Reports 10/14 – 10/16
10/14 Owasco Lake: Guided Gordon for a full day of fly-fishing mainly targeting pike. Conditions were not great with a full moon, bluebird skies and a calm lake. Gordon nabbed a nice 27″ pike in short order (while the light was still low.) Afterwards the fishing was tough with one 19″ pike. We tried some laker jigging but that action was slow too with some “lookers” but just one hit. Tough day.
10/15 Cayuga Lake out of Long Point: Guided Greg for a full day of targeting largemouth bass (which also means pickerel on this lake up north.) The pickerel bite was superb with numerous (at least 20) fish taken mostly in the 19″ to 20″ range up to around 23″. Bass bites were spotty, but Greg managed 5 nice fish from 13″ to 18 1/2″. Crankbaits and Chatterbaits worked best for us. Other fish came on tubes and spoons. The lake was very choppy. Water temps up north got down into the upper 50s.
10/16 Cayuga Lake out of Long Point: Did two one-half day trips back to back. The first trip was with John, his son Hunter and Hunter’s grandfather Ernie. Fishing started out very slow and we almost ran south after no sign of fish north of Long Point. But we decided against the run and stuck it out with a solid laker bite on fish ranging from 17″ to 26″. The guys landed 7 solid fish with some good fish dropped too. Very good trip with virtually no boat traffic and some nice colors to behold.
My PM trip was with Mark who wanted to learn the laker technique. We had to reschedule a couple times but finally pinned down a good date. Fishing started out with a solid 26″er. A few were lost then Mark nabbed another nice fish around 23″. Good afternoon trip with a nice double rainbow in the sky after a quick rain shower.
Surface temperatures remain a few degrees above normal for this time of the year. The thermocline on Cayuga Lake is dissipating. We had 62 degrees from the surface down to at least 60′ down. Laker temps were from 95′ on out.