Will be fishing the finger lakes next week. How has it been and can anyone give any tips on patterns that will be working. Any info will be great.

Will be fishing the finger lakes next week. How has it been and can anyone give any tips on patterns that will be working. Any info will be great.

I can't really give you any tips on patterns. I was at Honeoye three times, but that was all in May and have been to Canandaigua three times in the last week, fishing exclusively in the shallow slop.

But it's hard for anyone to generalize, since "Finger Lakes" covers 11 different lakes with different characteristics. Honeoye, for example is a small and shallow lake with a maximum depth of about 30', while Seneca is large and has a maximum depth of about 600'.

Will be Cayuga, and maybe Seneca

Will be Cayuga, and maybe Seneca

Buddy of mine fished a tourney last week on Cayuga and did very well. He had a 5-1 smallie off of a bed and a bunch of other big bed fish and finished 3rd. If you can still find bedding fish that would be a blast. Given the thunderstorms this week I would bet you could find some largies on beds or guarding fry. So it could be a fun tube or small swimbait bite.

If I had the choice skip Seneca, best bass lakes in order IMHO are Conesus (size) Honeoye (numbers) Keuka and Cayuga are about equal now, and both are better than Seneca and Canandaigua.

 Cayuga is not what it once was, the north end used to be a LM factory, now it's tough to even get a limit there, despite seemingly no change in available cover/habitat/water quality. If any thing the waters clearer and the weeds are healthier. Some say VHS hit that lake hard, others claim excessive tournament pressure, I don't know, but reports claim it's on the rebound, time will tell.

I locked out of Cayuga a few years back, and caught a lot of nice bass in the canal.  I think it was the North end.  Just before the lock is a bridge, and on the right a big concrete type jetti.  Buddies whacked them inside that jeddied area.  The canal had lots of slop section years ago, and there was little pressure.  I finished third for our club tournament by locking out.  Most guys didn't do well that year, the fish kill was up, due to some treatment of the lake for weeds.  That was 4-5 years ago.  If I went today, I'd lock out and check the canals, and that jeddied area near the concrete.

Good luck.

SM fishing is slow on Keuka right now.  Rain, clearwater due to zebra mussels and transition from beds to wherever....  Last three days have proved especially challenging.