Reports Skaneateles/Cayuga Lakes 10/23 – 26

Just got done with a run of trips featuring some of the nicest fall foliage I have seen on the lakes in years!  It's like angling in a dream.   Too bad fall flies by so quickly!

10/13 Skaneateles Lake:  Guided a full day trip with longtime client Gordon.  It's always nice to see him.  Our first trip was on Owasco Lake back in 2006 if I remember right.  He much prefers to fly-fish and that's what he did today.

We had close to ideal conditions for chasing trout and salmon today.  I like some sun and light to moderate winds, and that's what we had.  Water temps were warmer than what I like - we had around 56 on top.  I like 50 and below, however a client of mine has been getting rainbows off his dock over the past couple weeks (sometimes the shore 'bow fishing starts in late summer or September according to my old Sander's Guide), so I figured why not give it a shot.

Fishing was good.  Gordon nabbed 7 solid perch running from 10" to 12" on his olive woolly bugger - that makes for a great couple bonus meals.  He also landed some nice smallmouth bass on the same fly.  Bass ran to around 16" and he almost had a bigger one.  He nabbed a rainbow around 17" that was fin-clipped.  He missed a beautiful tinfoil silver bow (or possibly salmon) that was considerably bigger that took a shot at his fly.  Lastly he nabbed a salmon that was somewhat sickly looking late in the day.  Some casts on gear resulted in one really big rockbass, but the flies were what really did the trick today. We worked a long stretch of lake.  Unbelievably, only two other boats launched out of the State launch today!

I did contact the DEC regarding this fish.  Once I get any kind of an answer regarding what the issue might be, I'll let you all know.

Cayuga Lake out of Myers 10/24:   Guided Josh and his son Austin for a full day.  I've had a couple very entertaining young men on board lately and Austin was definitely one of them!  Add a can of Mountain Dew to an already hyped up kid and the day can be a lot of fun.  We tried an hour and a half to almost two hours of pike casting in the AM with one nice fish following and maybe a couple hits, but fish were fairly non-committal.

Joshua really came up here for lake trout and Cayuga's fantastic lake trout fishery did not disappoint.  We had solid fishing with some really nice sized fish pushing 29 1/2".  Austin actually had three lakers in three consecutive drops of his jig in one area.  Bite windows this time of year are often narrow, but time it right and the fishing can be top-notch.  The guys landed around a dozen fish or more.   Fun day with gorgeous colors and the predicted high winds didn't come through until we were off of the water around 2:30 pm.

10/25 AM Cayuga Lake out of Myers Park:  Guided Tom and Rob for a half day starting around 9:30 am.  We had a little rain to start and light winds.  Fishing was very good with a bunch of solid lakers landed.  We had mostly large fish again.  Fish are feeding fairly heavily on young of the year alewives.  A lot of the fish we are catching are pre-spawn as well.  We have had a few spawned out ones.  Thus far I've seen no gobies in any of the lakers but I expect that to change within two weeks as lake temps throughout the lake cool down enough to allow lakers to forage nearshore.

We saw at least 8 loons on the water today "wearing" their winter plumage.  It's always cool to see them!   Yesterday we saw a bald eagle directly overhead.  One laker I cleaned had ingested some Senkos, including a wacky rigged one with hook in tow.   Fortunately these plastics didn't appear to impede the laker's feeding ability.  The salt-filled Senkos and similar stickworms are picked up by lake trout on the bottom.  The salt absorbs water and the worms get larger in the fish's stomach.

Cayuga Lake out of Myers 10/26 AM:  Guided Tony and his brother in-law Ken for a 1/2 day starting around 9:30 am.   Tony was out with me in August with his daughter Laura and we had a nice day picking up some solid lakers and a good chunky brown.  Today he had Ken with him.   Ken booked the trip and his voice was one for the ages.  Deep, resonant and with a lot of character!  It turns out he used to do radio and TV voice-overs - really a 1/100,000 voice if I've ever heard one.  So it was funny having him do some commentary on our action today.

Fishing was solid.  I should mention that we have had a few undersized salmon to the net and on the 24th, Josh had a very nice rainbow trout almost whack his jig.  Today was 7 or 8 solid lakers to 31" and one salmon landed.  We kept a couple lakers for Tony's brother.

I've had one live lamprey come onboard over the past three days and one laker with a fresh wound.  Most fish are incredibly clean looking.  We also had a lake trout with a dorsal clip today - that's a fish over 20 years old!  Lakers remain deep, from around 95' to 130'.  Expect to see a big shallow movement occur within the next two weeks (and certainly in front of creek mouths when water temps drop down to roughly 52 or colder.  Then the goby feast should begin! Water levels on Cayuga Lake have dropped at least 6" over the past week, so the drawdown has begun.

I put an article up in my "articles" section stating my opinions on the Lake Ontario forage situation.  Click onto the "More" header and then click "Articles and Tips" and you'll see it.

Open dates in November are as follows:   Saturday November 2nd, 3rd, 5th (AM only), 10th - 12th, 16th - 30th.   So most of November is available for trips.  This is one of the best months of the year for pike (Seneca, Owasco, Cayuga), pickerel (Cayuga), inshore lake trout (Cayuga/Skaneatles), fly-fishing salmon (Seneca Lake), fly-fishing rainbows/lakers (Skaneateles Lake) and mixed bag fishing on Owasco and Skaneateles.