Cayuga Lake out of Myers Park 8/9 + 8/10
After 10+ years of going out of Taughannock, I’ve finally became one of the “Myers Boys.” It’s a good launch and provides access to some great fishing – so I’m happy. I will still do trips out of Taughannock depending on the weather conditions and I can also motor over and pick people up from that park, but I’ll be launching on the east shore of Cayuga Lake for the most part. Long Point too – which I’m looking forward to, since it provides great access to Sheldrake and Aurora.
8/9: Guided Scott, Dick and John for the full day jigging lakers starting at 6:30 am. Somedays the bite starts out well and just keeps going and going. This was one of those days! Scott started things out and kept them going near AES. Laker action was good from around 65′ to 85′ if I remember right. John also caught a couple nice ones and Dick managed the hardest fighting wild fish of the day. The west shore also produced some good fishing for us. White shakers on 1 oz jigheads did the trick.
We dropped John off around noon and continued to fish. Scott managed to land a beautiful brown trout that measured 27″ and weighed 10lbs 10oz! Just a gorgeous inland trophy brown. He then lost one that leaped upwards and threw the jig. That fish was probably 7 to 8lbs. A 31″ laker rounded out the day. All in all, terrific fishing with 15 nice fish landed and quite a few dropped. I made a point of mentioning how the gang hadn’t dropped any fish – and then of course everyone started dropping them! Funny how that goes. Great fishing day and one that won’t soon be forgotten.
8/10: Guided Craig and Brad today for a full day of fishing. We mixed things up with some bass fishing and some laker jigging. Things went pretty well with some success on all fronts.
We started out on the south end of Cayuga Lake working the weedflats. I had the guys throw white Superflukes to start. Water temps are in the low 70s right now. Those of you who follow my website know I don’t do a whole lot of bass fishing in the southern portions of Cayuga Lake. I have done some in the past, but so much of my guiding is now salmonids that it felt good to get back to bassin’. Craig had the hot hand early with the bass, hooking and losing 2 decent largemouths in the 1.75 to 2lb range. He also had a hold of what was likely a nice northern pike. The fish hit, fought for a bit then broke him off in the weeds. On smallmouths Craig hooked a couple decent fish, managing to land one on an alewife tube jig. Brad had some hits as well. We didn’t have time to work all the areas I wanted to, but from what we saw there was some decent fishing to be had around Ithaca and north. This fishing will only improve as water temps cool and smallmouths begin migrating into the area from further north.
The laker jigging started out pretty hot. The fish we were into were on the small side – ranging from 13″up to around 18″+. But they were very active. The guys had quite a few hits and landed a couple fish for supper. All in all we had pretty good action throughout the day with a few lulls. But both largemouths and smallmouths cooperated to an extent and the lakers did too. Fun day with the guys and by1:45 pm we got blown off by storms.
DEC just finished up a standard gang gill netting on Cayuga Lake. These are conducted once every 3 to 4 years in set areas. Good numbers of lakers were taken in the northern portions of the lake around Levanna and Aurora. I move a lot of my guiding south this time of year, but the fishing up north remains very good. A couple nets were set for sturgeon and 4 nice ones were caught, tagged and released in good condition. The fish from the 1998 sturgeon stocking are now pushing 4.5′ long!!! One 10lb channel cat, a 20lb drum and a few big carp also showed up in the nets.
Unfortunately one gillnet was apparently pulled and/or stolen by someone. This is the first time in DEC history that this has (apparently) happened. If anyone sees (or snags) the net, has any information regarding this, or sees the buoys, please contact DEC Region 7 at (607)753-3095. When people see the buoys and netting is being conducted, they need to keep their distance. Wild laker numbers are still around 8% or so on Cayuga. Fish ran to around 14 to 15lbs, so there are some beauties around.