Cayuga Lake out of Myers 7/9 + 10
It is starting to feel like mid-July weather out there and without wind it can get darn hot on the lake.
7/9: Got out with my buddy Terry for the day – until it felt like 90 degrees out there. I’ve wanted to try Cayuga Lake for smallmouths but haven’t had the time. Unfortunately with the lack of wind out there, it wasn’t a good day to try but we gave it a shot. We also tried some areas for trout/salmon that I haven’t fished much lately. In a nutshell, it was a slow day for us. I had a couple small smallmouths follow in a fluke in an area that was hot smallmouth fishing when I first bought my first boat back in 2001/2002. But overall all we encountered were lots and lots of perch. Not even a rockbass, though I did land a darn good fighting bullhead that hit a tube jig. I should’ve brought my dropshot gear but didn’t even think of it. Smallmouths are gradually bouncing back on Cayuga Lake but it isn’t Keuka Lake or Skaneateles by far. Seneca has a better smallmouth population than Cayuga and for that matter so does Owasco Lake.
The lake was dead calm for awhile and we tried some trout jigging. We both missed some fish and had follows from salmon and rainbows, so that was a good sign. Had we stayed past 2 pm when the wind starting coming up again, I think we would’ve scored. Overall it wasn’t a great day to try what we tried, though I did mark an awful lot of trout. I did see signs of an algae bloom on the lake. Hopefully it won’t get any worse than it is, but there are a lot of green flecks of algae in the water. Water fleas are also somewhat dense.
7/10 AM: Guided Judy, Larry and Jake for a 1/2 day AM trip. I was pretty confident in today’s chances for a successful trip with all the fish I marked yesterday, but with the bloom going on you never quite know…. Fortunately we had a solid day today with around 7 lakers landed up to 28″ long. Most ran 23″ to 24″. All fish were very clean. A fair number of good hookups were lost, including a salmon that was at least 20″ that Larry hooked. The fish honestly appeared to make a four foot jump near the boat! Awesome fight. Next to nobody was out today fishing. Fish were fairly deep – 65′ to 90′. The fish I filleted had pretty well digested alewives in their stomachs. Females are also developing eggs.