Cayuga out of Dean’s Cove 7/23

Reports

Guided Eric (from 4/17) and his nephew Shane today for the full day on Cayuga. The goal was to introduce Shane to some “offshore bass fishing” and get him into some pickerel and lake trout as well. We started around 5:30 am and motored north. Our first area provided one good topwater strike that was missed. We tried another area with no luck. We hit paydirt in our third area with Shane catching a nice 14″ largemouth on a Skitter Pop. I threw out a marker buoy and sure enought there were more fish in the area. Eric soon nailed a similar sized bass on a Chatterbait. Then Shane nabbed a chunky 18″ largemouth on a white Superfluke. Fish were in around 10′ to 12′ of water around and over milfoil beds. We had a few nice fish dropped and some nice sized pickerel up to around 23″ landed. Our early miss was in shallower water, so it’s safe to say there are bass scattered in various depths around Cayuga. We didn’t encounter any deep weedline fish today, though they should set up fairly soon (if they aren’t already.)

The lake got pretty choppy around 11 am as we headed south for lakers. Jigging can be difficult in waves, so we opted to try a few smallmouth bass areas. One spot produced a couple quick hits/hookups for Eric on a tube jig. The fish were small – around 11″. The lake calmed and we fished lakers near Sheldrake. We marked a lot of fish, but had zero hits in the hour or so that we fished. All in all a fun and fairly productive day. Bass are looking good on Cayuga Lake and it’ll be interesting to see the BFL tournament results after this weekend. Yes, there were a lot of bass boats cruising around today and the lake will be mobbed this weekend. Most of the guys were courteous but it was disappointing to have one boat cut us off in an idiotic way as we worked down a shoreline. Water temps are in the low to mid 70s. Lakers were down from 75′ on out.