Cayuga Lake out of Taughannock 3/26
Got out in the boat for 2 1/2 hours today with my girlfriend. The water temps are around 37/38 degrees. The water level is low but higher than the typical winter lows – launching was easy. I gave her a white jig and I started with the fly-rod. Fly-fishing produced a small (sublegal) rainbow trout around 10″ long. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but over the past year we’ve seen more rainbows than in a long time. I NEVER used to catch rainbows fly-fishing out in Cayuga Lake in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
We had a salmon follow near shore. We worked some deeper water and I tried a jig and caught a nice 22″ salmon that fought very well. Jessica landed a nice 20″ fish. We released all the fish today. Both salmon had lamprey marks. One salmon had a hook scar. That to me is kind of nice – knowing that someone else caught and released that fish so we were able to catch it today. Salmon are very vulnerable to angling pressure – so it’s always a good idea to release them. Beautiful day and we had the lake to ourselves apart from the shore anglers.