Cayuga Lake out of Myers Park 4/21
I got out today on my own for around 3 hours. I was really psyched when I saw the forecasted south winds and sun so I grabbed my fly-rods and headed out the door. Unfortunately the wind was in the process of diminishing soon after I arrived. I fly-fished for around 2.5 hours and never had a definite hit. A little bit of laker jigging produced a dink laker.
Anglers flat-lining are doing well around the south end of the lake on mostly sublegal landlocks and a few barely legal brown trout, with the occasional solid big brown or salmon. There’s a lot of small debris on the surface of the lake and some large swathes of nice green, warm water (surface temps are running from 44 to 48 degrees) but it’s turning into more of a troller’s ballgame out there. Lots of fishy water to cover! Once we get some good steady north winds, the fly-fishing and spincasting should turn on a bit.
I get a fair number of questions regarding smelt runs every year. I was talking to “Bear” at Bear’s Bait and Tackle at Myers Park and he did hear of some being dipped. So “the run” is likely on but numbers are low.
A gal in one of my fly-fishing classes hooked a very nice salmon yesterday from shore. It was probably around 23″ give or take. Some very nice fish have been caught this season out in the lake (that’s the first salmon a student of mine has hooked while fly-fishing from shore in a few years if my memory serves me correctly.)
The number of loons out on the lake is incredible! I’m not talking about morons out in boats and kayaks but the birds! Man – they are everywhere! I’ve never, ever seen so many.
DEC Diaries finally arrived in my mailbox this week. I like getting them in March but I will give the guys and gal a lot of credit because the reports are much more comprehensive now than they were back in the late 1990s and early to mid 2000s.
Wild lake trout numbers on Cayuga are at around 11%. They are definitely creeping up and I don’t think we’ll notice any of the stocking cuts while fishing. As a matter of fact, catch rates for salmonids on Cayuga Lake were the highest they’ve been since the start of the program. With low lamprey numbers out there, we’re seeing a banner year on Cayuga Lake and should see another great year in 2017. I’ve been itching to fish Seneca and Skaneateles and will likely head to one of those lakes soon.