Cayuga 9/18

[lily]

Launched out of Myers at abou 10 am. Hard to get there any earlier than that because of work lately. Anyway motors north to Kidders and set up on a north troll. Running solo. 1 rigger at 95 1 at 70 and a dipsys out 180 on a 1. Bounced back and forth from shallow to deep and finally picked 1 st fish up on the 90 rigger on about same depth. That would be it for about 2 hrs. Changed up presentations spoons fly different paddles nothing. Found the weeds to be a nuisance so moved out to the middle of the lake and pointed back south. This is where my best screens were. Marked a ton of bait a ton of big fish in the 180 to 220 range over 300 + ft of water. All suspended fish all big fish in amongst huge bait piles. Oh well not much I can do with them. Anyway fished south from long point to Aes. With out moving a rod. Frustrated picked up shop and motored south to the cliffs north of Myers and set up shop again. Bang bang bang. Boxed out on Lakers in about an hour. All in the 80 ft range over different depths. Boy was it hot today for late September I guess you can't really complain.. side note. Last few trips have seemed slow. Those deep marks are odd to me. Maybe with the high sun and heat a lot of the fish have moved very deep to avoid the sun in the middle of the day I guess I don't know. Defiantly slow for me the last few trips. Really had to work for them. Maybe the lake is starting to transition some or getting ready to " flip" I know fishing mid day is not helping but I have defiantly noticed a decline in both fish and bait where I was finding them all summer. Gonna have to put some braid on my down rigger and go after those deep marks[emoji16]. Any one know blow back chart for 220 ft. Good luck out ther.

 

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[vogel451]

The thermocline is dropping off. All those deep fish aren't just lakers. 80 and deeper is a great starting point for this time of year.


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[lily]

What are the deep marks. I was surprised to see bait that deep too. Was thinking of trying to park over them and drop a jig down there but at the time my ambition level was pretty low. That seemed awful deep for bait and fish to me. I've seen it before but not like I saw it yesterday. Would have loved to try to drop something down there but they were way lower than the amount of cable I have on my down riggers. Also being manual riggers that would have been way too much like work

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[lily]

I was figuring with the high temps yesterday and the super high uv index it sent the fish very deep

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[quality time]

I've got lakers as deep as 250' I do not remember the amount of blowback but what we did was drop the rigger till it touched bottom. I'm thinking it was about 300' of cable out but that was in the spring when we run 10lb test. With flea line on the blow back would be much more. So you would think you would pull monsters out of the deep but all we got were 3 and 4 lbers.  Remember the water is always moving and the fish often move with it. You have the right idea of moving until you find fish. I have a tee shirt that says "the secret to fishing is fish where the fish are". I also like to watch the water quality buoy data on Seneca and Owasco. It can give you a rough idea what is going on in Cayuga. Temp breaks and oxygen levels are often key to finding fish but fish do not read the same books we read. We did a grand slam one day with the smallest fish being 6 lbs. The water was 70 deg for all the fish but the laker. THis challenge is what makes it fun!  Wes

[vogel451]

I caught salmon last week 100' down

 

When the thermocline sets up in early summer it happens high in the water column starting just under the surface.  By late fall that same temp sinks, it does not rise with cooling surface temp.  I would be willing to bet anything above 60' right now is 60degrees Plus (I lost my probe a month ago)  . Atleast thats my theory!

Edited September 20, 2017 by vogel451

[lily]

On seneca lake the temp is between 60 and 70 until about 20 meters at 20 meters the temp breaks off sharply to 50 degrees and then continues to fall down in to the 40s and then flat lines out according to the water quality bouy readings on the lake it's my assumption that the thermal break on the graf would be the thermalcline maybe I'm wrong. I don't have a temp probe either. I also looked at Owasco lake bouy and that has a break at also the same general area. So 20 meters is between 60 and 70 ft. I also noted that on both lakes there was a change in the oxygen saturation right at about the same depth. Seems to me that the 2 have something to do with each other. I'm not a marine Biologist and normally fish where I see marks and if not marking many fish fish depths that I have fished in the past and had success at certain times of the year. Or I just fish multiple depths until I can get some hook ups and duplicate what was working on which ever rod fired. Maybe now I'm thinking to much or maybe all summer I didn't have to think enough because the fish were so scattered. I do know that Monday when I fished about 4 pm I had surface temps above 70 and decided to go swimming after cooking in the sun all day. When I dove off of the boat there was a huge change in temp not far below the surface. Got cold quick[emoji23]

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