Cayuga out of Taughannock 5/16 + 5/17
Had a simply tremendous day out on the water on 5/17 with Willy. This was one of those “once in a decade” type days you remember vividly the rest of your life. We spent a couple hours looking for lakers without much luck (one chaser up to the surface.) We then went over to Cayuga AES and whipped out the fly-rods and began casting for trout/salmon. Water temps were perfect, around 49 to 52.
We took one pass through and hooked a double. My fish was nice – a 20″ clean landlocked. Willy was a little disappointed, thinking he’d hooked a carp. After I landed my fish I saw his and noticed it was a bass! His fish wound up being a 22″ 6lb. smallmouth!!! What a slob! We weighed it on a boga-grip, shot some photos and released the fish. That was the biggest smallie I’d ever seen. A serious step up from the usual “big bass”.
Next pass, we get more hits and I land a decent 3lb. brown. We had hits on virtually every pass – just countless grabs and short strikes. We wind up catching a few more salmon (including one I had that did some “horizontal jumping” that was pretty wild) and another brown then Willy does it again! This time he hooks and lands an 11lb. brown! Wow, what a fish! We shot a few quick photos and released it unharmed. Maybe it’ll wind up a 17lber and make someone’s day! Action slowed when some shore fishermen showed up and waded out.
I checked it out again today and it was a different story. Hooked a salmon and had a follow and that was it. Bait moved out a bit too.
Pike action is slow on Cayuga right now. We did some searching for pike and landed a couple nice 24″ pickerel. Pike are recovering from the spawn. My guess is that the pike probably spawn during the high water/spring floods – and perhaps they waited for the rains that never came, and wound up spawning late. Who knows?
Lakers are available off and north of Millican. Also on the shelves south of Portland Point.
I’ll have some photos from our day up shortly!