First Post - Cayuga 9/11

[TheToadHunter]

After reading a few posts on here about trolling Cayuga, I thought I'd give it a serious try considering Lake O was calling for 30mph winds. Trolling for trout and salmon is new to me, but water temps and fish behavior is not. Launched my bass boat out of Myer's around 8 and headed for the closest and steepest drop shown on my Garmin. 10 minutes in I dropped a bow and laker at the boat. The action continued until 11ish when I decided food outweighed the fight with waves. I fished one rod between 9-10:30 because 1 or 2 minutes down resulted in a bite.

I pulled back into the lot and rigged up as a few guys in the derby were taking out and mingling (1 o'clockish). Thought about introducing myself, but my saltwater gear turned into trolling gear made me feel out of place. Went back out to the morning location and was plagued by small landlocks that couldn't even trip the dipsy's. Headed north for 2 hours to explore and not a bite. When I headed back down lake south of Myer's, I only managed two more landlocks about 17-18".

For what it's worth, I was running dipsys out 150' in the AM, 250' in the PM. GPS speeds of 2.75-3.5. Spoons had 1 bow and 1 LL. Everything else was on flashers and tube flies I made. 3 Lakers, 1 bow, and 14 landlocks made it in the boat. I lost more than I landed, which frustrates me and I want to know why. Many were lost as soon as they broke surface beside the boat.

I prefer to run a single hook for releasing purposes, but I started to actually land fish consistently when running a gamakatsu treble on my flies. My single hook was a gamakatsu finesse wide gap with a snelled knot. Any input on alternate hooks would be appreciated or maybe the softer action of fiberglass rods is required?

Mike