Cayuga Jigging Report - 8/20/16

[PCPete]

Launched from Myers around 6:30am and quickly realized that the battery used to start the main motor was dead. I ended up jumping it off of one of the trolling motor batteries with some cables I borrowed from a nice guy at Myers launch and headed to the power plant.

 

We had great screens of bait (maybe too much) - pics below. Not sure what to do when the screen is full of bait/fish but none of them are on the bottom or biting. The answer may be trolling and we did throw a dispy out for a bit around 50FOW, no luck there after making 3 passes through the below screens. I even hooked up the old black and white FF to the transducer on the trolling motor to confirm my main FF wasn't acting up again. Around 9:00am or so we headed for the west side (using the trolling motor as the battery was still too dead to start the main) with the hope the fish were biting over there. First fish came around 10:00am and by 12:00PM the pleasure boaters were out in force and chewing up the lake pretty bad. I hooked up with a brown around 2:00PM and we continued jigging till 4ish when we packed up.  

 

We ended up with a total of 5 fish in the boat, 4 lakers and the brown (biggest laker pic below). Lakers were all clean (no recent lamprey wounds) and all were released unharmed. The brown is largest brown I have caught out of Cayuga, ended up weighing in at 8.8lbs on the digital scale. Was happy to catch a brown Jigging, my buddy hooked up with a salmon as well after that but one jump and it was gone. I discovered during the day that the main motor battery was not charging while the motor was running but had enough juice to keep it running after it was going. After we were done and ready to head back to Myers I tried jumping the motor again off the trolling motor battery (borrowing cables from a nice guy at Taughannock) but having used the electric all day, it also did not have enough juice to start the motor. Ended up having to take one of the trolling motor batteries out and start the motor with it directly to get back to Myers. I showed my two year old the brown when I got home, I'm happy she was willing to pet it despite my wife's strong objection . Hopefully she'll want to come out with me and catch one herself in the coming years. 

 

Hard day of fishing for the ratio of hours to fish in the boat and it was not a calm day at any point really. Was happy all the fish we landed were good sized though.  Waves were rough and wind was gusting pretty hard from the south as soon as we got out there. Good day overall even with battery/motor problems. No idea why the FF pics turn sideways when I upload them, I have tried everything to get them straight but the site keeps turning them. 

 

PS. If any of the people I borrowed cables from happen to read this, PM me and I'd be happy to take you out sometime. 

 

-Pete 

 

 

[hermit]

Hey nice brown Pete!  That is awesome you're getting into them on purpose.  Well done all around getting it done despite boat problems.  You can choose to believe there is fish in all that bait even though you can't see them, and there often are, but not always.   If you can't get away from it just jig as normal for a while before moving on.   Or if you find the edge fish there.   And good job starting the early training on the future angler!

Edited August 23, 2016 by hermit

[Big Spoon]

Nice report Pete!

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[jk1]

Are you sure some of those are not lakers? You are moving with the electric and at that slow speed I think some of those are your target fish......jk

[PCPete]

All I know is they wanted nothing to do with our jigs on the drop or the retrieve. Not sure what they did want but it wasn't any of the 6 fluke colors I tried or the jigging spoon. If they were lakers, they were full ones.

Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United