Reports

Guided Joe and his son William for a 1/2 day trip starting around 7:30 am.  We had forecasts for west winds building then gusting to 40 mph today!  That’s nasty.  These guys don’t fish too much so action was the attraction. We set up for pickerel and had excellent action with bigger fish than previous trips here this spring.  Some were 25″ fish and they are all putting on the feedbag.  I filleted 5 pickerel today and they all contained alewives.  Expect pike to be doing the same – eating a lot of alewives throughout the Finger Lakes and Great Lake bays.  Around a dozen solid fish or more were landed along with a solid bonus largemouth and a perch.  A few bass boats were out. There’s a small tournament going out of here tomorrow.

Pickerel on Cayuga Lake are tough to beat for some good to great “catching.”  They will hit virtually any lure a bass will hit, so for folks that don’t or haven’t worked a lot of lures or don’t have confidence in lures,  they are a great confidence building fish.  You’ll get immediate feedback on how to work lures and what to expect with regards to hits.  When I was a Boy Scout I spent 2 weeks a year for four years fishing up in the Adirondacks at Camp Massawepie.  The lake was full of rock bass and smallmouths.  Those 8 weeks as a kid turned me into a very confident jig fisherman and it wasn’t hard to feel the subtle hits of walleyes in the weeds on Conesus or Chautauqua Lake after being trained on detecting light hits from small rock bass.

Water temp was 62 on Cayuga.  The west winds can beat the heck out your boat on the metal bolts/nuts jutting out on the northerly dock at Union Springs.  Just a warning!  My boat got beat up a bit today.  Use your bumpers if you have them when that wind is up out of the west,

bass cayuga lake Chain Pickerel yellow perch