Cayuga Lake out of Myers 8/17, 18
The weather was pretty iffy over the past two days but we took our chances and wound up with some good fishing. Debris is mostly gone and the lake is clear. I expect good to excellent laker jigging (with bonus browns/salmon/rainbows) through mid-September at the least.
8/17: Did a 1/2 day with Todd, who was up for the weekend dropping his daughter off to Cornell. Conditions were rainy so we held off on our start time and were fortunate to find a window to fish without any rain or thunderstorms. Todd landed a tiny salmon around 8″, a laker around 22″ and the fish that made the day, a mega-fat brown at 31″! The brown was an inch longer than Greg’s 15lb 15oz fish from two years ago. We released it after a couple quick shots and it should be out there for someone else to catch. I would say a reasonable guess was 17lbs. Todd dropped what was likely a big lake trout along with some other fish.
8/18: Got out with annual regulars Leo and Ada for a full day of laker jigging. The weather was rough to start. When we launched at 7:30 am one boat was pulling out. We wound up working from Myers all the way north to Kidders and back down again. We had activity everywhere we went. It was slow and steady to start but action got good during the last 3 hours of the trip. 11 solid lakers were landed including a 30″, 29″ and 28″. Three of the fish were wild and all were very clean apart from one or two healed, old lamprey scars. I cleaned 7 lakers today and they were filled with alewives. Although I’ve had reports of smelt in some fish this summer, I have yet to see a single one. A well digested alewife can look a lot like a smelt shape-wise. That being said, the reports regarding smelt were by people who have caught smelt before and they said “smelt,” so I’ll have to take them at their observation.