Fishing Cayuga/Owasco/Keuka 10/28 – 10/30
It was nice to get out and check out a lot of different areas over the past 3 days. More to come this week…. 😉
Friday was a quick 2 1/2 hour trip out of Taughannock with the flyrods in tow. It’s a little bit early for what I consider to be the prime pikin’ on the fly in Cayuga. There are still plenty of green weeds around. I worked areas from Portland Point to the Yacht Club and south. Picked up a very nice smallie around 19″ and fat on the southwest shore. Had another hit and that was it. Checked the mouth area of Taughannock for trout/salmon quickly without any sign of anything. Water temps are in the mid-50s and smallmouths and perch are probably still the best bets on Cayuga. Pikin’ would probably be good with tube jigs, spinnerbaits and assorted bass lures.
Saturday was an all day event on Owasco Lake. I guided Mark who was out with me on Keuka a few weeks back. It’s been great seeing all the “return trips” this year! Awesome. The fishing was great though we did work for fish and we took chances fishing and doing things I haven’t done much of in the past. We started with stickbaits on the east shore and Mark picked up a few very small pike and a 13″ smallmouth. Then Mark had a 3 to 4lb. rainbow trout follow him in on a tube. Later we saw some commotion on an edge and Mark cast his Rapala X-rap over the deeps and connected with a 20″ smallmouth! Great fight and BIG fish! We did some casting for pike and he had one bite off.
Pike were all over the lake and Mark had a good one follow in his tube and try to whack it. We were near a good lake trout area so he jigged for awhile and picked up 3 fish in short order. It was a cold windy day so we started heading back towards the north end when I marked some nice fish deep. A few drops with a spoon and Mark was in smallmouth heaven! 5 to 6 fish were chasing the lure at once and he connected with some more very nice bass including another slob! Awesome way to end the day!
I went back out on my own after the trip ended and couldn’t resist doing some bassin’ on my own. I connected with 5 or 6 bass up to 20″ plus a very nice 14.5″ perch. If you want mixed bag fall fishing – now’s the time!
Today was Keuka Lake with my longtime fishing buddy Terry. We searched for deep bass and didn’t have any luck. We worked the shallows and mid-depths with jerkbaits and tubes and found some perch and mostly smaller large and smallmouth bass. Nothing special. Spent most of the afternoon jigging lakers. The laker bite has slowed quite a bit. Lots of fish around but they weren’t very active. Very much like the slowdown we’ve seen lately on Cayuga and Owasco. It’s still possible to have a very good day on Keuka – but the fish weren’t chasing much – at least not today. We wound up landing around 6 fish. I broke off 3 due to some old line. I had grabbed a reel quickly today to fish with – one that I should have respooled. Lost 2 Kastmasters and a fluke. So we should have landed 8 or 9 fish for the afternoon. A good day, but when I saw the numbers of fish in the area on the depthfinder it was obvious to me that they weren’t hitting very aggressively.
Later this week I’ll be on Seneca and Skaneateles if all goes as it should. Stay tuned….I expect good fishing on these lakes.