Skaneateles Lake 5/17 PM + Cayuga Lake 5/18
Skaneateles 5/17: Met Don (whose family has a place on the lake) at the launch at 2 pm. New postings by the NYSDEC make it clear that the limited parking at the launch is just for users – not for people meeting up with boaters. I’m not sure how much this is being enforced at present. I would expect heavy enforcement during weekends and during weekdays around peak boating times, like the month of July. We’ll see how it goes.
Today was a fly-fishing trip. I’d call the fishing really good (while the wind stayed up) but the catching ok. Don had some good opportunities but some fish were a bit tentative. We had one knot failure (that stuff rarely ever happens and is on me) where about a 20″ rainbow or salmon hit twice and the line broke at the set. I use 10lb thin diameter tippet and really check my knots well. But sometimes this stuff just happens for whatever the reason. Don had a nice laker follow him in – maybe a 23″ to 24″ fish. He landed a 20″ salmon that appeared to be a dropback. This fish had an elongated head and it was clear that it was a male. I’m guessing it had spawned last fall. It was a little thin and survived the vigors of spawning not too worse for the wear. He had hits/chases from a several other fish too – two nice rainbows/salmon and one small one.
Beautiful day to be on the lake. Water temps on the surface were 48/51. Boat traffic was very light.
Cayuga Lake out of Myers 5/18: Met my buddy Terry at the launch around 10:30 am. The forecast called for strong southerlies and we were anticipating having to hide behind various points today. The wind was basically dead out there – nothing until the storms hit the area around 5 pm and we were both home or on the way home. Go figure!
We had some mixed bag salmonid casting today. I never broke out the fly-rod, but casting resulted in my losing a nice brown and a laker (that had some beautiful colors.) I dropped what had to be a solid salmon and wound up landing a laker shallow. Not quite the day I was hoping for! Terry really had the hot hand – and he is an excellent angler; he landed 4 nice salmon and dropped some good ones as well. We had numerous hits and follows as well today. Water temps ran from 49 to 53.
Expect quite a few boats on the water this weekend on Cayuga Lake for the Bear’s/Barney’s Spring Derby. I don’t enter that contest but we will be out fishing lakers in all likelihood. I’m looking forward to seeing what the leaderboard looks like.