Sodus Bay 7/11 + Cayuga Lake out of Taughannock 7/12
Sodus Bay 7/11: Guided Brian and his friend Mike on Sodus for a full day. The plan was to spend the day bass fishing. We had tough fishing. Last year Brian and his stepfather landed 6 nice bass and a big drum. This year the guys didn’t hook any bass. They mainly fish trout, but worked hard at using some different presentations today. I taught them some different techniques and we did some pitching as well as working the usual Senkos, Flukes and crankbaits. Even some dropshotting, but nothing was happening. We worked a fair number of areas that had been productive over the past 8 or 9 years for me, with nothing to show.
This is the first time I’ve fished Sodus this year. Normally I fish it in late May or early June to check things out. I regret being out of touch with it. The bay does get a lot of fishing pressure via tournaments and there have been some weed harvesters around (sometimes fishing is good around them.) But normally I can take beginners or kids there and score on plenty of 1 to 2lb largemouths. Not this time. There was an Avon Tournament there Saturday that I was unaware of. Perhaps fishing by the release marina would’ve paid off!
We did manage to have a lot of fun with the gar. We saw some early in the day, so we knew where they were. There were tons of them, including some real beauties. I set the guys up with some rope lures and before the end of the day they’d each landed 3. We had follows on nearly every cast at times. The gar did their usual jumping and some fought pretty well.
We spent an hour or so on the big Lake with just a few gobies to show. Lots of bait was around from 30′ to 50′ and even shallower. I doubt the smallmouths have bounced back yet.
Cayuga 7/12: Guided Valerie and Steve for a good 1/2 day on Cayuga. We started at 6 am before the forecast winds came up. Fishing started out good with Steve landing a feisty 26″ laker in short order. Other hits were had, but nothing else landed. The wind came up pretty strong and Val and Steve fished hard to no avail. It was difficult jigging with fairly inactive fish and it was tough to detect bottom. Somewhat tough, but fun day. 65′ to 75′ was where we saw/encountered our fish.