Cayuga Lake out of Myers Park 10/27 + 28

10/27:  Guided a full-day trip with Olin and his friend Jamie.  It was a whopping 27 degrees this morning when I woke up.  We had some fog and around 34 degrees as we got underway around 9 am.  I decided to have the guys wait out the fog for a bit after we met up just after 8:30 am.  We had a very slow start to the trip.  We fished three different areas and all contained good numbers of fish.  They chased well but just wouldn't hit.  That usually means that they're going to bite at some point during the day.  When, is the question.  Jamie got us started with his first laker, a 16.5"er.  Small one, but that's a start.

By 11:30 am, it seemed like a switch had been flipped and the action got very hot and heavy!  We had at least three doubles and it was pretty much non-stop catching for a few hours.  Once the light north winds set up, the bite slowed a bit, but was still steady, with the hot hand being shared by the guys.  Olin would go on a two or three fish run, then Jamie would.  It was one of the best days I've seen all year.  Best fish of the day was a 31" albeit skinny one caught by Olin.  We had a few 29s and at least one 30 as well.  Olin also nabbed a hot rainbow around 22" to 23" if I remember correctly.  The water temperature is at 58 degrees on the surface, which is pretty much ideal for rainbow trout. Once the fish started hitting, all the colors we used worked well - Arkansas Shiner, Black, White/Chartreuse Tail and so on.  Depths ran from 80' out to over 140'.  Boat traffic was very light.  Water level is still decent.  Fall colors are peaking.

I dropped my 2020 Crestliner Fish Hawk off at Silver Lake Marine for storage on Saturday.  The colors in the southern tier and moving up Rt. 390 are past peak - there are a lot of bare trees around, but not on the Finger Lakes quite yet.

My schedule still remains fairly open for November and onwards.  We finally do have some rain in the forecast.  I expect pike fishing to be good as well as fall mixed bag action on Skaneateles Lake.  The hot lake trout fishing also seems to be holding up well and usually does through mid-November.  Sunny, relatively calm days are best for that bite.  When they don't want to hit, they don't hit!

10/28 AM:  I was back out with the guys today.  We had a lot of fun on the boat yesterday and I was psyched for today.  We got underway just after 9:15 am.  We had more fog to contend with.  Air temperatures got down to 26 degrees last night, so the air was a bit crisp to put it mildly.  The fishing started off better today with Jamie grabbing the first good lake trout in short order.  We tried some different areas and had a solid bite for a few hours.  We had solid double-digit hookups and 9 nice fish landed today.  Some good ones were lost.  A lot of geese are starting to migrate.  We saw a loon today as well.  We also started yesterday seeing a bald eagle right at Myers.  Winter is coming, but we still have a lot of great fall fishing ahead of us.  The water temperature on top was around 57/58 degrees today.

Looks like we are scheduled to finally get some serious rain during the rest of the week.  That should finally kick off a good push of fish in the tributaries.  I don't stream fish much at all anymore, but the lake did have reasonable numbers of browns in it this year as well as fair numbers of salmon.  The rainbow trout are thriving - it's rarely been better in my 30 years up here.  The stream guys have some good fishing to look forward to.