Cayuga Lake out of Taughannock 3/23
Guided Florian and Alysa for around 6 hours yesterday. Last year on two consecutive days we had a zero on carp and a great day for salmon on Cayuga. This year the conditions were much tougher. This was the only day they could fish, so we had to go for it. I originally wanted to fish out of Long Point, but wind forecasts would have made for a brutal day. For various reasons, it wasn’t worth Florian and Alysa driving over to Keuka Lake (out of Branchport – which would have been a good call) so we decided to go with Taughannock. The brown/salmon fishing has been very spotty thus far this season on Cayuga, so it was a roll of the dice, but I liked the winds and thought the conditions were alright.
We worked a lot of areas on Cayuga’s west shore, which is where we were confined due to the wind. We never drew a single hit or fish on stickbaits and jigs. We tried some laker jigging and marked a few fish. I rarely find decent numbers of lakers south of Taughannock (or more accurately the power plant) this time of year. In a month or two, things usually improve. But I think the decline of the smelt population has resulted in fewer lake trout frequenting the southern portions of Cayuga Lake in late winter/early spring. Just a thought.
After four hours without any hits things looked pretty discouraging, but I don’t give up. Florian finally hooked up with a small laker in around 135′. Only 14.5″ long but at least it was a fish. Around 10 minutes later as he was jigging I saw him raise the jig and then watched the line go slack! The infamous “slack line hit” which many people miss. He missed the fish but then it came back but got off. That was it for the day. We would’ve fished longer but they had other obligations. The run back to Taughannock was borderline brutal with north winds gusting to 26 mph. We took a wave or two over the bow, which is never fun. These gusts weren’t in the forecast, but this stuff happens! They were well dressed for the weather and the air temps actually didn’t feel too bad. And yes, we were the only boat out of Taughannock or the southend of Cayuga Lake yesterday.