Cayuga Lake out of Taughannock 3/30
What a terrific day to fish! I fished with my girlfriend from around 12:30pm till 6:40pm. It only took a few casts with my fly-rod (intermediate line/bionic smelt fly) to draw up a follow from a nice 20″ to 22″ landlocked salmon. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the fish to grab! We continued our drift and I had another follow – this time on a Clouser minnow with a sinking line. At the same time Jessica hooked up and landed a nice 20″ salmon on a jig. We worked one area for awhile and she also landed a 21″ brown. I kept fly-fishing and took a few casts with a jig. We tried another area (on the east shore) and had 3 follows/hits.
We wound up back on the west shore and I did some casting with a jig. I hooked what felt like a very good fish – maybe something foul-hooked. But it wound up being a beautiful hook-jawed male brown that was 24″ and probably 5.5lbs or better. We worked back up to the park and we hit another pod of fish. Jess got another 20″ and a 17″ and I got a 18.5″ salmon. All fish but one salmon were released. Lots of hook scars (marks) and lamprey hits on the salmon. The salmon are in reasonable shape but not in the fat condition of the late 1990s/early 2000s. I’m thankful for all the catch and release fishing going on out there. It makes a big difference in the quality of everyone’s fishing. Water temps ranged from 37 to 38. Cayuga is just fishing great for salmon/browns. I’m lovin’ it! We got plenty of photos and I should have them up by Tuesday – gotta get them developed and put on disc. Fish were generally lethargic today and action seemed to improve as the day went on.