Reports

Water temperatures throughout the region are gradually dropping.  Foliage is becoming more brilliant by the day.  It’s fall in the Finger Lakes region – the best time of year to be on the water!

10/4 PM:  A few years ago I purchased a couple fly-fishing outfits for musky and pike.  My regular client Mark has been the only one to use them so far.  I miss fly-fishing and I used to do a lot more of it before my guiding got really busy.  These days most of my personal fly-fishing has been relegated to casting for landlocked salmon in the winter and early spring, occasional gar fishing trips and occasional bluegill fishing in my friend’s pond near my apartment.  I was psyched to get onto Otisco Lake and break in my “new” outfits.  Conditions were good and I managed to get a few hits from what were likely bass.  I checked out an area I fly-fished with some gear afterwards and did not raise any muskies, so I felt that I was fishing fairly effectively.  As is so often the case with musky fishing, just as I was about to call it quits, I had a follow from a decent fish.  I was not able to convert the follow into a strike.  I did wind up landing one bass and that was it.  Fun day and it was good to air out some casts with a 10 weight set-up.

10/5 AM:  Today I guided Chris and his father-in-law Dan for a half day of lake trout jigging.  We had a slower bite than what I’d been seeing over the past week, but still managed to put together a decent catch.  The guys landed a half-dozen solid lake trout and Chris also nabbed a stunning 12″ rainbow that was wild and picture perfect.  This lake has been producing some gorgeous rainbow trout over the past few years and a young fish like that is a good sign for the future.  Plenty of baitfish abound.  Fish came from around 85′ out to 140′ today.

One of the high points of the day was seeing the first fall loon in winter plumage.  That was awesome.

I ran into some DEC personnel at Otisco Lake.  They were going to electro-fish the shallows looking for signs of walleye reproduction.  The lake trout egg-take is in full-swing on Cayuga Lake.  Some sturgeon nets were set and a specimen weighing over 155lbs was captured!  That was the largest fish thus far handled in Cayuga Lake and right up there with the monster netted out of Oneida Lake earlier this year or last year.  It’s wonderful to see these relics thriving in New York State!  I’m sure we’ll see a press release on this spectacular fish along with some photos shortly.