Reports

Guided two one-half day trips on Owasco Lake over the past two days and then a 1/2 day on Cayuga Lake today.  In a nutshell, fishing for lake trout for us has been tough!  The thermocline is just starting to set up on the large area lakes.  We’ve been dealing with the same conditions day after day – overcast with occasional rain and thunderstorms.  We also have hazy skies, large swathes of trout-friendly water temperatures and we’re closing in on a full-moon.  Add in an algae bloom (mild so far but with milky colored water) and the results are tough fishing.

Owasco Lake 6/28 AM: Guided Ryan, his son Colin (aka “the Colinater”) and Ryan’s father in-law Gary for a half-day.  Today’s fishing was just weird.  The guys have been staying on Cayuga Lake all week and the fishing has been tough – they’re getting occasional lake trout and some dinks, but it isn’t what most of us have come to expect on Cayuga Lake, especially this time of year.  We had good fishing but poor catching today.  The guys wound up landing just two nice lake trout.  Over 20 fish were hooked today!  We even had a double between Ryan and Gary going and just as the guys reached their leaders, Ryan’s fish got off, and then Gary’s!  The Colinater even dropped a couple fish.  Overall the action was pretty good, but the fish just weren’t gobbling the jigs well, plus the guys were probably a tad bit rusty after the tough week on Cayuga.  The weather was also miserable!  We had a 30% chance of showers – well it stayed misty and rainy all morning long!  It was very cool out for late-June!

Owasco Lake 6/29 AM:  Today I guided Dave and his girlfriend Lisa.  I thought that we’d have a good-to-great day today with more sun in the forecast, warmer conditions and my knowledge from a couple recent trips out here.  It wound up being tougher than yesterday!  Dave dropped one hit, then Lisa dropped one.  She managed to land a nice laker and then lost another.  It was a pretty slow day.  I still didn’t have a thermocline set-up.  It was also hazy, which may or may not have played a role in things.  I’m not sure.

It was a nice day to be out on the water, but I wish the fish would’ve cooperated for us a bit more.

6/30 Cayuga Lake out of Myers Park:  Today I picked up Chris, his wife Erin and their daughter Carly from their summer house near Sheldrake, for our one-half day trip.  I warned them in advance about the algae-bloom and potential tough fishing, but they had some time-constraints for bookings this summer.  Cayuga from Myers north to Sheldrake is showing around four-feet of visibility.  It’s not great, but it certainly isn’t as bad as what we’ve seen at times over the past few years.  Within maybe 20 minutes of fishing, Chris landed a very nice 28″ laker.  I thought we might have some solid fishing after that, but it wasn’t to be.  Erin wound up losing one laker just before we called it a day, but that was it.  It’s possible that they had another hit or two but certainly nothing solid.

I am starting to see the thermocline finally form on Cayuga Lake.  I did all I could today to make the day an informative one.  We went over a lot of lake trout areas, habits and so on.  All I can do when the fishing is tough is try to make the day productive in other ways.  We were supposed to have mostly sunny conditions today, but it wound up being just another day of haze.

I did hear from Ryan from Wednesday’s trip and he reported very good action yesterday out of Dean’s Cove and also some solid fishing today.  Bite windows were somewhat tight but productive.  I just don’t know how dependable these areas are going to be and how long they’ll hold up.  I do plan on checking on Seneca Lake soon. Owasco Lake should improve once the thermocline solidifies.  Once we get out of this stormy, overcast weather pattern, we should see Cayuga Lake pick up as well.  Stay tuned!