Cayuga Lake out of Myers 4/15 AM + Lake Ontario out of Oswego 4/16
Cayuga Lake out of Myers 4/15: Guided Peter for a 1/2 day AM. He’s been getting into fly-fishing and wanted to try the lake. We did a couple casting lessons over the winter and he was itching to get out and put his skills to practice. We met at 8 am with light winds which quickly calmed down to glassy conditions. Not good for casting or fly-fishing on most days. Peter worked on his casting for a bit and then we headed north to try and get some lakers. He hadn’t jigged them before and managed to get a hit or two and land one nice fish around 21″. Fish still seemed lethargic.
Winds came up nicely out of the north and we worked a few areas for salmon. The casting got better, but we never raised any fish. Conditions were still pretty cold and the tribs were still pumping in water that wasn’t more than a couple degrees warmer than the lake. Late afternoon might’ve been better, but we had to call it a day so I could teach classes. Water temps were around 36 or so if I remember right. The laker had a couple alewives and what appeared to be a small goby in its stomach.
Lake Ontario out of Oswego Harbor 4/16: I never made it out to Oswego last year – for early browns, summertime browns, lakers, bass – nothing. This year I’m bound and determined to fish it on a regular basis. I feel the lack of bait and harsh winter will make for hungry fish and great fishing. Unfortunately last night my old computer was giving me some issues and it took me some time to straighten things out. Then rigging and getting the boat ready made for a late night. My body decided to forego the early start and I slept in – turning off my alarm clock that was set at 4:30 am. As I arrived at 10:45 am a boat was pulling out. The guys told me that ice-out here was about a week and a half ago. Trolling had been very good the past two days with today being slower. But a combination of browns, rainbows, cohos and Atlantics have been caught. The guys had landed a 10lb Atlantic over the past 3 days. Even a few lakers up shallow. No Kings yet for them. Stomachs have been filled with gobies – no alewives. It’s similar to last year.
For me it was more of a Lake Ontario shakedown. I fly-fished for 2 hours. I may have had a brown following my streamer for a bit. Maybe it was an illusion. I spent a couple hours scouting the icy depths for signs of life. I found what appeared to be lakers in around 150′ to 160′ FOW. They were pretty lethargic. I had a fish aggressively follow me almost to the surface. No way was it a laker.
I checked some areas west of the river for around 2 hours as well and had a good hit in around 20′ FOW that I missed on a tube jig. It hit as the tube was sinking and maybe halfway down – so it was probably a trout of some kind. That was it. The water temp was 34 out in the lake. I had as much as 46 on the surface momentarily in some sun baked shallows. The majority of river water was pushing 40 to 43 degrees by the end of the day. The river was very muddy but the flume wasn’t going out too far. The launch still wasn’t officially open so no fee but also no restrooms. My guess is that they’ll be charging this weekend. I love the kind of exploration I did today and can’t wait to get back, though I may have to fish some Landlockeds and Rainbows first around here!