Cayuga Lake 9/9, 9/11 + Owasco Lake 9/10
Cayuga Lake out of Long Point 9/9: Guided Dave, Dave and Judd today for a full day. Lake trout action was very good. The guys landed 10 or 11 clean fish running from 16″ to around 24″ around the Wells College area. These were mostly “immature” (non-spawning fish for this year) and males. That’s not to say that most of them were small. We had the one around 16″ and the rest were in the 19″ to 24″ range for the most part.
A run down the lake paid off with Judd landing a 32″ slob! Another fish or two were also boated. All in all it was a good September day on Cayuga Lake with minimal boat traffic.
Owasco Lake 9/10: Guided Greg here for the full day. We gave the lakers a shot on the north end and found a bunch of them after a bit of searching. Just as they started to activate, they shut down – likely due to some heavy cloud cover moving in. I expect good fishing here and we almost had it! Greg lost one fish up there that was probably a laker. He landed a hard fighting 16″ smallmouth that was suspended over deep water. There was no shortage of bait up there.
Winds picked up and we checked out some other areas further south. Our run paid off with Greg catching and releasing a gorgeous 26″ brown! A nice hook jawed dark male. He also landed a 26″ laker that was on the thin side. Things turned around just as we were second guessing fishing Owasco rather than Cayuga today. Bliss turned into agony (I exaggerate) as Greg hooked into something very large along the bottom! His rod doubled over and he said it was the heaviest Finger Lakes fish he’d ever hooked into – and Greg’s nailed some lakers in the 32″ range as well as that 30″ brown a couple weeks ago! It was pulling like a laker in the 14lb+ range! Unfortunately it got off! It was not pulling like a fouled fish – Greg felt the hit. This lake is capable of producing lakers in the upper teens and lower 20lb range, so you never know. And we never will! Fun day.
Cayuga Lake out of Taughannock 9/11: When I met Jon, Dora and Donna at the launch around 7 am I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw weather-wise. We were expecting very tough conditions with predicted south winds gusting into the upper teens, turning into north winds into the upper teens as well. Weather.Gov’s forecast called for west winds when I checked in the AM. Maybe we got lucky with the weather…
We did for a little while. The gang showed up at the wrong launch then we forgot to get the cooler onboard, so we were delayed a bit. The AM bite was slow for us with Dora possibly having a hit. On the west shore we had a virtual double with Donna landing a fish and then Dora hooking up a decent laker just as we were nettings Donna’s. Dora also had a salmon up to the boat (it was sublegal.) Jon has done very well when out with me in the past and we nearly had a decent laker in the net when the hook pulled out. He missed a few other hits. So the gals at least each landed fish.
The winds got strong by 10 am. As usual, as we were looking for some protected areas we saw a couple guys in a canoe who had likely been out in the middle of the lake struggling to get back to Taughannock. They made it, but I am never surprised at what I see on the Finger Lakes in the summer. Canoeing or kayaking out there today was a life-threatening proposition. It was ROUGH with north winds around 17 mph gusting into the mid-20s. Fun day fishing despite the tougher “catching.” It was the choppiest stuff Dora and Donna had ever been out in in fresh-water. Same probably went for Jon.