Cayuga Lake out of Taughannock 5/26
Guided Perry for around 6 hours today on Cayuga Lake. The goal was to try to catch some pike. Perry usually picks up some live-bait and sets up slip bobber rigs. No luck today on the bait – which is getting harder and harder to find, so he did some casting. Due to the calm sunny conditions, I encouraged Perry to try checking out some laker jigging areas N. of AES. Perry’s mainly a pike/musky guy, so we didn’t do a whole lot of jigging, but we tried some. I did mark a lot of bait and some nice marks (of lake trout) and fish seemed to be moving for the jigs. Perry had one momentarily. So I’m happy with what we found and the jigging prospects out of Taughannock. 35′ out to 75′ or so seemed to be a good area to fish.
We motored down the lake and set up for pike. I had him casting deep diving Husky Jerks among other stickbaits. We were encouraged to see a few pike along drop offs. It didn’t take long before Perry set the hook into a nice northern around 27″ long. We continued working a stretch of shoreline, but air temps were close to 90 degrees and fatigue got the best of Perry (and I was pretty darn tired myself after a mediocre night’s sleep.) So we called things a day a couple hours early.
After dropping Perry off, I motored back down the lake. The Cottonwood Tree seeds are a minor nuisance this time of year. I continued fishing where we left off. Eventually I hooked and landed a nice smallmouth bass. But fishing was clearly slower by 2 to 3 pm and the heat and fatigue got to me a bit as well, so I wrapped up. Water temps are coming up quickly – they were around 58. We did see a small school (“shoal”) of landlocked salmon in one cove. Fish ranged from around 15″ to 17″ from what I could see. Plenty of bass and panfish are in the lower ranges of Taughannock Creek (and likely Fall Creek and Salmon Creek) for the shore anglers out there. Most bass I spotted in Taughannock Creek were around 10″ to 14″ long.