Reports

Got out with my buddy Mike over the past two days. We always have a good time getting out for some serious fishing/fly-fishing and we do a lot of thinking and hypothesizing on the water. We worked our Seneca shorefishing area for perch on Sunday and had pretty slow fishing. We did nail around 8 or 9 fish, and 4 of them ranged from 1 to 1lb 6 oz. So there were a few bass-sized fish in there. The stomachs of the perch were loaded (just packed!)with minnows. These fish clearly change their feeding preferences from day to day depending on what’s available.

We fished Cayuga for salmon today starting around 10:15 am. It took awhile to find some fish – we worked some areas pretty thoroughly. Turns out they were right where I’d left them a couple days ago! I nailed a chunky alewife filled 17 1/2″ brown on a deceiver using a sinking line. Not long afterwards I had a decent hit fairly close to the boat. I set the hook and my Diamondback Backwater 6 wt. rod snapped near the handle! So now I’m holding my flyrod handle and fortunately I still have a gorgeous large landlocked salmon on the line! As I handline the fish in, it started going crazy, with some insane jumps! These fish are like steelhead on speed. Just crazy! Mike netted the fish – though he was dying to get an action shot with me playing the fish on the broken rod. I wanted to salvage the rod and get that fish in! We took a couple quick photos and I quickly released the most beautiful landlocked salmon I’ve ever caught. There wasn’t a mark on this fish. It was just shy of 26″ and a solid 6lbs. We wound up hooking/missing a few more. Mike set the hook and broke off a tube fly in one fish – he’d had 3 hits in a row!

I kept the brown trout to eat. It was full of bait and very fat. These fish in Cayuga are finding bait – lots of it. They’re growing well and lampreys are under control. My last 2 landed salmon were both in the 5.5 to 6lb. range and the dropped fish were around 20″ to 22″. I’m not finding a ton of fish, but the fishing is very good and I think we’ll see some 7 to 8lb or bigger fish by this spring. H2O is 41 degrees. Water levels are low, but not at winter draw down levels yet.