Cayuga Lake out of Taughannock 6/13

Reports

Well I had some grandiose plans for Dean and Scott today. They’ve fished with me a couple times – one time just hammering lakers on Owasco and another time having a solid day on Cayuga. I was hoping we could hit a salmon or brown around Taughannock Point early in the AM, head south for pike and then finish off with some lakers. As we launched slightly after 5 am I ran into a couple guys who’d fished live alewives since midnight without any fish. We gave the park around 1/2 hour w/o luck (no wind) then decided to head south for pike. Conditions were perfect for laker jigging, but I thought we had a good shot at some pike and bass. We worked pike for about an hour without any grabs when I got a text from my friend (and rod builder) Mike Canavan, who’d had some very good laker action further north. So up we went.

The bite had disappated a bit by the time we arrived. We did mark some fish and plenty of bait – which was a good sign. Dean hooked a big laker and played it for awhile – then lost it. A scale on the hook confirmed that it was foul hooked. A couple other hits were had, then eventually Scott landed a 20″ laker. We worked some other areas and Scott hooked a solid fish – but unbelievably it was also foul-hooked! We did get a good look at it, and it was a well-fed fish. Scott then hooked another and it got off. Fish had moments of aggressiveness, which was nice. We did a little casting with tube jigs and superflukes. Large perch, bluegills and some nice bass were in shallow. But we mainly stuck with the lakers. H2O on the surface is around 62 to 64 if I remember right. The bottom line is that there was a very good to excellent bite in the AM – from around 6:30 to 7:30. Fish had their moments later on, but that was by far the best fishing.