Reports

Kicked off the 2006 guiding season with a Cayuga trip with Wolfgang. We spent a couple hours hoping for some pike action this morning, but nothing was doing. The pike appear to have moved out of many of their winter patterns and are probably very close to spawning. Pike spawn at around 39/40 degrees, and that’s what we had at Cayuga’s south end. The season closes Wednesday, so it’s time to forget about the “snakes” for awhile. (There’s a lot of muddy water on the south end of Cayuga – so finding northerns could be an all day process.)

Lakers are more predictable plus are getting more active by the day, so that’s what we went with. Lake trout fishing was good and he landeda half-dozensolid fish up to 30″. They are finding bait in Cayuga Lake with plenty of alewives and a possible smelt or two in the lakers’ stomachs. We had some nice eating sized lake trout and one of the bigger fish had some absolutely beautiful bright orange filets! All the fish landed were fin-clipped.

Lake level is low, but higher than Wed. Lakers were in around 100′ to 110′ today. I’m still hearing about good numbers of sub-legal salmon around. I’m told they are skinny and not looking very healthy. I don’t know what’s up with these Cayuga fish this year, but we seem to be missing a class of fish. Some good browns are apparently around – so that’s one positive. I’m still hoping to check on Seneca soon for salmon. It’s easy to donow that pikeare off-limits!

cayuga lake Northern Pike