Cayuga Lake out of Long Point 8/19 AM
Guided Dan and Peggy for an AM 1/2 day starting around 6:45. The days are rapidly getting noticeably shorter. Fishing on Cayuga Lake for lake trout remains top-notch. In terms of catching good numbers of decent fighting, nice sized, good eating gamefish, laker jigging cannot be beat. Neither Dan nor Peggy had done the technique before, but by the time we wrapped up around 4 1/2 hours later, they’d landed 16 solid lakers to 27″. No lampreys and very few signs of them. The only scar I recall seeing was a completely healed one on the 27″er. 2 or 3 wild fish were in the mix. Same general depths as before – 65′ to around 85′.
Around 1/2 dozen pro bass anglers launched out of Long Point today, obviously checking on the midlake areas for bass. Kevin Van Dam, Greg Hackney, John Crews and others! I don’t think the results will be too surprising. My buddy Mike (who follows pro bass fishing closer than I do) thinks around 17 1/2 to 18lbs a day will win this contest. I agree. There will be a few 20lb+ bags brought in to the scales, but I seriously doubt anyone will be able to maintain those weights through 4 days. Cayuga Lake just isn’t great bass habitat apart from the lake’s north end. If the whole 37 miles of the lake was like the lake’s north end – weedy and topping out around 30′, it’d be a different story.
Some fish will come via “frogging” shallow around the lake’s north end and channel. It isn’t a commonly used method here, but a few guys will catch some this way. Overall, I think most fish will come from 8′ to 18′ FOW, though some pros are expecting cooler temps to move fish shallow. Crankbaits, swimjigs, jigs and dropshotting will probably do the job. Cayuga Lake has some big smallmouth bass, but I seriously doubt anyone will target them for long and I seriously doubt we’ll see anyone come in with 5 smallmouths on a given day, though as always, a few nice ones will be weighed in. No doubt some big largemouth bass will be caught “down lake” – as they are there, but I don’t think any pros are going to do well enough away from the northern 10 miles of the lake to carry the event. The habitat is limited and a fair number of guys will be hitting the areas. Those are my predictions and I’ll gladly be wrong! I hope I am proven wrong and the pros show us locals some new tricks.