Cayuga Lake out of Myers 4/23
Conditions looked terrific today as I arrived at the Myers Boat Launch around 12:30 pm. I’d been planning on checking salmon action on the fly for awhile, so was psyched to give it a go. I worked as many areas as I could today, from Myers south to the Ithaca Pier until I called it a day around 7:30.
I wish I had a great report to post, but I don’t. I found a few pods of salmon, but nearly all of them were small – anywhere from 10″ to 14″ or so. A lot of good areas didn’t produce any follows or hits for me. I had a hold of what felt like a good fish for a few seconds and had one follow from what might have been a decent fish, but I didn’t get a good look at it.
Water temps reached over 51 degrees on the lake’s south end today. I had upwards of 47 degrees on the east shore. Some midlake areas are still around 40. I’m just one person with a fly-rod, so take this report for what it is, but it appears to me, from what I’ve seen and heard over the past winter/spring, that Cayuga’s (legal) salmon numbers are very low this year. That to me is to be expected with the lamprey infestation we had last year. In 2012, a lot of 17″ and 18″ fish had lampreys attached – some had 2 or 3. These are the fish that would run from 19″ to 24″ or better this year.
Trollers are picking up some decent numbers of brown trout this season. For some reason browns seem to be doing very well in Cayuga and Seneca Lakes this year. The browns don’t respond quite as well (or easily) to the fly as Landlocked Salmon, so I may have been around plenty of browns and not known it today. But for salmon, Seneca Lake is still the best bet in my opinion.