Reports

Both Cayuga and Seneca Lakes currently have some algae/weed issues going on. Seneca Lake is full of milfoil parts. There’s also a green, “particulate” sort of bloom going on near its bottom – it’s very visible from shore in shallow water. Whether this is affecting the fishing is unknown. Cayuga has a murky look to it despite no significant rainfall in weeks. I’m sure it relates to the hot weather.

Both lakes are loaded with baitfish. Absolutely loaded! Despite the “temperamental” fishing of the last couple seasons on Seneca, I expect this lake to offer some great fishing for a lot of different species in the near future. How can it not? The bait is there!

Cayuga Lake 6/29 AM Long Point: Guided Eric with a couple residents of a place he works for – Alan and Jim. We started things off with a bang with both Al and Jim hooking and landing nice lakers. A few more fish were caught to round off the morning and the guys also finished the AM with another 2 fish. Fun day and the guys were thrilled that they’d caught some big trout.

Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 6/30: Guided longtime client and all around excellent angler Tony for a full day. He wanted to try the pike fishing on Seneca. I told him the deal – it shines from late-September into mid-March (when the season closes) and again in May and into early-June, then it gets tougher. We decided to give it a shot anyways, plus I brought backup gear for trout/salmon and bass.

We were amazed as usual at the amount of beautiful pike cover and the lack of fish that inhabited it. There’s just too much deep weedgrowth on Seneca without a commensurate number of northerns. Add in warmer water and millions of alewives and the bite can be tricky. Tony did have a nice pike follow in his spoon. On the next cast the pike crushed it but it got off. We saw one other northern. Both fish appeared healthy. The sunny day could’ve also been a factor. My feeling is that pike fishing would currently be better on Conesus and Owasco Lakes.

A little dropshotting produced a few undersized smallmouth bass. We were encouraged to see large numbers of small perch in one area. Tony had a nice 4lb+ rainbow trout follow in his Rapala Deep Shadow Rap as well.

Lake trout jigging was promising. After landing a 22″ fish with a large lamprey attached, Tony hooked a “better fish” – the 33″ laker was clean, in good condition and gorgeous with dark coloration and the sheer beauty of a wild fish. Later on a dink salmon followed in Tony’s jig.

We saw plenty of bait just about everywhere we went. I haven’t been up to Geneva in a while, but I’d expect good to very good laker action up there. This is usually a great time to be on the north end of Seneca Lake trout fishing.

Cayuga Lake 7/1: On Day 2 with Tony we went out of Taughannock Park. Laker numbers are very good north of AES although I still feel most migratory fish are further up the lake. But the numbers around AES are very fishable. Tony landed 5 nice fish and also had a lot of short hits. The bite was stubborn.

I am not currently guiding for smallmouth bass on Cayuga Lake as a regular routine. Do not be fooled by the pros landing decent numbers of brown fish on Cayuga! They were bed fishing. Number of smallies on Cayuga remain low. We tried a few different areas without luck. Had the pros dealt with the current plankton bloom on Cayuga Lake, sight fishing would’ve been very difficult. Tony landed a few perch but that was it. We got off the lake a bit early as a big line of thunderstorms approached.

 

bass cayuga lake Northern Pike rainbow trout Seneca Lake