Reports

Guided Jack and Erick for a 1/2-day trip starting just after 8:15 am.  We were the only rig in the parking lot at Emerson Park when I arrived, which surprised me.  All three of us were complaining about runny noses and sneezing this AM.  Us “northerners” definitely feel some effects when the weather starts to change.  It actually got down to 32 degrees in Ithaca last night.

Fishing was halfway decent today, but the catching was slow.  The front definitely impacted the bite.  We had loads of baitfish up on the north end of the lake.  I believe that a lot of perch are up there too.  Jack had some short hits and then hooked up with a good fish in around 100′ of water if I remember correctly.  I was having a few minor trolling motor issues (my newer Terrova is in the shop and my old style remote for my 2013 Minn-Kota can be tough to awaken after a cold night, due to the watch-style battery) which made things interesting.  I figured Jack had a good laker but his line appeared caught on my transducer!  Next thing we know, a fish jumps nearby – I know at that point he had a rainbow trout on and that his line had wrapped around the transducer when the fish ran laterally!  I had Jack give me the rod and got it around for him so he could resume the fight.  We were very lucky that I was able to slide the net under the fish!  It was a wild bow around 24″ and just under 6lbs.  Jack reminded me that he had lost a beauty on Owasco Lake the last time we were out earlier this summer, so that fish made the trip for us.

A run downlake resulted in a couple more fish to the net – lakers running around 24″ to 26″.  However the overall bite was slow.  We were around hundreds of lake trout and we had some hits (I think Jack said he was two for nine today – with a couple of the hits being hookups.)  We tried various colored plastics and some jigging spoons to no avail.  By the time we got back in to Emerson Park, it was starting to look a bit more like a holiday weekend with over a half-dozen boat trailers parked there and more launching.

Water temp was 63.9 degrees on the surface and down at least 50′ or more.