Cayuga Lake out of Myers Park 11/7 + 8

Guided back-to-back full-day trips out of Myers Park.  Here's the breakdown:

11/7:  Today I guided Mike and his buddies Steve and Monty.  The weather forecast looked awful for today in terms of the wind - Weather.com had south winds from 15 to 25 mph.  Weather.gov had 10 to 20 mph with some higher gusts.  I've been fishing a lot of midlake areas recently and that forecast ruled those out.  I will encourage people to postpone dates when conditions look "trying" to say the least, and I talked to Mike about doing that but it wasn't feasible with their schedule.  (I generally know what the day will look like in reality more than my clients do.)  That being said, Mike had been out with me before and the guys have had very dry conditions in their home waters and really wanted to get out, so we did.

The winds were brutal throughout most of the day, apart from maybe one half-hour around 2 pm.  We wound up not being able to spot-lock much at all, due to the winds and likely the strong currents generated by the last couple days of wind out of the north.  That being said, we had loads of fish around us and Monty managed a hit and quick hook-up on his second drop of the jig!  However, my Terrova was fully-charged with good batteries and was running from 8 to 10 on the power scale in order to keep us in place.  Needless to say, that wasn't going to work for long and wound up being a bust.  Necessity is the Mother of Invention as the quote goes, so we tried some other strategies at times incorporating the drift sock and some shallower water.

In short order we were in business with Mike have a good follow and hooking up a laker around 22" or 23".  We worked similar patterns on both sides of the lake and wound up doing much better than I would've expected.  Mike really had the hot hand today, no matter where he sat in the boat!  Thanks for making us all look good today Mike!  We had hits and follows from some silver fish - likely rainbows and/or salmon, but they didn't hook up.  They were likely small.  We caught some quality fish later in the day and wound up hitting the double-digits, but it wasn't easy.  I give a lot of credit to the guys for fishing hard and hanging in there.

Our ride back was on the brutal side!  The dogs all said it would be "ruff" and they were right for a change (a lot of people walk their dogs around the park in the AM.)  The dogs weren't kidding and the guys had an amusement park-like ride on the way back.  Sometimes I forget that 30 mph winds can make Cayuga Lake waves pretty darn high just a few miles north of the south end!  I was hoping the winds might die down a bit late in the day, but I was wrong.  However I learned my lesson and the guys saw that I knew how to get them back safely in some sketchy stuff.  That kind of boating reminds me a lot of downhill skiing, you have to be 100% focused and take what the lake is giving you.

The lake temps ran from 51 to 53 degrees, so trout and salmon are roaming inshore now and fishing should be good around creek mouths.

11/8:  Today I guided regular Ron starting at around 8:15 am.  Overall conditions were much better today, with winds out of the northwest to start and overcast skies.  The winds diminished as the day went on and the sky cleared up for a bit around midday, before becoming overcast.  We even had a tiny bit of rain at the end of our trip.  Action today was excellent.  We had a lot of good sized 27" to 28" lake trout around us for the entire day and they were feeding.  Ron had at least a dozen to 15 fish in the 28" and over range.  It was a solid double-digit day with a lot of 24" to 27" fish as well as a few in the 29" to 30"+ range.  One fish spit up a gizzard shad.  We also had that happen yesterday.  Cayuga Lake lake trout really gobble the heck out of the shad this time of year - throughout much of the lake.  The shad for some reason (probably water temperature and their size) become available to lake trout and the trout take full advantage of them.

Until a week ago, we had quite a few green algae particulates suspended in the top part of the water column.  They are gone now.  The lake is crystal clear and it was fun watching the trout twisting around and fighting below the boat a ways.  The lake trout were full of fight today with surface temperatures at around 53 degrees.   Fish are available from 20' of water to probably 200'.  We caught most of ours from 75' out to 120'.  No silvers today.  The water level also remains surprisingly good for this time of year - no issues whatsoever launching or retrieving the boat at Myers.

My availability remains very good - as it usually is this time of year.  We'll have castable and possibly fly-castable salmon/trout conditions in a week or two (we already have them to some extent.)  Expect solid pike action on Owasco Lake and possibly Seneca Lakes.  Bass fishing can be hot on Skaneateles Lake this time of year.  Expect some jumbo perch, trout and maybe a walleye or two as well.  Docks will probably be pulled this week or early next week.   Keuka Lake is a great bet for tasty wild lake trout this time of year too.