Reports

Guided back-to-back half-days on Cayuga Lake for lake trout on Saturday and then it was off to Owasco Lake on Sunday for a full day mainly targeting lake trout but also with a pike-tutorial thrown in.

9/24 AM:  Guided Scott and Mark for a 1/2 day AM trip starting at around 7:30 am.  We fished a bunch of areas and started off with a decent bite.  It was solid enough for me not to want to move us.  Eventually we tried another three areas.  The fishing ran from fair to good.  It wasn’t as hot as the action was last week for us, but it was still decent with some good-sized lake trout hooked and landed (fish up to 29″.)  The guys each had a crack at a nice rainbow trout that followed and lightly hit their jigs.  We wound up with a half-dozen nice fish landed.

9/24 PM:  My PM trip was with Oleg and his daughter Zina.  We had a great but albeit short trip with 7 nice fish landed in around 2.5 hours before they decided to call it a day.  They had some family activities going on and had accomplished their goals of catching a few fish.  The PM bite was better than the AM bite.  I’d call the fishing good to very good.  The fish continue to look great and some are showing some spawning colors.  Boat traffic remains fairly light.  DEC Law Enforcement had been on the lake quite a bit over the past couple of weeks.  Make sure you have your licenses with you as well as your standard safety equipment!

9/25 Owasco Lake:  I hadn’t been out here in some time and was looking forward to today’s full day trip.  I think the last time I was out here was August 9th!   Back then the lake did have some algae/discoloration issues going on.  Well, the lake looks great now.  Water temperatures are around 67 (as they are on Cayuga Lake as well) and the clarity is top-notch.   Today I was joined with Chris (from 8/24) and his friend Matt, both from the Rochester area.  I taught Chris some jigging tips and tricks last month and what does he do?  He goes to Canandaigua Lake and lands lakers, a few rainbows (including a 31″er!) and a 24.5″ brown over the course of two days out there.  Incredible!

He wanted to check out Owasco Lake as well as learn a good lure technique for fishing pike.  (He does very well on Conesus Lake with live bait.)  We had good conditions when we started fishing at 7:45 am, but within a half hour the lake got brutal with rain and some good south winds gusting in the teens.  We all thought the day might wind up a “wash” but lo and behold, the conditions got better and we had pretty nice weather for much of the day – at least right up until we headed in.

Lake trout fishing got pretty hot and heavy after the guys had a few short hits first thing in the morning.  We wound up with a solid double-digit day including one double.  In all likelihood Matt had a hold of a rainbow for a little while.  I spent an hour and a half going over my favorite pike technique with the guys and we had one follow plus Chris wound up landing a fish around 25″.  It’s a little early for what I consider to be the best pike fishing, but the action isn’t bad now.