Reports

I’ve been guiding or fishing nearly everyday lately. As much as I’d love to update the site on a daily basis, sometimes that has to take a backseat to much needed sleep! Here’s how the fishing has fared for us lately:

7/5 Seneca Lake out of Lodi: Got out with my buddy Mike (on his boat) for a shot at jigging some browns. This has been on our “to-do list” for a long time and we just hadn’t gotten to it. I’m not a fan of the Lodi State Boat Launch, but with two people it isn’t too bad. It’s just a very shallow sloping ramp. We worked a lot of areas and managed to each land solid browns, with Mike nailing a 26″ fish (if I remember right) and me nailing one around 23″. We also had some follows from another brown and a small salmon. I landed a solid 14″+ perch and missed a good hit as well. The usual laker swim baits worked well. Conditions weren’t great with light wind, weed mats and a lot of boat traffic.

7/6: Cayuga Lake out of Long Point: Guided Richard and Johnny in the AM starting around 6 for lakers. We had some OK jigging to start, then action really picked up around 9 am. The thermocline has been moving around a lot lately, so taking deep temperatures has really helped with fish location. Rich wanted the tutorial trip and he wasn’t disappointed. Around 6 to 8 fish were landed (again if my memory serves me correctly.) Fish ranged up to 28″ and were clean without many signs of eel attacks.

PM: For my PM trip I picked up Kevin at Dean’s Cove. He’s been doing trips with me since my first or second season and it’s always good to see him. He’s mainly a fly-fisher. We were hoping to get some gar on the fly, but the gar didn’t cooperate. Hot weather is best for gar with water temps into the 80s. We had some warm water in a cove, but the fish weren’t interested and it was hard to pinpoint them without spooking them, which didn’t help. Other favorite gar areas were too windy to fish or devoid of fish. We tried some fly-fishing for bass and pickerel and despite the nice looking clear, weedy water on the lake, we didn’t have any action. I’ll be getting out here over the next couple weeks with a full array of bass gear and will see how the fishing shapes up. Laker jigging saved the day in terms of a few bent rods and the fishing was excellent with Kevin nailing 4 or 5 solid fish in short order.

7/7 Skaneateles Lake: Guided Scott for the full day. The weather forecast wasn’t looking good and we had to keep an eye out for storms, but we managed to get in a full day of fishing. We started with laker jigging and Scott nailed a very skinny, emaciated looking fish in short order. A few other hits were had, then we switched to bass. Bass fishing was spotty, probably due to the changing weather. Scott either caught fish or had action on a lot of tactics, including topwater, spinnerbaits, tubes, flukes, spoons and the dropshot. But we’d get one fish on something and that was it. Then we’d get one on something else and nothing else. It went on and on. Weird day, but he had a lot of good fishing though the “catching” could’ve been better. Not a single other rig was at the State Launch when I launched, nor when I pulled back in. We did have one storm blow by but were able to wait it out. Thankfully it was nowhere nearly as severe has the one that went through the region yesterday!

7/8 Seneca Lake out of Lodi: Scott hammered the browns with me on Cayuga Lake 3 or 4 years ago, and with the forecast I thought he might be able to do the same on Seneca, but it wasn’t to be. We tried pike fishing for around 90 minutes in the AM. Scott had one good hit and that was it. Water temps were still a bit warm and that’ll likely be the last time I give them a shot for awhile unless I see a good opportunity (I have said that before though…)

Our thermocline from Saturday had pretty much dissipated in areas. Weather was also weird. No fish on the day. Scott had a few follows (one on a fluke) from what appeared to be browns and at least two small salmon. But fish were very tentative. We tried pike again further south towards Watkins Glen. Saw a big one surface near us, but didn’t want to commit to deep fishing for them. Tough day! We plan on being out again next week. We’ll probably try something easier.

7/9 AM Cayuga Lake out of Long Point: Guided Joe and his 10 year old son William for 1/2 day for lakers. They joined me for the first time 2 years ago and it was great to see them again. Fishing started out great at 6:30 am, slowed down then picked up again before we called it a day. William landed 3 solid lakers and Joe got one. They both lost some decent fish and missed hits as well. The early bite was excellent, but didn’t last long. Fish ranged from 85′ to 95′, though we might have had one shallow. The lakers looked good and are still feeding heavily on Cayuga Lake.