Cayuga Lake out of Myers 11/8, Skaneateles Lake 11/9 AM
I figured guiding would slow down now but I actually have a pretty full week of trips ahead. I can’t blame anybody, November fishing can be fantastic.
Cayuga Lake out of Myers 11/8: Guided Scott and his wife Galina for a 6 hour day. I generally either do 1/2s or fulls but we each had committments in the afternoon and they had one in the AM too, so it was the best we could do. They are both accomplished fly-fishers and casters so that’s what we did all day long. Conditions were pretty good for pike fishing. Galina started things off by having some follows (including a group of nice smallmouths, which is good to see these days on Cayuga) and dropping a pike or pickerel. Scott landed the first fish which was a solid 18.5″ smallmouth bass – a great fish on the fly. He then nabbed a 25″ (citation sized) pickerel and two nice pike running 29″ and 31″ if I remember right. We tried a few different flies and Galina (who is an excellent caster as well) caught her first pickerel then a decent pike. A few other hits/follows were had on the day. We also saw a few good pike swimming around down in the weeds.
Skaneateles Lake 11/9: Instead of cancelling or postponing our trip due to the weather today, we took a wait ‘n see approach. The weather.com hourly forecast was for light winds, clouds and no rain until around 11 am or later. It proved to be correct and Kevin and Drew had a great morning of fishing, mainly casting hair jigs and tubes. The guys didn’t want any fish to keep so they gave me their perch. I wound up with around 25 keepers running 9″ to 13″ or so. Around 15 perch were released as well as three hard fighting lake trout (running 14″ to 21″) and 8 to 10 smallmouths (up to over 18″.) Great November mixed bag action.
The weather people were right – by 11 am the wind and snow came whipping in. It was cold out but we all had a great time and were very comfortable. “When in doubt, go out!” (Except in life threatening conditions I should add!) Water temps are still warmer than usual for this time of year – I had 53. I usually don’t see good rainbow action until maybe 51 or below, though they are in the nearshore areas now. The colder the lake gets, the more consistent the trout bite. Hopefully the launch will stay open for a week or two yet. We’ll see.