Hemlock Lake

Hemlock Lake lies in the hills south of Rochester, a long narrow trough of roughly 1,800 acres straddling the Livingston and Ontario county line in DEC Region 8. What makes it unusual has nothing to do with its size. Hemlock is a drinking-water source for the City of Rochester, and that role has kept its shoreline free of the cottages, docks, and lawns that ring almost every other Finger Lake. Forest runs down to the waterline around the entire perimeter. Standing at the north end on a still morning, it is easy to forget how close you are to a metropolitan area.

That protection comes with rules, and the rules are what make Hemlock a fly angler's lake. City watershed regulations cap boats at roughly seventeen feet and ten horsepower, which effectively eliminates wake boats, big center consoles, and high-speed trolling rigs. What remains is a lake sized for canoes, prams, kayaks, and float tubes — craft that let a fly angler work a shoreline quietly, hold position over a drop-off, and cover water at a pace that actually suits a fly line. On most Finger Lakes a fly rod is a novelty. On Hemlock it is arguably the right tool.

The fishery is a two-story one. Lake trout are the backbone, supported by a substantial DEC stocking program: the 2022 actual distribution report shows 9,800 lakers planted at Livonia, split between 6.5-inch and 7.5-inch fingerlings. Rainbow trout are present and have historically received supplemental support, though rainbow stocking appears intermittent rather than annual and should not be assumed in any given year. Brown trout round out the trout water, and the lake also holds smallmouth and largemouth bass and chain pickerel along its warmer margins. With a maximum depth of 91 feet, Hemlock is shallow by Finger Lakes standards, which is good news for anyone fishing with a fly line — the coldwater fish here are never as far out of reach as they are on the deep eastern lakes.

The calendar follows temperature. Ice-out through May is the marquee window: rainbows and lake trout push into the upper water column and hunt the shoreline shelves, and streamers and Woolly Buggers worked along the wooded west shore account for most of the best fish of the year. Through summer the trout slide down toward cooler water while the north-end flats produce midge and Callibaetis activity that browns will rise to at dusk. Fall reverses the spring pattern, bringing trout back toward the shallows through October and into November.

Hemlock is not a destination lake in the way Lake George or Skaneateles are, and that is precisely its appeal. It gets a fraction of the attention its water quality deserves, the forested shoreline is undeveloped, the gravel beaches at both ends are genuinely wadeable, and a float tube launched at daybreak may be the only craft on the water. For an angler willing to work within the watershed rules, Hemlock offers something increasingly rare in the Finger Lakes: a coldwater lake that still looks and fishes the way the region did a century ago.

Hemlock is a classic glacially scoured Finger Lakes trough — long, narrow, and oriented roughly north to south — but it is a comparatively shallow one, bottoming out at 91 feet against the several-hundred-foot depths of the larger Finger Lakes. DEC's contour sheet shows deep water concentrated through the central portion of the basin, with the bottom rising toward broad shallow flats at the north end and a shelving gravel approach at the south. Those two ends are where an angler on foot or in a float tube spends most of the day; the west shore, where forested hillside meets water with little intervening shallows, is the productive edge for a small boat.

Because the lake serves as a municipal water supply, the shoreline is undeveloped and the watershed protected, and the water quality reflects it. A thermocline sets up through the summer and pushes lake trout down into the deep central basin, but the modest maximum depth means the cold layer is never as remote as on the eastern Finger Lakes — a fast-sinking line and some patience can still reach fish holding along the deeper contour breaks in July and August.

Insect life follows the shallow-water structure. The north-end flats and soft-bottom margins produce the strongest chironomid emergences, with midge activity running from early spring well into fall and Callibaetis showing over the flats in the warm months. Damselflies and dragonflies work the limited weed edges in early summer, and baitfish concentrate along the wooded shorelines where trout hunt them at ice-out and again in the fall.

Winter use of Hemlock is governed by City of Rochester watershed access rules as well as DEC season regulations, and those rules — not just ice conditions — determine whether and where an angler can be on the lake. Do not assume ice fishing access here: confirm current watershed rules with the City of Rochester and current season dates with DEC Region 8 before planning a winter trip, and verify ice safety locally.