly there after. I had to wait 15 minutes or so to dock my boat because of 1 person taking 2 docks up with his blow boat and then watching the pleasure boaters backing up and then screwing around before they leave the dock. I don't claim to be a pro at backing up/launching/docking but holy cow! I really want to grab a lawn chair, a cooler and just watch the activities at the launch...

Here is my 2 1/2 year old son Liam reeling in his 2nd laker for the day. I forgot to snap a picture when he was reeling in his 1st fish ever . We decided to go for a quick trip this morning on Keuka. He ended up 3/3 during the 2 hour trip.

I would think about 30 minutes or so. But you could go about half way north and fish the rest of the way down. Last year I went to the bluff and then fished from the bluff to the boat launch. I don't remember how long it took me but I don't think it was too long.

Hanging out with my family too...helping my wife raise our 6 year old daughter and 2 year old son. After that, in my spare time volunteering for the local fire department as fire chief.

This morning it was a evil eye 3F yellow w/orange dots and the other rigger was a black/purple honeybee. I never had time or really thought about trying other colors this morning. I used to run sutton 22's all the time, now my go to spoon would be something black/purple.

Hey Mike where on Keuka were you? I was in front of the state park all morning. I was going to do the planer/stickbait thing but started with downriggers and never had a chance to change. I was on the water @ 6:30am to about 9:00am. I picked up 10 lakers, downrigger were set at 105' and 125' over 160'+ bottom.

Dave, I'm normally over on the Branchport side. I'm in a tan tracker, sometimes by myself or with my kids. If I make it to the Penn Yan side I'll look for you. I live right down the road from you. Mike

Dave, I've had some luck with spoons on the downriggers. The LL are nothing I catch on a regular basis and I don't think I boated one last year. I never knew what temp I was in but this year I will pay more attention to temp since I now have a sub troll.

I sent you 2 PM's

Wow! Looks like you did have a blast when you were out there. I had my 6 year old daughter and 2 year old son with me. Most of the time I'm paying attention to them rather than concentrating on fishing. Nothing wrong with concentrating on them, they had fun because they were with dad and got to eat on the boat. Now they are trying to decide which one of them caught the laker. My son said he caught it but I seem to remember him running to the front of the boat when I told him he had to kiss the fish...