Billy V

There haven't been many browns on Cayuga for the last couple of years. I don't know what's going on but I sure wish the DEC would address it and also do something about the lamprey eels.

Glad the info helped you get into some fish!

Good report Hermit. No doubt it was a fun morning!

100% certain on the temp. We have three different temp sensors and they all read the same. There's been a nice light NW breeze the past few days that's allowed the lake to set up and it's stacked up the warm water from the feeder creeks in the south end.

No, sorry but I don't recognize that name. Why?

We're at Myers Point

Holy Smokes! From the moment the first rod went in the water it was game on this morning. For the first two hours of the morning it was all we could do to get rods in the water and after that it settled into a very steady bite. We rarely were able to get our full spread in the water today. Thin fins on the boards kicked butt again - White, Black/White. Gold/Black, and Fire Tiger all were studs. KABOOM's in Goby and Silver/Black and Jr Thundersticks in Glow/Green were almost as good. Super Slim spoons in SSW, Die Hard, and Green Goby did their fair share of damage on the Cannon's too. Best rigger depths were 5-15 ft down. The lake had laid down from Wednesday and temps were up a good 3 degrees. I had my Dad at the wheel and I was running the back of the boat so I didn't get much time to check temps & speeds but I'd say 1.4-1.8 mph on our Depth Raider was our best speed and we had 48-53 degree water on the shelf at the south end. We ended our 5 hours fishing time at an incredible 48 for 59! Most of the fish were atlantics and most were in that 13"-17" throw-back range, but we boated and kept a few keepers. We also boated 4 beautiful chain pickerel with the biggest being the fatty pictured below - all released. With about an hour left in the trip we decided to head to deeper water and see if the laker bite was there, and it was in spades. Green Dot Spin Dr/Sigg's Rigs Green Hypnotists and White Spin Dr/Sigg's Rigs Glow Ghost combos fished off of divers out 275' and 300' on a #2 setting took a bunch of lakers at the end of the trip for us. There were several other boats out in the same general area that we were fishing and we saw a few boats hooked up - I hope they had the same type of day that we did 'cuz it was a riot. What a great fishery we have here on Cayuga Lake.

Hermit we were running a 9 rod spread - 3 on each of the boards and 3 on riggers. We could've dropped another 4 divers in the mix if need be! If you wanna see how we do that just stop by the boat sometime and I'll show you.

Rusty Rat's boat had an unfortunate meeting with the bottom of a marina over the weekend, so we ran his morning charter for today on my boat while his boat is being repaired. We left Myers a little bit later than planned and ran south to set up. Our first rod didn't hit the water until almost 6:45am. We had a crazy good bite for the first three hours of the day then it settled into a steady bite for the remainder of our trip. We wrapped up our day at 11:30am just one bite short of the 40 mark and I think we landed 30 or 31 of them. Our otter boats pulling Thin Fin's in white, black/white, and gold/black did a lot of damage today as did KABOOM's in green goby and black/silver. Our rigger bite wasn't as good today as it was a couple of days ago but we still managed a smooth dozen bites or so on NK's and Super Slim's in die hard, gator, and sea sick waddler patterns. All of our fish today were atlantics with the exception of two nice chain pickerel and we threw all of our fish back to grow and be caught another day except for two atlantics that will be tonight's dinner. Best temps were 46-47 degrees and best speed on our Depth Raider was 1.6-1.9mph.

Our best rigger was set at 8' and was pulling a Northern King Die Hard. We took several fish on the other two riggers at multiple other depths randing from 5'-20' - it all kinda depended on how deep of water we were over.

We saw you limping her home. Glad you got back safe and got her all fixed up for next time.

We left Myers at about 6:30am and headed straight to the south end. I was a little concerned that the fishing might be tough after the big blow, but it turns out I was wrong. The wind had pushed all of the warm water up on the shelf in the south end and once we got set up on top of it the rods started poppin' and didn't let up till we wrapped up at about 11:30am - it was a really good bite! Surface temps in the colored water ranged from 45-49 degrees, and as soon as we trolled out of the colored water the temps quickly dropped to 41-42 degrees and our bite stopped. Kamoom's in Goby and Blk/Sil, Thin Fins in White and Fire Tiger, and Rapalas in Blk/Sil and Chartreuse pulled behind our otter boats were steady all morning for Atlantics, and we boated several nice browns from our Cannon's loaded with Super Slim's and NK's in Die Hard, Midnight Special, and Sea Sick Waddler patterns. It was good to see the fat browns come to the net, and we also had a larger class of atlantics than we had last weekend although we ended up throwing back a half dozen shorts too. Our group did a good job on the rods although we still managed to drop a half dozen or so fish. Oh, and we caught a nice northern on our one pass by Stewart park. There were small lampreys on many of the fish but not as many as we saw last spring, and the lampreys were all about 1/3 the size of the ones we had on fish last spring. On a side note, there were 3 people fishing out of a 13 or 14 foot aluminum boat in the same area that we were. None of them had life jackets on and the boat was clearly over loaded and riding low in the water. To top it off there was a north chop from the wind and it looked to us like they were really close to taking one over the bow on multiple occassions. Let's all try to remember that the water is still very cold and that hypothermia would set in within minutes if any of us was unfortunate enough to fall in. No fish is worth that. Please be safe out there.

That's awesome! Congrats!!

