Cayuga Lake out of Long Point 1/7
After a couple days of temps in the mid to upper 40s, I figured the boat ramps up lake might be launchable. I took a chance and drove up to Long Point this AM and found chunks of broken up ice. Great! So I dumped in the boat around 10:30 am. BTW – the last two times I’ve launched with chunk ice around, I’ve hit the ice (as I back in the boat) with my transducer and found that caused my transducer to go way out of alignment. In general, if you get poor bottom readings, inaccurate depth reading and things just don’t look right, that’s the first thing to check.
The plan was to jig up some lakers, and then if I had time, scout out some mid-lake areas on Cayuga for pike. Things started similarly to yesterday, within a few drops of the jig I landed a small laker around 18″. Again fish ranged from around 100′ out to 160′ – I basically found lakers as deep as I cared to look. Within a half hour or so I landed a good fish for the smoker, one around 26″. A foul-hooked dink from 150′ surprised me.
I stayed a few miles around Long Point then headed across the lake. The southerlies died down and the forecast was for light westerlies, changing into the north 10 to 15 tonight. The ride across was nice. But things didn’t last. Winds came cranking out of the WNW hard! Before I knew it, the lake was awash with whitecaps. I did manage to hook a couple more lakers, landing another around 26″, but the fishing really shut down.
I really enjoy the deep jigging for lakers. I needed one more good fish for my smoker and didn’t get it (should have kept a couple of the small ones from yesterday, but hindsight is always 20/20!) Never had any time to scout any pike areas. I don’t expect much mid-lake for pike away from the powerplant. Cayuga really doesn’t have a great pike population, but once in a while a big one turns up in an unexpected area.