Reports

Got out on Cayuga Lake with Bill at around 10:30 am, after it took a little while to launch.  The lake level is still just as low as it was last week, but most guys were getting out without any real difficulties.  The parking lot was full of boat rigs today.  A lot of guys targeting perch in the northern parts of the lake are having difficulties launching over at Cayuga Lake State Park, so Union Springs (which can also be tough launching when the lake is low) and Long Point State Parks are the best launching options.

It’s always good seeing Bill and he hadn’t been out with me in a few years.  He first booked me for a pike trip on Seneca Lake back in early November of 2007.  Since that time, we’ve done more lake trout jigging.  Pike fishing can still be good on Seneca, but it’s not nearly as hot as it was from 2006 through 2008, when it was insanely good.

We had a slow start to the morning with a few fish landed after maybe two hours out.  A couple different client/friends were out today and let me know that they’d had some hot fishing starting right from the get-go, in one case at 9 am.  I’ve seen hot fishing in the fog as well as slow fishing, so you never know, but this morning was foggy down near me around Ithaca and on the lake until maybe 11 am.

The bite picked up good towards the latter half of our trip and Bill wound up getting into the double digits, with his best fish going over 30″.  Today was a catch and release day.  We did have one lake trout cough up a huge alewife in the net.  Our best fishing was around 130′ to 155′ today.  Friends did better shallower in the morning before their bite petered out a bit.  A lot of hits were missed/dropped today as well, which is usually the case with jigging lakers.  In a few weeks to a month, they’ll probably be choking the jigs down, but the bite is still just getting underway.

We did hear a few loons out on the water today.  Funny thing is, we never actually saw them, but they weren’t far.  It’s always cool to hear that.  Friends tell me that decades ago, if you heard loons, you were probably up fishing in Canada.