Cayuga Lake out of Myers Park 10/4 AM
Guided Joe, Kevin and Jim for a half-day starting at around 7:45 am. It was another beautiful day to be on Cayuga Lake. We had a fairly strong AM thermal that blew out of the south for a few hours. The guys had some hits, but the catching was slow. Joe got us started with a small laker around 17″. Kevin then caught an 18″er. Once the thermal died down, we made a quick move and the guys doubled up on some larger fish. Jim landed a long-looking 30.5″ wild fish that fought great. Some better fish came after that in various areas. No great shakes today – we wound up with 6 lakers for the half-day trip. Joe lost one on his last drop of the jig today. That’s the way it goes. We haven’t encountered many rainbows lately apart from a few light hits up high. Right now, there’s a ton of “rainbow-friendly” water out in the lake. The thermocline is getting weaker and you could have rainbows comfortable in a wide-range of depths. That makes catching them on jigs harder – at least for the style we fish.
I forgot to note, that yesterday’s laker was full of young gobies. They are also turning up in Seneca’s lake trout as of late. A friend caught a nice Seneca laker today that was full of them.
DEC should be starting propagation netting around Taughannock Park on Monday. Overall, this time of year can be one of the tougher times to target lake trout on Cayuga Lake. The fish have eaten what they needed throughout the year. Now comes the spawn for most adult fish. Feeding is done opportunistically and bite windows can be short or even pretty non-existent. I like fishing Owasco Lake for lake trout this time of year, since they don’t generally spawn there for another few weeks. Water temp was around 66/67 today. I am open for trips through Wednesday of next week.