Cayuga out of Dean’s 7/5
1/2 day guide trip with John and Tammy today. We started a little bit late around 7 am. It was a bit foggy and windless in the AM and I expected good things. We had some fish and bait on the fishfinder this morning but fish weren’t hitting very aggressively. They missed a fair number of hits – mostly lighter stuff. It didn’t take long for John to nail a nice laker and we had fun as the ex-Marine wrestled with the 22″ to 23″ fish and we wound up with a scene that looked like an outtake from a slasher flick on board! Blood everywhere! (The fish’s blood, not John’s!) We finally got a photo taken and got the fish into the cooler. Tammy hooked up but lost what appeared to be a good fish. Other than that there were some hits but no solid grabs.
The jigging can be a difficult technique when fish aren’t hitting on the retrieve. But that’s part of the challenge (and reward) of doing it. Angler success depends on the anglers for the most part. We aren’t trolling and taking turns with the rods – everyone fishes – feels the hit then sets the hook, plays the fish and so on. Overall, we had steady action on the fishfinder (i.e. we could “see” fish around our jigs) with occasional hits, but the “catching” was slow. Maybe the passage of this front will get them going. All I can say is that in around 5 years or more of serious year-round vertical jigging, this has been one of the more mystifying seasons I’ve encountered.