Cayuga Lake out of Dean’s Cove 9/2
Met Ron and his son Jeremy at Taughannock Park at 6:25 am. I’d seen a few T-Storms on the weather map around 5:45 am, and it appeared that they’d be passing within a 1/2 hour. But that didn’t prove to be the case- radar at 7 am showed a large number of severe storms heading towards the lower Finger Lakes from PA and things didn’t look good. We saw that the northern parts of the lake might miss the storms, so after waiting 1/2 hour, we decided to launch out of Dean’s. It was a great call.
We arrived at Dean’s around 7:40 am and were fishing by 8. It had been a while since I launched out of there, but nothing had changed. The launch was still in good condition. Lake level is high. On his first drop with a jig Jeremy connected with a nice laker. The bite was hot as the storms raged south of us. 3 fish were landed in short order. Best one on the day was a 27.5″ male. The skies cleared and the bite stayed good, with another 6 fish landed. No eels today and most fish were clean. The smallest was 18.5″ and most were the same class – left ventral clips and around 22″ to 24″ long – perfect eating sized lakers.
105′ to 110′ was best today. Jig color didn’t seem to matter. The thermocline had moved shallower – we had laker (48 degree) temps in around 85′ FOW, but deeper was better. Great day and the fish are still putting on the “feedbag” on Cayuga – which makes up a bit for the slow early August fishing we had. As I drove home down Rt. 89, it became apparent that Ithaca was hit with some very dangerous storms. Torrential rainfall and winds downed many trees and branches. It’s been a stormy, very wet summer here in the Finger Lakes Region.