Owasco Lake 6/27 AM, Cayuga Lake 6/28 AM, Owasco Lake 6/29

6/27:  After a couple days of somewhat challenging fishing on Cayuga Lake, I was certainly ready for a change of scenery.  Cayuga Lake is full of fish and it's gradually setting up.  I think we'll be in good shape there for the remainder of the season, sans the algae bloom, whenever that comes.  The Marianos were renting a place on Cayuga Lake near Long Point, so that's where we fished out of.  After our somewhat slow third day, I would have fished Owasco Lake on the fourth day of our trip had that been an option, but it wasn't.

Today I had Evan and Mike meet me at Emerson Park at 6:30 am.  We fished a tight 4-hour day today, since the guys had plans for later.  The south winds set up a thermocline on the lake and we had a banner day with some excellent fishing for the first two hours or so.  The area we fished was loaded with bait and hungry, fat lake trout.  We worked 50' to 85' of water and had action throughout.  The guys had at least one double.  Overall it was a good double-digit day with one rainbow trout in the mix and one very large rainbow lost!  We never saw the rainbow, but it made a run under the surface that reminded me of my steelheading days on Irondequoit Creek and off of the Lake Ontario piers and breakwalls.  Unfortunately Mike put the brakes on the fish a little too much and it got off.  Oh well!

I'm hearing some encouraging reports coming off of Seneca Lake as well, so that's another option.  I plan on checking it out this week if I get a day off or two.

6/28 AM Cayuga Lake out of Myers Park:  Guided a long half-day trip with Mark and his good friend Ed starting just after 6:30 am.  Normally I would have met the guys in Auburn after yesterday's great day, or at Long Point if fishing Cayuga Lake, but the wind forecast was calling for gusts out of the south up to 25 mph, so better safe than sorry.  The wind forecast was downgraded a bit late last night, but we stuck with the plan.  Bear had a perch derby going on, so there were more boats than usual at the park boat ramp.

We had heavy winds yesterday afternoon, evening and through the night right into the morning, when they diminished a bit.  The lake had a lot of current and water plateaus had shifted quite a bit.  We were the only boat that I could see that was fishing the mid-lake areas north of Myers.  Within maybe 25 minutes of starting, Ed hooked into a solid fish.  It wound up being a beautiful 32" clean lake trout!  It wasn't wild (it had an adipose clip) but sure was gorgeous.  He missed another couple fish afterwards but then our "action" really slowed down.  We had fish onscreen as well as bait in areas but they just weren't hitting well.  We worked uplake as well as some deeper water with similar results.  Towards the end of the trip, I was sure the guys would catch a few more - fish were chasing pretty good and looked like they were going to hit, but they didn't!

What a great couple of guys to have onboard - Mark and I both have a lot in common going back to our Fishing Facts Magazine subscriptions as well as working at Bass Pro Shops (he works part-time at Cabelas,) so the day really flew by despite the poor catching.  We also had some mutual friends.  So that was really neat.  Things should settle out on Cayuga Lake in a day or two - probably two.  We'll see how things go.

6/29 Owasco Lake:  Today I guided Ron for a full-day getting underway just after 6 am.  A few boats were already out on the lake trolling when we launched.  The amount of baitfish we encountered during the morning was pretty phenomenal!  The weak winter of 2023/2024 likely produced some massive classes of alewives throughout the Finger Lakes and Great Lakes from what I can tell.  These fish were dimpling the surface.  I brought a couple of smallmouth bass set-ups along, since Ron wanted me to have a back-up incase the lakers weren't cooperating midday.  Fish were up top chasing bait and I had Ron take a cast with a Superfluke.  He did have a trout swirl at it, but no hookup.  Ron landed a couple of big lakers in the 28" range in the morning.  They fought great.  All were from the same year class with an adipose fin clip.  Highpoint of the morning was a big rainbow that slammed Ron's jig at the leader.  It jumped high three times and did some crazy digging and runs under the boat before I was able to net it.  I took a photo of it in the net and went to measure it and it flipped back in the water.  We didn't want to injure it, thus Ron didn't hold it for a photo. It was in the 25"/26" range.  I'm pretty certain that Ron had a hold of some other rainbows during the morning.

As the day went on Ron landed another large laker and a couple of smaller ones.  He also lost a few.  Things slowed down for us in the early afternoon, but with our super-early start, we were done by 2:15 pm.  The lake was getting very busy with boaters and the channel was boat after boat after boat heading out to enjoy the rare nice day.  The weather was absolutely perfect today.  You could not have asked for a more perfect weather day.  Fish are available here lake-wide.

I don't use any fancy sonar - I do not care for LiveScope.  When you book a trip with me, you'll see that there are more important factors that go into finding fish than your sonar unit.  Lots more factors!  I've been running my 2013 boat over the past week or two, thus the old Lowrance.  My newer (2020) Crestliner has a Lowrance Elite Depthfinder, with a bigger screen and nice lake maps.  I'll be using that boat over the next week or two.  I like to alternate - each has advantages.

This Tuesday is available, as is the 4th and 5th.  If it's a sunny, hot holiday weekend, the best bet is to start early and be done by 10:30 am or 11 am.  That way we beat the crazy holiday boat traffic!  Other openings are listed on my availability post.