Guided Chris and his now fiancé Lyann for a half-day trip starting at just after 9 am. He booked this trip in late-March hoping for a landlocked salmon. The best times for salmon casting and fly-casting trips are usually from mid-November through March. April into mid-May can be a good time for salmon, but everything depends on the water temperatures. This year, we'll probably have good temps for inshore salmonids right through Memorial Weekend, but the volume of good water out there is immense.
Seneca Lake was our original plan, but that watershed got hit with another inch of rain a couple of days ago. Debris remains an issue and the water level remains at flood stage. Some launches were closed and even some of the open ones would require waders! It just wasn't a good option.
Chris had no interest in lakers, so that ruled out Long Point. Cayuga Lake yielded some salmon for us as well as for a friend last week, so that was the obvious choice. Unfortunately we had a couple of cold nights accompanied with north winds, which just stacked the warmer water on the south end of Cayuga Lake. Temps were good all the way across the south end - it's great for trollers but it's "needle in a haystack" fishing for casters.
We gave it a good go and after maybe two hours of determined casting, Chris hooked up with a brown. It was one of the 2 year olds around 15" that fights like it's a 3-year old. It gave a good accounting of itself with a couple of jumps. It hit a stickbait. We got some photos featuring Lyann's new engagement ring.
We gave the southern end a half-hour of laker jigging. We had bait moving in. Lyann had one short hit and that was it. More casting yielded one follow of what appeared to be either a salmon or a nice rainbow for Chris on a jig. We hit the area again and were not able to raise it.
Needless to say, that's about it this season for the salmon/trout casting trips. There's still some great casting to be had, but it's not going to be predictable enough for me to guide without some serious back-up plans, of which I don't have many in lower Cayuga and Seneca Lakes this year.
