Cayuga Lake out of Taughannock Park 8/10 + 11
Fishing was “challenging” at the very least this past weekend for us on Cayuga. Actually forget the euphemisms, it was darn tough for the most part. Here’s how things broke down:
8/10 AM: Met longtime clients Ed and John at the ramp at 6:30 am. We ran north and fished AES as well as areas on the west shore. The Myers Lighthouse Derby was going on, but I’d found out about it a bit late and didn’t enter (plus I’d already booked the afternoon and wasn’t sure what we’d be fishing for and where.) But a lot of boats were out.
John and Ed had quite a few good hits. One fat wild 25″ to 26″ laker was landed, along with one small one. A few good fish got off. The bite wasn’t great, but wasn’t bad for at least an hour or two.
PM: North winds came up substantially around 11 am and kept building till at least 2 pm. They gusted into the high teens at the very least. Lots of white caps! That made things tough on Michele and Nicholas, whom I met at the launch around 11. We fished hard and I worked them up the lake quite a ways. Michele managed a dink around 14″ and lost one (likely) good fish that hit her a couple times near Kidders. But very tough fishing. It was beautiful out and we had a good time, but it was hard.
8/11 AM: Did my 2nd 1/2 day in a row with Michele and Nicholas starting at 6:30. Things didn’t look good to start with the absolute bluebird skies and not much of a sign on anything on the graph or at the ends of our lines! On the west shore we started encountering some bait and fish. It apparently was “Nick’s turn” today and he did well landing 2 solid lakers from around 22″ to 25″. He also landed a dink. I had some good reports from my rod builder friend Mike Canavan, who encountered a flurry of good action this AM. So fishing should be back on the upswing soon.
Overall we found fish and temperature in a variety of depths. 65′ to 80′ was good on the west shore and we actually didn’t have much action on the east, but laker temps were in 85′ to 100′ + over there. Things change all the time and anyone who thinks jigging lakers is really easy hasn’t fished much during high winds and cold fronts combined with murky water. It can be very difficult.