Oneida Lake 11/3 PM + Cayuga Lake out of Myers 11/4

Reports FLAZ

Oneida Lake 11/3 PM: Got out on my own for an afternoon of fishing Oneida Lake. According to the NY Canal website, the lake is higher than the usual targeted level for this time of year. That being said, the lake is low. Launching wasn’t hard but the lake was noticeably down from a couple months ago. My timing wasn’t good here – as I launched I had a nice little breeze but by the time I got to where I wanted to fish, the lake was dead calm and glassy. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and I had a high sun at 1:30 pm – some very tough conditions. The surface temperature hit 56 degrees today.

I fished hard both deep and shallow. I managed to nab one yellow perch deep on a bladebait and one chunky 17.5″ smallmouth bass in shallower water on a tube jig. That was it. I had no other hits and it was the first trip here in a couple years where I didn’t nab any walleyes. I’ve heard the night bite here has been good, but that’s not my cup of tea – at least not from a boat with a full day guided trip scheduled for tomorrow.

This fish was fun, but I could've used a few more like it!

11/4 – Cayuga Lake out of Myers Park: Guided Chris and his friend Mark for a full day here getting underway around 9 am. We were looking at quite a bit of wind in the forecast, but not as much as forecast for tomorrow (Saturday.) I decided to have the guys drive down to Myers instead of launching elsewhere (Owasco Lake and Long Point came to mind.) I know some good places to dodge the wind down here. We made the right call and the guys had a terrific day with great double-digit lake trout fishing. A double or two were hooked. We had fish as small as 16″ up to over 30″ with most around 25″. Mark started us out with a 20″ landlocked salmon, which was good to see. Fish bit well all day long and the wind never got too out of hand. It was a fantastic day all the way around.

Fish all seemed to be post-spawn and I believe a lot of fish are currently migrating back up the lake (north) and getting in some final feeding binges before getting semi-dormant. Surface temperature was 55 degrees.