Reports

Lake trout fishing has really taken a turn for the better and it was pretty good before! Just peak fishing over the past few days. I guided Tom on Thursday. He’s from England – the mighty UK. My first trip done with someone direct from Europe! We started at around 10 am (he had a hard time coordinating transportation.) Jigging off of the park produced some excellent lake trout action. Tom landed a couple fish within an hour and had lost a good one. The wind was up pretty good, but we stuck with the good fishing. We released one then decided to try some bass/pike action. Not much doing at all on the bass/pike. We worked around Long Point to Dresden for bass primarily using Superflukes and Senkos. We didn’t see much then shot south for pike. Last week’s pike areas didn’t produce for us – but we didn’t have much time to hit them either. Finished up with more laker jigging. After the trip, I went out for another 1/2 hour and the lakers were hitting well. I landed one then called it a day.

Friday was lake trout jigging out of Taughannock in the AM with Mihai and his dad. They first came out with me in 2005 and had some stellar laker fishing. Mihai has fished with me a lot since then and I always look forward to seeing him. We started at 6 am and fishing was superb – just no two ways about it and the guys landed a lot of fish – I think it was around 17 or 18. Sizes ran to around 30″. We had a wild fish or two as well which we released. Best action was in approx. 70′ to 85′.

T-storms came through in the afternoon. I had an afternoon/evening trip with Mike scheduled and we wound up having to sit for nearly an hour and a half waiting out the storms. Fortunately the concession stand was open at Taughannock Park and I was able to revitalize with a couple large cups of coffee! Otherwise I’d have made a zombie look wide-awake! We finally got out after a phone call to an internet-connected friend confirmed that the storms had passed. The fishing was simply amazing to start! Stellar!!! As old-timer Earl Holdren once said (in his great book “Fishing the Finger Lakes for Fabulous Trout and Salmon”) and I’m paraphrasing – “when you get rapidly changing/threatening weather, jump into your boat if you have the courage and if you don’t get ‘struck’ by lightning you might get ‘struck’ by the biggest trout you ever hooked!”. I certainly wouldn’t jeopardize my life and others trying to follow Earl’s advice, but his point was that stormy weather can get fish hitting wickedly. This trip was the first time I really experienced how intense things could get. Mike hadn’t jigged lakers before, so he was learning the ropes. His first or second drop resulted in his hooking a monster trout that we never ended up seeing. The 12lb. leader broke! It may have been nicked somewhere, but it was pretty wild. After that Mike wound up landing a bunch of fish and the electronics confirmed very aggressive fish chasing the jigs – upwards of 4 or 5 at a time. I’ve seen this quality of fishing in the past, especially around Taughannock in the fall, but never have I seen it like this, where a switch appeared to be flipped! Fishing was great until about 1/2 hour before sunrise.

Saturday was more great fishing with Mihai and his dad. They landed over 25 big lakers on the day. Most fish running from 26″ to 29″! Terrific action pretty much all day long with a 2 hour lull around noon. Fish were in the same depths and areas as the previous day. We had 3 wild fish as well, all of which we released. Bait is around and fish are feeding. In Owasco we had bait but the fish didn’t appear to be on the feed much last week. Our action was on both shores north of Taughannock and south of Long Point/Sheldrake.

bass cayuga lake Northern Pike Seneca Lake