Cayuga Lake out of Long Point 10/5, 6
Fishing in general remains very good on Cayuga Lake for lake trout, but as is always the case – especially in the fall, the weather is the key factor in angling success.
10/5: Guided Steve and Simon for a full day. Our start time was supposed to be at 8, but the guys accidentally went to Myers and then on the way to Long Point Steve’s trusty older car started acting up. He “babied” it to Long Point where it basically needed a tow later. We started just after 9 am with a hot bite. Simon nabbed a nice 27″ laker on his first drop! Another 3 were landed and some fish lost. Then the bite slowed until we took a run downlake. Towards the last 2 hours of the trip the fishing picked up a lot and the guys wound up with 12 fish total on the day. It was a fun day and we all had a good time.
10/6 AM: Started the day at 7:30 am with Derek and his 11 year old son Phillip. The goal was to get some action in for Phil, who has recently taken an interest in fishing. We ran up to the northern part of the lake in search of pickerel. Quite a few boats were up there, primarily bass and perhaps perch fishing. Water temps are still warm at 65 degrees. The pickerel were not super-cooperative. Phil had a couple fish on but they got off. Derek managed a 22″ pickerel that was pretty skinny. We tried another area, since we ran into a lot of muddy water but it didn’t pay off. By this time, the lake was getting rough with good southerly winds around 12 to 15 mph by my estimation. We tried lake trout fishing but with the rain and heavy chop we couldn’t get anything going. Tough day but the guys learned some things and really got good with their casting. The guys were up here from Washington DC and hopefully we’ll get another shot and they will be able to see how great Cayuga Lake can be.
My PM trip was with longtime client Ron. We ran south and sure enough, the wind started dying and the weather cleared up a bit. Ron landed a small salmon to start. I am seeing some decent numbers of 14″ salmon, so I think 2019 will be another solid year for my favorite fish. Ron’s next fish was a big laker around 30″. It just stayed on bottom and Ron thought he was snagged for a few seconds – it sure looked like it! After that Ron thought he had another small salmon (they were around and active) but all hell broke loose with a wild fight and some serious runs and jumps. He landed a 27″ rainbow! First one I’ve seen in a long time. For some reason we didn’t encounter many rainbows jigging this year – nowhere’s near what we had last year. I know they are out there with the low lamprey numbers and good returns last year. The fish’s air bladder actually had expanded a bit and we had trouble releasing it. I couldn’t figure out what was going on since we didn’t injure the fish in terms of the hook. Once we burped it, we were able to release it. Hopefully it survived. I hadn’t encountered any rainbows with the bends before. But now I know what to check for if the fish stays on the surface after the release. Another laker or two was landed and we wrapped up. All fish let go.