Cayuga Lake out of Myers Park 8/8
After a scheduling mix-up I wound up with this weekend free. I’ve been having some issues with my Minn-Kota Terrova’s mount – more accurately the bracket. The mount to the boat is fine, the “cradle” that holds the motor when it’s not deployed has had various issues over the past 4 years. So off came the old Terrova and on went the new one. I have had to make the nearly 2 hour drive to Utica on virtually an annual basis over the last 3 to 4 years to get service done on that motor. I LOVE my Terrova, but they do not hold up well to the rigors of my guiding schedule. Fortunately Boats Unlimited in Utica (one of the TWO Minn-Kota service centers in NY, last I checked) has a fairly short turn-time on service. Over the years I have had better luck with Motor Guides in terms of day-in and day-out use. But Minn-Kota’s spot-lock feature, quiet operation and solid mount are great and superior by far to my old Motor Guide. I run my MK motor from mid-May through the end of October, so I’m putting about 6 months of 3 to 6 day per week use on it. I would be interested in hearing how the newer Motor Guide motors with the spot-lock feature perform. My friend Craig tells me that there are rumors of other companies possibly jumping into the trolling motor business. I think that would be a good thing. My newer Terrova has some improvements, so hopefully it will hold up better. But that’s why I have a spare trolling motor for each of my boats, you just never know…
8/8 AM: Four days off of the water on Cayuga Lake really showed me how these fish move! Lake trout have fins and they use them (to quote Peter Thilveros on smallmouths.) Areas that were on fire action-wise last week ran cold today. My AM trip was with Scott and his nephew Riley. We had a slow AM with 3 lakers and one nice 24″ salmon landed. Scott caught the salmon and it was his personal best. It’s still swimming around out there for a trib guy to catch or better yet, me or one of my buddies to catch while fly-fishing in the lake this winter. We were hit with some HEAVY rain this AM and had to sit things out for 1/2 hour.
PM Trip: At around 11:15 am we swung back into Myers and dropped Riley off and picked up Scott’s dad DIck (aka “Higgins”) and one of Scott’s other nephews, Steve. Skies began to clear and the fish started hitting great with a few doubles. I get asked a lot – “What’s better – AM or PM?” They can both be great or slow – it all depends on the day. The guys landed 12 or 13 lakers (maybe more) and all landed some nice browns as well pushing 10lbs. Great day! Scott landed his personal best laker as well – a 31″ hard fighting beauty. We hit heavy rain in the PM too, but at least there wasn’t much thunder/lightning to speak of.