Reports

Fishing remains fairly solid on Cayuga and Seneca Lakes.  Cayuga’s lake trout fishing has been good to excellent.  Salmon and brown trout fishing has been slow.  Seneca’s salmon action has been fair to good.  I haven’t fished lake trout here yet this year, but expect to soon.

4/7  Cayuga Lake out of Long Point State Park:  Guided Dave and his wife Tracy for a half day laker trip.  This was the first day this season that I marked a lot of baitfish moving in.  A lot of boats were out fishing today. We had solid fishing with a nice double digit day.  I don’t recall the exact numbers but we had a lot of nice fish.  As is usually the case this time of year, the fish are running large.

4/8 Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen:  Did a full day with long time fly-fishing regular Gordon.  We had good to great conditions for fly-fishing and Gordon managed to have a very good day with 5 nice salmon landed on flies and one on gear.   I didn’t have any lampreys come up on fish today.  We also didn’t encounter the numbers of fish that I was seeing over the winter.  Fish are moving and dispersing now quite a bit.

Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen 4/9 am:  Did a half day with Jack today.  He recently bought a place on Seneca Lake and has been looking to learn the lake and its fishing better.  That is my specialty!   We have been trying to time a trip for salmon for at least a few weeks now and hadn’t had much luck.  I figured today was our best bet.  The weather didn’t help us in the AM – we were faced with high winds and cloudy conditions which eventually gave way to the forecasted “partly sunny.”

Despite what I consider marginal conditions Jack hooked up a nice salmon (maybe 19″+) on a stickbait within maybe 5 to 10 minutes of our start.  Unfortunately it did get off near the boat, but not before we had some nice jumps out of it.  Fishing was tough after that with Jack having a few hits but nothing solid. The wind was pretty brutal – as is oftentimes the case on Seneca Lake!  Eventually we found some fish and he had some follows.  Just as we were getting ready to wrap up our day, the salmon came through and Jack landed his first Landlocked Atlantic Salmon.

Cayuga Lake out of Long Point State Park 4/10:  Guided Ron today for a full day of lake trout jigging. He has been fishing with me since around 2008 and the early season deep bite has turned into one of the patterns he looks forward to the most.  And why not?  The fishing is generally consistent, the fish run big and they are plentiful.  When it comes to lake trout in Cayuga Lake, these are the “Good Old Days.”   Let’s hope they continue!  It is very easy to take this fishing for granted, but if you do – just take a ride over to Seneca Lake and you’ll likely appreciate Cayuga that much more.   That being said, Seneca Lake appears to be on its way back and I hope to guide out there soon.

Fishing started out ok and then picked up as the morning went on.  It was excellent throughout much of the afternoon.  Ron landed 21 solid fish and lost another dozen or more at least!  That’s terrific fishing!   We had 5 wild fish in the mix – all older lake trout running 26″ to 30″, mostly 29″.   Baitfish were moving in big-time and fish were spitting them out.  Plenty of loons are on the lake, giving us the sounds of Canada while fishing.  Gorgeous day!

Cayuga Lake out of Myers Town Park 4/11:  Guided a 6 hour day with Ron (from yesterday.)  We were hoping for some browns, salmon and nearshore (shallow) lakers today, but we didn’t have much luck.  Conditions were not great for salmon, but Ron fished hard.  In one area he may have had a couple hits but he wasn’t sure.  One of them he felt good about.

The water remains low in Cayuga, although launching was not an issue at Myers.  Warm water is not easy to find, due to the lack of rain we have had.  Warm rain and large areas of warm murky water is what facilitates a lot of the nearshore shallow spring fishing on the Finger Lakes and Great Lakes and if you don’t get it, fishing will be tougher and fish will be less concentrated and spooky.  We tried for lakers as a late day “slump buster” and Ron nabbed one and missed a bunch more.  They were in a much more neutral to negative mood today.    We also had a lot of fog to contend with along with some much needed rain.  I am definitely due for some new raingear!  That is for sure.