Cayuga Lake 8/23 – 25
8/23 AM: Guided Greg for a 1/2 day. We tried for non-laker salmonids and wound up with a tough AM. He did land two salmon – one was a nice 20″er, the other a dink. He had a nice brown take a few light nips at his jig but no good grabs. He also managed to land a laker.
After the trip ended, I dropped off my boat and headed up to Union Springs to watch the weigh-in for Day 2 of the Elite Series B.A.S.S. tournament held on Cayuga. Had a lot of fun watching 4lber after 4lber brought up to the stage. Some super smallmouths were also caught by the pros and one or two of them targeted them. On Thursday, a largemouth bass that weighed 8lbs 1oz was brought to the scales! Very impressive fish! Fish appeared to be very feisty onstage, so I think mortality was low. Seth Feider has been on the tour now for a few years. He said “Cayuga is my favorite lake in the country.” That was awesome to hear. He has done well here and says it sets up and fishes just like (his home) Lake Minnetonka, but the bass here get bigger. As much as I got into following “Ike”, KVD, Gerald Swindle and the other known pros, I wasn’t thinking about them while watching the weigh-in. The fish are really what it’s all about here.
8/24: Had a late notification for a cancellation (I had to contact the person) and found I had Saturday free. Client Dave (who sometimes fishes with his son Dan and Dismal Dan) grabbed up the day early Thursday AM. He drove in from Ohio to fish for the day, then drove back after the trip. He had his son Steve with him. Dave had never caught a brown before. That’s what he wanted. Steve wanted action, so I tried to set them up in areas giving us a chance for both species.
We wound up with a couple lakers and Steve landed a 17.5″ salmon in one area. We made a run and got into some nice lakers. Steve also nabbed a 28″ rainbow that was gorgeous but on the thin side. We then tried the area where Will caught his monster brown. We had a lot of follows from nice browns but nada. Finally Dave hooked up and after a short battle (the fish hit near the boat) we landed a trophy brown – another one around upper 15/16 pound range and 31″ long. Dave had his trophy – a big male. Steve landed two more solid browns up to 27″ or 28″. Great way to end the day!
8/25: Today I swung into Taughannock and picked up my old friend Jason and his wife Janet. Me and Jay go back to 6th or 7th grade. Last time I saw him was maybe 10 years ago. They have a place on Sodus Bay and Janet has taken a renewed interest in fishing. I figured we’d do some laker jigging – to catch some nice fish and then I’d take out an hour or so to show them some ways to work a Senko, a Fluke and Dropshotting. So that’s what we did. Jigging was great. Jay’s first fish was a 25″ or 26″ brown! A few nice lakers were landed then Janet had a hold of a stunningly gorgeous rainbow that wound up getting off. But Jason got some of the action on video which was cool. I wasn’t expecting much on the bass – especially with pros hitting a lot of the areas this week. Jason had one 2lb largemouth come after his Senko but that was it. Fun day and they’ll be grilling some lakers tonight or tomorrow.