Cayuga/Taughannock 8/27 + Canandaigua Lake PM
Got out with Frank and his grandsons who are 13 and 11 years old. The kids really showed grandpa how to fish today! 😉 Lake trout action started out a little slow with the fog but things picked up around 9 to 10 am. Kevin, who’s 13 kicked things off with 3 nice fish in a row. He had one beauty that was over 30″. Fish were really fighting hard, which was nice. Kyle did well once he got the hang of it. Retrieve speed was critical. The fish wanted the jigs swam in somewhat slowly. Frank dropped a good fish and landed one. Then later Frank landed and released a small brown. Fish remain in 75′ to 100′ of water.
Fished Canandaigua Lake for my once or twice annual pilgrimage over there. I arrived with my buddy Shahab around 3:45 pm, so we didn’t have much time – but I wanted a change in pace from fishing Seneca or Cayuga (despite the great fishing on both lakes!) I really credit my fishing buddies for hanging in there with me while I try and have them experiment with new things and/or new lakes. It’s not easy telling someone that “my clients caught around 17 nice lakers up to 32″ on Cayuga, but let’s try ‘lake so and so’ where the fishing sucks instead”. 😉 But my friends hang in there.
We ran the 14 miles or soto the south end of the lake and checked different depths for fish. My friend Derrick has been doing well trolling fish over suspended water, but for jigging I like to find fish on bottom. It would take a long time to locate suspended fish from scratch out in 150′ of water! We started marking fair numbers of fish in around 80′ to 100′ (if I remember those depths right). I had some action – hits on the retrieve and on bottom but just never connected. I’m sure they were lakers. It would have been nice to be on the water first thing in the AM, but I just haven’t had the time. The sun started setting quickly and we moved up the lake after catching a nice sunfish on a dropshot rig on the south end drop off. My north end areas didn’t show any fish and we left just before dark. I’ll be back again soon. I never let a lake get the better of me! Baitfish numbers are low here, like on Keuka Lake. It’s a gorgeous lake – kind of like an overdeveloped cross between Skaneateles and Keuka’s Hammondsport Arm – that’s how I’d describe it. The south end hills are magnificent.