Cayuga Lake 6/16 + 17
Wild north winds gusting to over 30 mph really moved the water around on Cayuga Lake last Thursday. We had cold water very close to the surface on Friday, but then southerlies moved a lot of warm water back up north and set up some very strong currents on Saturday. By Sunday (today) the lake was setting back up again in a normal fashion.
6/16: Guided Charles from Michigan with his son Nick and son in-law Ryan for a half day of laker jigging. Fish were very scattered north of Long Point towards Levanna with 52 degree water on bottom anywhere from 50 FOW out to over 125 FOW. The hot fishing we experienced on Friday was in 42 degree water out around 75′ to 85′ or so. A few lakers in Cayuga tend to hang around water in the low 50s but it rarely ever concentrates a lot of fish – at least that’s been my finding. Nick landed a laker around 20″ and lost a bigger fish in relatively shallow but working out deeper didn’t produce much activity, despite having some good marks. So we ran down south. Mid-lake areas have been producing well for my friend Mike who has a place on the lake, though a lot of areas haven’t heated up yet action-wise quite yet. Water tends not to “pile up” down there after strong wind events. You don’t have the major points that cut off submarine currents or divert them. We found nice cold water down 50′ or so and got into some fish and managed to salvage a tough morning. Best fish was Charles 29″er if I remember right. Everyone caught at least one fish with Nick leading the way with three. Gorgeous day with perfect weather!
After the trip I picked up my buddy Todd at the launch and we went out for around 3 hours doing some exploring. He had a lot of fish interested in his jig including assorted salmon and possibly a big brown, and he managed to land a nice laker. I landed three lakers l and lost what might have been Todd’s nice brown that chased him up. I’m not sure if it was a brown, but we had a good time on the day.
6/17: Today I guided Fred Sr., Fred Jr. and Matt. Fred Sr. used to charter on Lake Ontario out of Sandy Pond starting around 1981, so he’s one of the few “old school” Captains still around. I was around 15 or 16 years old in those days and remember them well. We always have a good time jigging lakers and today was no exception. Fishing was good to excellent for most of the AM and tapered off before we called it quits around noon. The guys landed 13 solid fish up to 29″ long and probably dropped another half dozen or more. Some great fighting lakers and a few wild ones too. Lamprey numbers are very low and the fish look great. As I’ve said many a time – “These are the GOOD OLD DAYS on Cayuga Lake!”