Upcoming Availability – the weather and more…

It's been a strange April and start to May as most of you know.   After a much colder than average (for recent years that is) winter, April wasn't exactly much better.  Cold weather has kept landlocked salmon fishing good on Cayuga and Seneca Lakes.  Despite some somewhat slow "catching" - the fishing has been good.  We've had a lot of salmon encounters and like a lot of fishing, the difference between a fair day and a great one can be a very slim margin - a few fish don't stay buttoned and so on. In terms of lake trout, here's what I think happened.   We had a great start in late-March.  My trip with Jack featured great conditions and we had no trouble getting a nice limit of good fish in under 2 hours and we left them hitting.  In April we had very cold temperatures and a lot of dark, overcast skies.  The colder the winter, the deeper the lake trout tend to go.  I do not target them in more than around 165' to 170'.  I have no issues going deeper, but I don't really care to do it.  Sunny days often produce terrific deep jigging in April and into May.  However the colder than usual conditions kept the lake super-clear.  You can easily see bottom in 20'+ FOW.  The sun gets more intense as the month progresses.  I think the super-clear (clearer than usual) water made for a tougher "inshore" bite due to the intense light penetration.  We're looking at May sun with March water clarity if that makes sense.  It's one of the reasons that Lake Ontario can be tough vertical jigging early in the season when it's sunny - you can see bottom in 50'+ sometimes!  Lakers in the Finger Lakes seem to bite better oftentimes with sun (when they're deep) but too much intensity isn't good.  I expect fishing to pick up substantially after this rain.  The fish are there as is the bait. My availability remains very good throughout May and into June and July.  I have openings late this week and then after the 14th of May.  June and July are gradually adding dates but are still fairly wide-open. Skaneateles Lake should fish very well for bass, large perch and occasional trout/salmon/walleyes. I expect the early part of the pike season to be somewhat slow until water temps warm up (which is happening during this rain.)  Owasco Lake is generally a good bet. I have had decent jigging reports on Seneca Lake and we're still finding good numbers of salmon there.  These fish do move around a lot this time of year, but water temps should keep them inshore for casting and fly-casting.  Same with Cayuga Lake. I will try to get out on my own and check a few things out...stay tuned!