Skaneateles Lake 4/26 + Cayuga out of Myers Point 4/27
As much as I enjoy writing in good fishing reports, it does pain me a bit to write in the tough days. But here it is. I ALWAYS put up a report – on all days I fish or guide, whether the fishing is good or bad, so you never get any sugar coating here! Bottom line is that we had a tough weekend fishing, no question about it. The weather wasn’t nice on Saturday either.
Skaneateles Lake 4/26 midday: Guided John and his father John for a long 1/2 day starting at 9 am. I was concerned the day before when I saw the forecast for Ithaca, with west winds predicted to gust to 28 mph, but the Skaneateles forecast wasn’t as bad.
It turned out that we had next to no wind! Which some people might like, but as a fisherman on a crystal clear lake, that ain’t good! And the bite was tough for us. The guys have a place on the lake and wanted to learn some techniques for the lake year-round and also for catching rainbows. Action was slow, but John Jr. picked up a large pickerel and an average smallmouth. He managed to have a couple different nice rainbow trout follow him in 4 or 5 times, but the fish were skittish due to the lack of wind. It rained a bit and we called it a day after a good effort. Water temps are still cold – we had 43 on the north end and around 38 further south.
Cayuga Lake 4/27: As tough as yesterday was, I would’ve loved to have some of that “action” today, but it wasn’t to be. Guided Dave and James for a full day. Dave joined me a couple years ago for a great laker trip and he puts the pattern to good use out of his kayak, having landed a huge brown a couple years ago, amongst some lakers. Due to high winds, a guy was pulling his boat out of Myers as we launched, but he had reported good action trolling for browns yesterday and last week, so the fish are around. But the cold water left us puzzled.
We worked a bunch of areas from the south end to Taughannock and many points in between, both doing some fly-fishing, but mostly casting. James had one possible hit right when we started, but after that we never contacted a fish. No hits, no follows – nada. The weather conditions and wind were perfect as far as I could tell. The water temperature was certainly a culprit with cold water nearly everywhere, and when we did find warmer water (like on the south end) it was laden with debris, with made presentations very difficult. I’ll get back here once things warm up a bit. No doubt we couldn’t have done worse on Seneca, but Dave mainly fishes Cayuga and I felt we would’ve done alright here. But it wasn’t to be. Water temps were in the mid-40s on the south-end, but around 38/39 everywhere else. Expect much better fishing as we get a nice warm spell.