Cayuga Lake out of Myers Point 4/22
Guided longtime client Mark for a full day of salmon fly-fishing. We started just after 8 am. If anyone is wondering whether yesterday’s rain raised the lake level, rest assured – it didn’t. The lake is still very low. At least 2′ below full pool, maybe 3. Rain forecast today and tomorrow should help. I only saw a few small boats on the lake all day today.
Mark had been practicing his fly-casting and it showed! And he was already a great caster. I can’t say enough about the great distance casting video by George Roberts – it’s fantastic and a must-have for ANY and EVERY fly-caster. We worked areas on both sides of the lake staying south. It didn’t take long for Mark to land a 19 1/2″ salmon on my bionic smelt pattern. Second fish came around 2 hours later – a fat 18 1/2″ brown with three attached lampreys. Yes, unfortunately “the Octopus” is back after a long absence! Of course it’s good news if you enjoy lamprey on the table 😉 I encouraged Mark to try one, but it didn’t work – at least for awhile.
Mark had a few other hits but not many. We tried some areas I almost never fish for salmon with some encouraging results. My buddy Mike hit some of our tried and true areas Saturday with varying results, so I had a good starting point. After working a lot of areas, we tried one of my favorites and Mark hooked and landed a solid 21″+ fish. Tremendous battle with plenty of jumps, runs, cartwheeling antics and tail walking. Just a classically awesome salmon battle! We released that fish after keeping the first two that had been hammered by eels. The brown was stuffed with alewives. No smelt. Water temps are around 43/44. 50 in Cayuga Inlet. Mark kept the last lamprey and I cleaned it for him. It’ll be interesting to see what he and his wife think about sautéed eel.