Seneca Fishing on Thanksgiving

[HPORT]

My son and I are going to fish Seneca on Thanksgiving morning, if it's not raining... We have been so busy this year, that this will be the first time the two of us have had time to relax and fish together.

Would it be better to launch in Watkins or Severne? We have only fish Seneca once before, and that was in Mid July, we spent our time hauling fleas and weeds out of Severne.

Rough water is ok, we have plenty of freeboard and a hard top, we don't mind the cold as long as were catching fish...

Any suggestions to put fish in the box would be great, we have DR, boards and divers, wire and Pro-line rigged reels ( no copper or lead)

Thanks and enjoy the Holiday,

John

[PolarBear]

I am no expert by any means , but wire divers and riggers have always done well fore me ... Maybe Jason can chime in with some more helpful suggestions

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[rustyrat]

Run top lines off boards, shallow riggers to 60ft. Try to find the zone they are hitting in and then adjust the rest of your rigs. Dont forget the sliders. Go deep with the wire dipsys if you want lakers.

Good luck!

RR

[HPORT]

Question on running shallow in clear water, how far off the ball? Do you run a length of fluorocarbon between the SD and main line, or just snap the main line to the SD?

With just spoons, I usually run a 8-10' of fluorocarbon between the main and spoon. I have mixed results with this, so I'm assuming it's not correct.

PB, RR thanks for the input,

John

[rustyrat]

30 to 60 down run 30 to 50 back with spoons. Flasher fly rigs 30 back max. Should be fine. Run your top water stuff 100 ft back. Don't need flouro, fish aren't line shy in the lake unless you are running heavy line on your reels. I would use a leader in that case with the spoons but not the flasher flies.

Here is how I would start. Rigger down 30, spoon with spoon as a slider

Rigger down 50 spoon also with a spoon slider.

Wires, flasher fly out 150 and 250.

If you have more than 2 guys on the boat, 2 flat lines with stick baits 100 back off boards if you have them. If not run them off the back.

Adjust the other rigs as you get hit, but never change the hot rod.

good luck.

RR

[HPORT]

RR,

Nice suggestions, Thanks...

The main line Power Pro is on the heavy side ( 65lb), I really need to look at spooling 30lb on some of the reels to compare.

John

[jason]

ok if you fishin seneca i wouldnt even bother with top line unless your running lead core......start with rigger down 60 to 80 with cheaters......i run run 30 lb all yr long with spin dr with no more the 7 ft leads off the ball and cheaters no more the 4 ft with super slim spoon.....if i run spoons ill use 10lb fluorocarbon with 20 ft leads.....dypsy out 250 0n a 2 1/2 setting....we been findin that more fish have been hitting green color dypsy....

the lakers and landlocks have been hanging together....lately everthing have been hitting spin dr and flys.....with the rainbow starting to put the feed bags they starting hitting the cheater....

[chowder]

If you are gonna run FF combos off the riggers I'd run em tight to the ball and run at least 1 as close to the bottom as you can.

[FLXTroutman]

check ac holmes post from a few days ago, he was getting landlocks with Mooselooks in gold and orange, they look slim, so a DW SS or similar bait in that color pattern, I love copper and orange, orange/ black/ brass in spoons high up

[redeyes]

i stick with jason,riggers,and dipseys.find marks stay five or ten above.. wait for rods..i should be up there soon

[HPORT]

Thanks again for all the advice,

We finally got on the water 8AM Sunday morning, perfect day for fishing.

Went 1 for 12, couldn't keep the little guys off the gear. They were fat and great looking fish, but we wanted to take home a few larger ones. Everything came off the Dypsy's, 150 to 300' out with gold NK spoons with red ladders and eyes. Tried Sutton's and NBK, but the gold ruled the morning. They liked 3.0mph SOG, we were running Keuka speed and took hits on the outside in turns, seems the fish are a little faster on Seneca

Only had one DR operational and tried a bunch of SD / fly combinations with zero results. But I had issues with the DR rods, 5 of them were spooled 100% with PowerPro, being pretty cold Sunday morning and having spooled everything during the warm days of spring... spindles on the reels shrunk when it got cold and allowed the line to slip. I spooled one reel with a mono backing and that work fine. Rookie mistake I'm assuming....

And to top that all off, the one DR rod that worked, had a knot at 205', the fish were hanging around 300' on 350-400' bottoms. Especially in the holes. I could see them, but had no way of getting to them. The Dypys were doing so well, I didn't bother to cut out the knot.

We had a great time on the lake, the only dull time was crossing the lake, no hits in the center.

Most everything came from the troll South of Severne on the West side and a few coming back on the East side.

We talked about fishing out of Watkins on the next trip , any suggestions on which way to run ( East / West) once on the water? Also, which ramp? I heard there is a ramp right behind the break wall?

John

[jason]

you can use the ramp in the south end behind the break wall.....just bring a shovel and rock salt just in case the ramp has ice on it.....stay on the west side......