Cayuga Lake out of Dean’s 6/21
Well it was another eventful day with the Hermans out on Cayuga Lake. They “warned” me when they first started booking me that weird stuff happens when they go fishing, and they were right – though it’s been “good weird” for the most part. Last year a laker in my livewell during one of our trips bit my finger and wouldn’t let go! That was a first. On another occasion John Herman landed a 29″ monster brown trout on a jig! That was also a first. Today was more of the same.
We started off our plan by haggling about our starting time. I knew that the good laker bite had been early but John and Eleonore weren’t up for getting up at “dark thirty” and meeting me at 6:30 am, so we compromised and met at 7:30 am, which was better than 8am. The wind was rolling pretty good out of the south. I marked a few lakers and relatively little bait compared to earlier in the week. After an hour or so John had lost a fish and Eleonore landed a wild beauty around 29″ on a jig. The wind got intense and we spent a couple hours searching for fish in sheltered areas with very little luck or action. The wind changed directions a few times and finally started coming out of the west. To make a long story short, I set us up near Silos so we could use the westerly to our advantage and drift across the vast flat in around 40′ of water. As we began our drift I saw a mark show up on the Vexilar. I knew where John’s line was, but not Eleonore’s, so I asked her if she was on bottom – “Nope, I’m just starting to drop”. Me and John glanced at each other as his jig dropped down, knowing there was a fish down there. Next thing I know I see John set the hook and his rod is bent over. I patted him on the shoulder – “nice job” as I went to get the net. Then I saw the rod bobbing up and down – “I don’t think this is a laker” I said to him. A second or two later it was confirmed as a silver explosion went off next to the boat! A beautiful fish jumped out of the water and headed down and out. I thought he lost the fish but he still had it and led the still hot fish into the net!
“Salmon” is what John thought, but a closer look at the fish revealed a nice 25″ chunky rainbow! It was a catch and release trip so I held the fish for John as he snapped a quick photo. I let the still “green” fish go and it took off like a rocket. Just as we let the fish go the T-storms started approaching and we called it a day. It was just a matter of sheer perserverence with a little luck thrown in! I’ll take it! BTW – word has it that largemouths are hitting pretty good on Cayuga. Some massive bags were weighed in at a tourney last week – 20lbs + for 5 fish. Plenty of small largemouths are around, so Cayuga looks like it may be on its way back as a top-notch largemouth fishery. We can only hope!