Cayuga Lake out of Taughannock 5/11
I managed to get out this afternoon/evening for 4 to 5 hours on Cayuga Lake. I brought spinning and casting gear for pike and salmon. I gave the pike fishing near the south end 3 hours and never raised a fish. I think the bite was just “off” due to the water/weather conditions – I don’t know. I just didn’t find/encounter any fish. I worked a lot of shallow spawning areas and adjacent areas with swimbaits, jerkbaits, tubes and other tactics. Tubes produced a couple perch for me. By all accounts, perch have moved into the south end and mid-portions of Cayuga Lake in good numbers recently. Water temps ranged from 46 to 48 – perfect for salmon action. I spent the last 2 hours casting for salmon on the east shore. I landed 2 small (sublegal) landlockeds on stickbaits.
I expect pike fishing to pick up once we get some seasonable and steadily warming weather. A homeowner told me he’d landed a beautiful pike last week on a live alewife he’d accidentally snagged while casting for trout/salmon. I know there are some nice pike around to be had on Cayuga Lake! The rain started coming down and it got darker out – so I called it a day around 8 pm. I’d started around 3:30.