Cayuga Lake out of Long Point 6/30 + 7/1
6/30 AM: Fished with Jon, his son John and John’s friend Mark. John and Jon had some great fishing last August on Cayuga and were hoping for a repeat. Conditions were good with some stable, hot weather settling in. We worked both sides of the lake and fishing was slow to start. Jon caught the first laker – a solid fish around 27″. A trip to the west shore resulted in some better action after a while. The guys wound up with 5 solid fish and a few others missed/lost.
6/30 PM: Third time was the charm for Chris! He showed up around noon and we headed out. We were met with strengthening west winds. But the fishing really shined! He had a follow from a big brown and landed a fat 20″er that jumped twice. A few nice lakers made it to the net on the east shore. A trip across the lake to the area around Dean’s Cove provided supreme action for the next couple hours with periods of time with hits on EVERY drop! It was great and although a lot of fish were missed and dropped, Chris had a banner day landing 10 or 11 solid fish on the day. I had a lot of fun listening to some of Chris’s great guide stories which weren’t funny for him at the time, but were funny in retrospect! He was impressed by the fishing today.
7/1 AM: Guided the Herman’s clan today including 8 year old Leo and his brother Karl who’s 11. I generally don’t do a lot of trips with young kids unless they’re serious about fishing and I know the parents and they know me well enough to know what the fishing entails. We started on the west shore and within 10 minutes or so Leo hooks a good fish. After a strong battle we land the 28″ brown with attached eel. After releasing the brown we hoped for some great action, but things were slow. The large groups of lakers that plied the area the afternoon before were gone.
This reminds me – a lot of people email me and call asking about hotspots. Any fishing report is basically old news. Do some areas produce fish for weeks or months on end? Sure – we all know that. The area around AES and north holds lots of lakers pretty much year round. Same with N. of Long Point and there are plenty of other good areas like Sampson State Park and Belhurst on Seneca, the Bluff, Hammondsport and the State Park on Keuka and so on. But a lot of fish move and it’s really up to the angler to stay mobile and search for migrating fish and “new” areas.
We wound up back on the east shore and had some very good fishing with John landing a nice 22″ salmon and a bunch of other lakers being caught all the way around. Karl had a follow from a huge brown which we all saw! That made the day. Karl caught a nice 29″ laker and their dad Steve caught some decent fish too.
PM: I went back out with Steve, the boys’ father. We had slower fishing and some strong winds but he managed three smaller lakers and had a follow from what appeared to be a big 25″ to 27″ rainbow.