Lake Champlain 8/26 – 8/28, Cayuga Lake 8/29 – 8/30
8/26: After a long day on 8/25, doing a full day on Seneca then a half day on Cayuga, I was ready for a mini-vacation with my buddy Mike. I checked the wind and we decided on fishing Ticonderoga on Wed. and then above Plattsburg on Thursday and Friday.
We arrived at Ti at around 3 pm and were on the water by 3:30. We checked around one of my favorite gar areas and didn’t find any. We bass fished while we looked for gar, but to no avail. We then set up for bass and Mike noticed an interesting looking backwater. Within 10 minutes he was latched onto a nice chunky 2lb largemouth. We did some further investigation and found another 1/2 dozen similarly sized bass. Time flew by and after trying a couple more areas we had to go.
We pulled into Marine Village Cottages in Plattsburgh at around 11 pm. It’s a great place to stay – I stayed there with my friend Terry around 6 or 7 years ago. Here’s more info (and feel free to tell them you heard about them via this website: www.marinevillagecottages.com
They have terrific cottages with a kitchen – incl. utensils, coffee pot (with coffee and filters) cable TV, hot showers, linen etc… The places are clean and comfortable and probably less than 1/2 mile from Point Au Roche State Park and the park boat launch.
8/27: This was strictly a “relaxation vacation” so we set the alarms for around 7:30. We picked up our Vermont licenses at 9 am right online at the MV Cottages office and drove over to Missisquoi Bay. We fished an area I’d worked previously with Terry. Within around 15 minutes Mike hooked a strong fish. It made a couple strong sweeping runs and then pulled off some acrobatics alongside the boat! Mike didn’t know what he had until he got a good look at the fish – it was a bowfin around 24″! It fought every bit as good as a 34″ tiger musky! We got some good photos and kept chucking our spinnerbaits.
I then nailed a nice pike around 29″ that we kept for dinner. We worked other areas and hooked some more pike over 30″ that we lost boatside. Missisquoi’s pike fishing was superb! Lots of hits from nice fish, though we didn’t boat very many. I also lost a very nice bass.
We moved south to check on some other opportunities. A point produced a bunch of follows from 14″ to 15″ smallies on a jerkbait. Then I nailed a nice 17″+ smallie on a green pumpkin tube jig. We checked on some deeper flats and I managed to dropshot a gorgeous 4lbs+ smallie. Working some other areas produced some more small pike and bass. A great second day!
8/28: Day 3 was tough fishing for us. We tried totally different areas without any great shakes. Interestingly, we scanned some deeper water and marked some good hooks and baitfish. Mike dropped a jig (ala lake trout fishing) and had a hit! Next year I’ll be spending some time up there jigging lakers and hopefully casting for some salmon with the fly-rod. The FLW Stren Series was going on and the lake was getting pounded by bass fishermen. It’s amazing how much pressure this lake deals with.
Cayuga Lake 8/29 + 8/30:
Guided Tony on Cayuga Lake starting around 11 am out of Taughannock. Laker fishing was very good and Tony nailed at least a half dozen solid lakers. Best fishing remains around 75′ to 95′ with plenty of fish out deeper. Fun trip.
Today (8/30) I did 1/2 day with Tim, Kyle and 7-year-old Hunter. It was fun – especially watching Hunter hook and land (with a little help) the two nicest lakers of the day. The guys landed around 8 or 9 nice fish. The bite cycled on and off and the AM went on. We stayed around the park for the most part.