4/21: Cayuga Lake out of Long Point State Park: BTW: The park here still hasn't officially "opened," so there is no entrance fee and the restrooms remain locked.
We just had another day/evening of rain and around .75" to 1" was recorded throughout much of the region. Over the past 7 days, according to the Rainy App, we've had up to 2.5" of rain! The accompanying strong cold front gave us a snowy day on Sunday night and Monday throughout the day along with some north winds. This makes fishing tougher and sets the spring fishing back.
All of this was evident when setting out for a full-day of lake trout jigging on Tuesday. Cayuga Lake was back up at a low flood stage. Baitfish appear to have moved deep again. The lake trout bite was between neutral and negative for us. It was a slow day, but Rachel managed 3 solid fish in the 27" to 29" range. Her dad Ron landed one. A few fish were also missed.
I will be back out targeting lake trout here shortly, and with the warm trend moving in, I expect fishing to get better by the day. The lake conditions were excellent - the clarity was very good, so the slow fishing was likely due to the cold front. We did not see a single other boat out fishing today! That is rare for Cayuga Lake in 2026!
4/22: Today was a 6-hour trip, again with Ron and Rachel, but on Seneca Lake out of Watkins Glen. The effects of the heavy rains from a few days ago and cold front were also noticeable here. The lake is a couple inches down from being as high as I've seen it this spring. There is a staggering amount of "fishy green water" and trying to locate salmon via casting over the past week just became much more challenging! That being said, water temperatures are still conducive to fish being up top and nearshore, so we aren't done with the salmon casting quite yet, but the relatively easy consistent fishing (for this season, that is,) is certainly in the rearview mirror. I can't complain - we did very well on salmon, browns and rainbows starting back in November and right up to last week or perhaps two weeks ago! You won't get any complaints from this guide!
We started off promisingly with Ron nabbing a nice 17" salmon on our first drift. Rachel then had a very good one follow in her lure - I got a glimpse of this fish and it was around 22" to 23" or so. In another area Rachel nabbed another 17"er. We tried two other areas, but we had some time constraints today. I was not able to really get Ron and Rachel covering the water I was hoping to work, due to the distance from the launch. Rachel had another hit in our first area, but that was it - so it was a tough day.
