Sodus Bay 8/2
Did a 1/2-day gar fly-fishing trip with John, who’s in college and his younger brother Ben, who’s in high school. These guys are quite the anglers and have their fly casting looking pretty darn good. They’ve been renting a house on Cayuga Lake with their parents and report seeing some nice drum swimming around in the shallows. They’ve both hooked some while fly-fishing and John landed a nice one around 18″. More opportunities arise! You can bet I’ll be giving the drum a whirl!
Conditions were perfect today despite the mildly optimistic forecast. Light south winds and sun. Not a lot of boat traffic either. We motored around and I saw one small riseform. We kept looking and eventually just started fishing and the fish began showing up. This type of fishing is as close to saltwater fishing as you can get around the area. Sightfishing to schools of fish near the surface that are grabbing baitfish. Fly-fishable fish that jump like tarpon. Small gar aren’t necessarily the hardest fighters – some of them come in pretty easily, but they are always exciting to fish for and they always jump! The guys each landed 3 fish with “big fish Ben” getting the better fish. Nothing huge – they topped out around 35″ or so, but beautiful fish. We saw a massive school of gar – just amazing!
The guys live near the Potomac and have 4-foot gar (and likely bigger) swarming around them. Can’t wait to hear how they do on these fish! I consider gar a gamefish. They strike artificials well, they can put up an exciting battle and actually are considered good to eat. In Texas, they are fairly common as a food fish from what I’ve read, though I like them as a fish too much to want to kill any for food.