Reports

Guided long-time regular Ron for a full day yesterday out of Long Point State Park and a half day today out of Myers (Town) Park.  Here’s how things went:

3/24:  Met Ron at 8:30 am at Long Point.  Conditions were windy out of the south with steady winds around 15 mph and peak gusts around 25 mph.  Needless to say, it was rough out there.  On the day only two other boats launched out of the park and were out there (that I could see.) The deep lake trout bite is very good with fish feeding throughout much of the day depending on the conditions.  We had great fishing early, then a couple hour lull and then some more very solid fishing for the last two hours of the day.  Ron managed to land 18 beautiful lake trout running from around 24″ to 30″ long with most fish in the 26″ to 27″ range.  Lamprey wounding was very light to non-existent and the fish looked great.  We took most fish from 120′ out to around 150′  using assorted plastics.

A few snow geese remain on and around the lake but most are gone.  I have only seen one group of loons so far.  I kept one of Ron’s lake trout for supper and it didn’t have much in its stomach.  Baitfish still haven’t moved in as far as I can tell.

3/25:  Today we met at 7:45 am at Myers Park for a change of pace and a chance at some shallower lakers, salmon and browns.  I’d expect most rainbow trout to be in the streams spawning now.  The new breakwall looks good and the channel was widened a little bit (maybe 2 feet.)  We had fairly calm conditions and then some swirling west winds.   It was a tough, very slow go for us today.  Last year Ron and I did the same thing over two days with pretty much the same results.  Anyways today, we worked a lot of areas mainly from the lower lake and up around 5 miles.  Water was cold and muddy in a lot of places.  My Lowrance temp gauges on my two units aren’t working great, but temps appear to be in the upper 30s.  I will make sure I bring my accurate temp probe next time, but suffice to say, the lake hasn’t warmed up much at all yet and it won’t anytime soon with some frigid temperatures forecast from Sunday night through Tuesday (lows possibly reaching 19.)

Ron had a relatively long drive to get back home, so we were out for just a half day.  We did a little laker jigging and he had a couple good chases but no hits.  We had zero action on the day casting various swimbaits, bladebaits, tubes and stickbaits – no hits or follows that we could see.  I blame some of it on the conditions – we had a lack of steady wind and a lot of cold water.  But over the past 6 or 7 years we would have encountered some shallow lakers at the very least.  Fishing remains pretty tough on Cayuga Lake for everything but lakers as far as I can tell.  One tell-tale sign is that we only saw a couple boats out on the lake trolling today.  For a nice day in late-March, that’s very light fishing pressure on Cayuga Lake.  Usually this time of year, even on a weekday, you can count on seeing a half dozen boats out of Taughannock  as well as Allen Treman Park and three or four out of Myers.  Shore fishermen are catching a few salmon but action remains fairly slow – similar to last season thus far.

I am keeping my availability post updated.  Scroll back through the reports and it won’t be too far back.  My schedule remains pretty open in April at this point in time.  If I don’t book up too much, I plan on checking out some other area lakes shortly.  The deep lake trout bite remains the best gamefish bite that I can offer at this time.  It is stellar as usual on Cayuga Lake.

As for salmon casting, once we get a good warming spell, fish should start to concentrate a bit.  Last fall we encountered fair numbers of young salmonids and they should be around.  I expect fishing to improve in April.

Runs of rainbows have been decent on Catherine Creek from what I heard – less fish than last year, but still a good run.  DEC electrofished over there last Monday and Tuesday and apparently (and surprisingly) the lamprey scarring wasn’t too bad.  I will contact them this week and get the full report.  If you are not a diary keeper, now’s the time to sign up!  It’s important that DEC sees what the catch rates are – what we’re catching and what we’re not.