Cayuga Lake N. end Report 9/15
There’s nothing quite like bass fishing. It’s a challenge and consistent success requires the ability to adjust to ever changing conditions. Guided the full day with Ray. We worked S. of the launch down to Long Point today. Fishing started out promising with Ray landing a couple small largemouths and a couple pickerel on medium running crankbaits in around 12′ to 15′ of water. It was cold with water temps hovering in the mid to upper 60s for most of the day. Ray really wanted to locate some bass today, so he encouraged me to fish with him – so that’s what I did. I chucked large deep running crankbaits for quite a while. The bite was tough and peculiar today. I actually foul-hooked two pickerel on separate occasions in their backs! Aggressive fish like pickerel usually don’t wind up being hooked like that! Bass seemed to be striking short and not coming back. That was the story of the day.
We did some dropshotting, casting stickbaits, working plastic worms and tubes and so on. The tubes attracted a lot of pickerel – sometimes nearly every cast. They weren’t particularly active (for us) in the AM, but as the sun came out they really got aggressive. Around 12′ was best for them, but they were deeper too. Bass also followed Ray’s jerkbait – but wouldn’t hit. The hitting bass that we landed were mostly dinks. Ray’s a very good fisherman and could differentiate the bass hits from perch and pickerel hits. He had some good runs on the plastic worm, but the bass would usually drop it. Things got more active later. By the end of the day I’d hooked and lost a decent fish (around 2lbs) on a dropshotted Ozmo and had another follow me in around the same areas we’d worked in the AM, but it was getting time to leave. Challenging day – windy and cold conditions for most of the day with few hookups.
Bass fishing has been very good on Cayuga lately – for largemouths. Actually from reports I’ve received it’s been good all season. The cold weather put a damper on the bite, but as the weather stabilizes, I expect fishing to improve quickly.