Cayuga Lake 8/2 + 8/3
Lake trout jigging is in peak summer form on Cayuga Lake. This time of year can’t be beat for the combination of generally good “all day” fishing, nice weather and uncrowded waterways. The big news on Cayuga Lake this year is wild lakers. We’re seeing a good class of fish in the 23″ to 24″ range that are clean and wild. There are also wild fish that are younger showing up. In 1996 a few wild fish showed up in netting surveys. According to what biologist Tom Chiotti said at a Trout Unlimited meeting in 1996, these were the first wild Cayuga Lake trout at that point in time that had been seen in decades. I would say that natural reproduction on Cayuga’s lakers is around a solid 10%. When checking clips, be sure to look closely for re-generated fins, also the fleshy nub between the dorsal and caudal (tail) fin is also often clipped. But no doubt, I’m seeing significant numbers of wild fish on Cayuga and finally a few on Owasco Lake too, which is great news.
Next year may wind up being one of the best Cayuga Lake trout/salmon years for fishing in a long time! We’ll have plenty of 27″ to 28″ BIG lakers. Stay tuned!
8/2 AM Taughannock: Guided regular client Mark I. with his 91 year old father for the 1/2 day starting just after 6:30 am. The goal was to give Mark’s dad a memorable fishing trip with some action. It took a little while for Joe to get things dialed in, but after he did he managed to land 3 solid lakers! He told me it was the best fishing he’d ever had. Mark’s usually a fly-fisherman, but really enjoys the laker jigging. He landed around 10 or 11 solid lakers. Great AM bite! And I’m guessing Joe is probably the oldest angler I’ve ever guided. It ain’t always “about da kids” – it can be a lot of fun getting the elders into some good fishing!
8/2 PM: Met brothers Don and Roy at the Taughannock launch around 11:15 am. Roy was a long time Charter Captain on the Niagara River and Lake Ontario as well as a guide in Alaska for a while. He’s put his time in on the water and it was great talking guiding with him, as well as Lake Ontario patterns. Don’s a longtime troller (as well as other types of fishing) and wanted to get the jigging pattern down better. Fishing started a little slow, but really picked up after an hour or two with some terrific action midlake with around 14 fish landed if I remember right – up to over 27″. Great time with some great people and great fishing! Don usually fishes Seneca Lake and I expect him to do very well over there.
8/3 Long Point: Met Dan and his nephew Brandon at the launch just after 6 am. We’d been trying to coordinate a couple trips for a long time (since last year) but Dan works about 7 different jobs. He’s a busy man! But things finally set up for us today. We worked the Aurora area N. of Stoney Point and had terrific early AM laker fishing with around 16 fish landed in less than 2 hours! The bite was really smoking with loads of baitfish and aggressive lakers in fairly shallow – 55′ FOW or so. The shallow stuff dissipated as the baitfish moved out and we picked up a few more fish before running down towards Sheldrake and further south. Good fishing continued.
Neither Dan nor Brandon had ever caught a gar, and that was on the bucket list so we ran north. We found a large group (loose “school”) of them but apart from one follow, they weren’t very cooperative. The lack of sunshine hurt us. We headed back south to Long Point and set up just before we got dumped on with rain. The guys landed a few more fish making for a tremendous total of 26! I’m not “Mr. Numbers Guy” – I appreciate a good experience on the water whether I catch them or not, but it’s a testimonial to the superb fisheries we have in the FL Region when a couple guys can have that kind of fishing. The guys have an extensive walleye jigging background, so that certainly helped! Around 4 or more of the 26 fish were wild! That’s a good sign.