Cayuga Lake out of Taughannock 2/15
Got out for the first guided trip of the season with John and Andrew. The lake level is extremely low (as low as I’ve ever seen it) but I was able to launch ok. I had the guys work various hair and tube jigs along with spoons and stickbaits. Fishing was pretty slow for us during the first hour but John eventually managed to connect with a nice 21″ laker on a spoon. I actually saw two halfway decent largemouth bass up shallow in 37 degree water – not something you tend to see very often!
In another area Andrew connected with a beautiful 26″ landlocked salmon. Great fight with some good runs and acrobatics. John also managed to catch another laker. We had a couple follows from other salmon too.
After the half day trip ended I went back out exploring a bit. I had my fly gear but stuck with spinning tackle due to the conditions. A big laker around 27″ followed in my jig but never hit it. I caught (yet another) dropback salmon from last year’s amazing class of two year old fish – it was a nice 21″er. I checked out the laker jigging and found good numbers of fish from shallow out to 80′. I didn’t look deeper but I’m sure they are out there in good numbers. I managed a 25″ one eyed lake trout on a Shaker. The one eyed fish out of Cayuga was in much better condition that a two eyed (normal) lake trout I managed to catch while ice fishing on Keuka Lake earlier in the week.
At the end of the day I managed two salmon – a 19″er and a 20″. I kept the 20″er and it was loaded with gobies. Salmon seem to be very scattered. There’s no need for them to bunch up too much with the abundant goby population on Cayuga Lake. Overall I am not seeing great numbers of one and two year old (years in the lake that is) fish out there. They are clearly around and the fishing isn’t bad, but not on a par with last year. I expect salmon fishing to improve once alewives start moving up. I think we will see another good salmon year but the best fishing may not happen until things warm up a bit more. Water temps ranged from 37 to 39.