Reports

Did a 3-hour trip today with Ed and his grandson Logan, who is 9-years-old.  (The shortest trip I do is a half-day trip, which averages around 4+1/2 hours.  People are welcome to do shorter trips, but they pay for a half-day.)  Ed wanted to fish from 9 am until noon, so that’s what we did.  In hindsight, I should have had them come down earlier, but I didn’t know what their schedule was and figured if that’s what Ed wanted, that’s fine with me. I knew Ed from swimming over at Teagle Hall at Cornell University.  Ed’s other grandson is 6-years old.  That’s too young for what I do, so hopefully in a couple of years he’ll join us.

I get asked a fair amount about guiding kids.  A lot of it depends on the child – does he like to fish?  Is he patient?  How is he/she in boats?   In general, for a lake trout jigging trip with one child, I can handle down to 8 or 9 years old.  That can be pushing it!  Usually a half-day is more than enough.  Twelve years old and upwards works best for my kind of fishing.   If it’s one adult and two kids, it’s best if the kids are older than 10 years old and have a decent maturity level for their age.  Smaller children can have trouble handling the rods, so a large 9 or 10 year old can often function better than a small 11 or 12 year old.

Logan did a good job with the technique once I got him on a right-handed baitcaster.  Even though many right-handed adults seem to like using their dominant hands for the rod, kids tend to do better using their right hand to reel.  It varies a lot by the person.

Logan hooked up a fish as he was bringing his jig in – it hit maybe half-way up the water column.  Next thing you know, I slipped the net under a landlocked salmon that was 17″ long.  That’s only the second salmon I’ve had on my boat this season on Cayuga Lake.  If people want to know what the salmon prospects are going to be like on Cayuga Lake this winter/spring, I’d say not good!  I hope I’m wrong and get surprised, but I am not optimistic!  Don’t expect many up the tributaries either, though there might be a monster or two.  Brown and rainbow trout runs should be very good this fall and spring respectively.

In a year or two as his hands get bigger and stronger, Logan will improve a lot with his technique.  Ed nabbed a nice 27″ lake trout in one area we fished.  I filleted it and it had one alewife in its stomach.  The guys came close to getting a few more fish – they had the chases and short hits, but that was all we did today.