Reports

Guided regular Ron and his daughter Rachel for a full day today getting underway just after 8:45 am.  The Finger Lakes area (and other parts of NY State) were hit with some hard deluges of rain last night.  Some debris was along the shorelines and creek mouths. We also encountered plenty of standing water on the way to the park.  Cayuga Lake is rising and heading towards a “minor flooding level.”  Forecasts call for dry conditions and cold temperatures at night over the next few days, so I don’t think we’ll see any flooding.  This high water may help the pike spawn – we can only hope!

Water temperatures remain around 40/41 degrees.  We had a fairly steady pick of fish on the day, with a pretty good lull around noon that lasted maybe 3 hours.  The bite was slower than the last time I was out here. The AM bite was very good and the late PM bite was good.  We had a solid double-digit day with fish running to 30″.  Smallest was around 23″, but that was just one fish – most ran 25″ to 29″.   We had two doubles hooked on the day.  Depth ranged from 130′ to 160′.  We did mark fish both shallower and deeper than that range as well.  Best colors were white/chartreuse tail Shaker, Arkansas Shiner Shaker and I think we had a fish or two on chartreuse.

The weather really hung in there today and forecasted high winds didn’t materialize (we had a few very different forecasts.)  The lake was downright calm at times.  Plenty of loons were around and it appears that the ospreys have arrived.  Fishing pressure was light today – we saw another 3 or 4 boats jigging lake trout at most.