Owasco Lake 10/23 + Cayuga Lake 10/24 AM
Needless to say, the strong winds and wild weather forced some cancellations and reshuffling of trips. Winds weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be, but the fishing was tough for us on Sunday.
Owasco Lake 10/23: My AM trip was with Mike and Scott, both homeowners on the Finger Lakes. Scott was out with me a year ago on Keuka and Mike enjoyed one of the last stellar days we had this season on Seneca Lake just before the slowdown around Memorial Weekend’s derby.
The foliage was awe-inspiring today and the wind wasn’t bad down where we were fishing. But unfortunately the lake trout bite was tough. Both guys managed to land lakers in the 26″ range, but 2 fish was it for the AM. Only one or two other opportunities presented themselves. Fish are in spawn-mode here and are jumping around. Water temps are around 60/62. The lake level is good.
PM Trip: My PM trip on Owasco Lake was with Craig and his buddy Adam. I hadn’t seen Craig in around 7 or 8 years. He’d last done a laker trip with me on Seneca that featured some fantastic fishing. The guys knew the challenge that we’d be dealing with today and kept up their spirits and fished hard. The bite remained tough. Adam managed one good laker and Craig somehow managed to foul-hook a perch.
Cayuga Lake 10/24 AM: After the tough fishing yesterday we were looking at cold conditions with some very strong NW winds today. I had advised Craig to postpone the trip a few days ago but he was dead-set on fishing, so we did both days. We were going to try to hit some lakers out of Long Point before the forecast winds came up then head north for pickerel/bass, but upon seeing the AM winds decided to go straight to the pickerel at the lake’s north end. We were also hoping for some bass.
Fishing was superb for the toothy critters. The guys pulled their lures away from the dink (15″ to 17″) pickerel while managing to land some solids up to over 24″. Adam also managed a 29″ Northern Pike. The guys also caught some nice perch on our pickerel/bass gear – a 13″er, 11″er and one around 9″. Who needs Seneca??? These Cayuga perch are getting BIG and eating the plentiful gobies and alewives that ply Cayuga Lake. I cleaned 4 pickerel and found some huge gobies in their stomachs too! The condition of the fish the guys caught today was great. Water levels were also great. Water temps were around 52 degrees up north. It felt like mid-November out there today.