My boys and I had been scouting this buck all summer and they had their hearts set on me killing him this fall - it was pretty clear that it was this buck or nothing for me here in NY. We have dozens of trail camera pictures of him and the boys had become enamored with him and had named him "Chuck the Buck". They both helped scout him all summer and spent a bunch of time in the woods with me hanging stands and clearing shooting lanes, so they were pretty invested in ole Chuck. I last saw Chuck on opening morning as I was climbing into my stand. I didn't think that he had busted me but I was beginning to think that maybe he had since he had been a pretty regular visitor to my stand site and he had just disappeared after opening day. I'd had a slow afternoon sit on Friday with very little deer movement and with about 10 minutes of shooting light left I decided to give a doe bleat a try before I climbed down to head home. No sooner had I put the call away than I looked up and saw Chuck emerge from the hedgerow about 75 yards away and come towards me on a string. It seemed to take forever for him to get to my shooting lane and present me with a shot and I was losing daylight fast. When he got to 25 yards he gave me the angle I was looking for and 15 yards later he was piled up. I called home right from my stand to tell the boys that I had shot Chuck and when I drove up to the house to get a lantern they were both waiting for me on the porch with flashlights in hand - huge smiles and all. It didn't take long for my bloodhound boys to track Chuck to where he had tipped over. Holy cow were they excited! Chuck isn't the biggest buck in the woods but he's definitely the most satisfying buck I've ever killed because of how excited my boys were to scout him and finally to help me field dress him and drag him out of the woods. Long live the memories of Chuck the Buck!

Nice buck! Congrats!

Congrats Sean - great deer!

Just a reminder to register for this great event. We have lots of sponsors lined up and are expecting a great turn out. Unfortunately I'll be out of town for work that weekend and will have to miss the event.

Like I said, if we all use our heads out there and take into account what other boats are doing and where they're likely heading then there's a high probability that there won't be any incidents. It's guys like the one I mentioned above who literally put their boat 100 yards in front of RR's boat and then refused to move that are the problem here. Any closer and Scott may not have been able to avoid him without wadding up his spread or worse. If you set down in a spot and there's 5 trollers coming and they're 15 minutes away then they need to troll around you because they have plenty of time to react. But to run in front of a troller and shut down a few hundred yards in front of him is uncalled for and is unsafe. As quality time mentioned, we have to pick our spots as to when and where we're going to turn. You guys that jig are far more nimble than us trollers are and you're entitled to fish the same water that we do. But you have to realize that trolling has its own set of limitations and we need your help if we're going to peacefully co-exist. If you see a situation coming where a troller has nowhere to go, just move for a few minutes till they pass. Shoot, we have to troll around you when you're there first and get knocked off of our line for a while so why can't you slide out of the way too? That's the thing that has been bothering me about this lately - it doesn't seem to be a two-way street. I've yet to see a jigger move to avoid a trolling boat and too many of them are moving directly into the paths of trollers. Like RR said above - we give you guys all kinds of room when we come upon you, all we ask is the same courtesy.

We started our day at 6am in 100 FOW up by Milliken and had a field day with the lakers for the first few hours. DW Super Slims in SSW, Midnight Special, and Green Gator parked at 100, 95, and 90 ft. were on fire for the first few hours of the trip. Most of the lakers were in the 5-7 lb range. That bite slowed a little bit around 9:30am so we trolled over to the west side and pointed her south. We worked 70-120 FOW on that side and had a steady pick of fish the whole way down to Crowbar. We managed to find a couple of browns and some smaller salmon on that troll, but it was mostly a laker bite for us. It was definitely a rigger bite for us at Milliken, but we managed to get our divers and cores dialed in on our troll south. Divers at 210 and 180 on a #1 pulling spinny/fly combos took a few fish and we had our 8 color core take a few fish when we had it pulling a GFR Rapala. The fishing was great all day today - come up and getcha some! On a side note, there's something I've been wanting to mention here about etiquette and safety when fishing a particular spot. It seems that jigging is fast becoming a popular way to catch lake trout. I'm all for it, but I've witnessed some questionable moves by a few boats up near Milliken over the past couple of weeks and I think it needs to be brought up here so that we can all work together and avoid any issues. Here's an example of the types of things I've been seeing: On Saturday there was a boat trolling comfortably behind me at Milliken and he and I had been on that line for well over a mile. There were 2 or 3 other boats trolling that line as well. I watched another boat come from the middle of the lake and slowly motor in between us. We could see him scanning the bottom for fish. When he found the spot that he wanted he shut his boat down no more than 100 yards directly in front of the boat that was trolling behind me and began jigging. If the boat that was trolling behind me was fishing that spot in the same manner that I was he had most of his gear very close to the bottom and simply couldn't turn towards shore as he was fishing at the bottom of very steep ridge there and he would've wadded up all of his gear. Fortunately for him there wasn't another boat outside of him and he was just able to make a turn to avoid the boat that stopped in his line of travel. I'm not sure he could've avoided him if he had been running planer boards off of each side. Guys it's one thing to be the first boat to a spot and shut down there and fish it. If you beat the other boats there then they'll have to troll around you. No one owns a particular spot on the water and we all have to work together to be able to fish it. But when there are 5 or 6 guys trolling on a very specific line and you show up late for the party it's very poor form (not to mention unsafe) to wiggle your way in between the whole fleet and shut down in the middle of them and block a guy who has multiple lines in the water and expect him to alter his line to avoid you - you probably should consider another spot if this is the case. I know that I have a hard enough time keeping my gear safe when I'm fishing that ledge near Milliken when there isn't much boat traffic let alone when someone stops right in front of me. Let's use our heads out there so that we can all enjoy the fishery.

Hermit - no worries. There was a lot of boat traffic and we were all trying to fish the same spot. We had a good time fishing the derby and ended up with a bunch of fish, just not the one that we needed. Great work by all who were involved - we'll be back again for it next year.