Owasco Lake 7/26 + 27

Just when I thought that Owasco Lake might be the hot lake in the region, the bite here got tough.  Cayuga Lake fished alright according to the few reports I received this weekend.  Lake trout action was decent on Saturday AM.  Fish can be found lake-wide.  By Saturday PM, the fish were pretty much lock-jawed.  A few rainbows and browns were cooperating, which is nice.

7/26 AM:  Guided Parker and his old high school friends Evan and Chris.  Fishing wasn't great to start but after checking a few areas, Evan had a nice brown trout come right up to the surface, pretty much out of the water after his jig!  Unfortunately the fish didn't grab it and we were not successful in trying to raise it again.  A few drops later, a small rainbow also chased his jig up to the surface.  The problem with Owasco Lake right now in that there's a bit of murky water on the surface, which seems to be playing havoc with the bite.  Chris wound up hooking and landing the first laker of the trip.  He lost the second and then landed the third one he hooked.  Parker, who booked the trip, had a few grabs.  Overall the fishing was quite slow but not brutal.

7/27:  Today I guided a full day trip with one group split up into two halves.  For the morning starting at 8 am, I had David, Bryan and Annika.  After yesterday's tough bite, you might wonder why on earth I would do another trip here right away.  Well the forecast was calling for potential heavy rain and thunderstorms plus winds switching from south to north.  For me, that rules out Seneca Lake.  My group was staying on a rental overlooking Skaneateles Lake - they were on the east shore, plus we'd be switching out people midday, so the long drive to Seneca just wasn't feasible.  Cayuga Lake was sort of the same - if I had to do a long run out of Long Point or Myers, we could have trouble with a severe thunderstorm.  So we talked about it, and decided to go with Owasco, despite the tough fishing.  One of the most important facets of being a guide is transparency with clients - really in any business, people need to know what is up.  This is my 21st year guiding and 20th full-time, and that's probably the best advice I can give to any aspiring guide - you have to let folks know what's up and let them come to their own conclusions.  Today was a no-brainer.  I also gave them the option to cancel the trip, knowing that they were going to be on Owasco Lake and potentially facing a lot of heavy rain and possible thunderstorms.  Anyhow, we went for it.

The AM bite was tough, despite not having any thunderstorms or heavy rain.  Everyone had a hit or two and we had some short hook-ups, but nothing stayed buttoned.  We covered a lot of water.  I picked up Annika's brother Erik, sister Karin and her boyfriend Jeremy at around 12:30 pm and we headed out.  Erik and Karin have been out with me before.  Karin didn't catch anything last time we were out (which was a trip coincidentally enough out of Long Point on Cayuga Lake that was shortened severely by thunderstorms.)  Boats were coming off the lake as we headed out - a cell of heavy rain was heading in our direction!  Sure enough, after maybe 20 minutes we got hammered with a deluge of rain.  Fortunately that's all it was (I checked the weather radar before heading out to be sure.)  Our afternoon trip was tough fishing.  Karin did manage to land a rainbow trout around 20" or 21" to at least save part of the day.  We were on lakers both during the AM and PM parts of our trip and after a few hours in the AM, they just weren't budging.  And the AM bite wasn't exactly anything to write home about. We got off of the lake a bit early today so my group could head home.  Some of the gang had to work tomorrow and they had a 4-hour plus drive ahead of them.