Reports Cayuga Lake 5/16, 17; Seneca Lake 5/18 AM – Finger Lakes Angling Zone (2024)

So far this has been a weird season with the weather and my schedule. The next week is busy with Thursday 5/23 and Friday 5/24 remaining open. Sunday May 26th is open in the AM for an Owasco Lake trip. After that, I do have Tuesday May 28th through Saturday June 1st available. The rest of my June availability is listed under “Reports.” Just scroll down until you find “Availability Moving Forwards” or some heading of that nature.

Lake trout jigging is very good in general on both Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. We are in a typical pre-thermocline pattern with fairly large plateaus of warm water being blown around. Best depths for us have been around 50′ to maybe 120′. Of course there are fish shallower and deeper and some lakers are being taken via casting and fly-casting shallow as well as via deep jigging. Rainbows and some mostly small salmon are in the mix on Cayuga Lake.

5/16 AM Cayuga Lake: Guided Mike for a 6-hour trip. I picked him up via boat at Dean’s Cove. The ride over was in thick fog and took me over 25 minutes. The fog was brutal. It was so bad, that as Mike drove over from his rental on Seneca Lake, they saw a head-on collision that had just taken place in dense fog. Emergency crews were on the way and it appeared that someone backed out of their driveway and perhaps had just turned before getting hammered. It can be dangerous stuff whether out driving or boating, so I try to avoid it as much as possible.

Mike really enjoys this area and does a lot of fishing all over the place – both in NY, PA and other states – freshwater, saltwater and fly-fishing. He managed to catch a couple of salmon and a rainbow of his rental’s dock on Seneca. One salmon was a dink but the other was a nice one. Seneca Lake continues to get better and better!

We had a very steady bite today with a nice double-digit catch. I believe fish mostly ran 24″ to 26″ or 27″ today with a few bigger. Chartreuse, or more accurately chartreuse silk (from Lunker City) was the hot color. He had one hook-up from what had to be a nice rainbow or salmon. Most of our catching was in less than 100 fow today.

5/18 AM: Seneca Lake – Guided Johan and Koen, both originally from Belgium along with Michael. These guys have fished the area with me and on their own for quite some time now and it’s always a joy to have this crew aboard. Last year I had Mike out here with a couple of his buddies. Johan and Koen were last out here when the fishing was dismal – maybe 5 or 6 years ago. They have a lot of history and love for Seneca Lake’s lake trout fishery and wanted to see for themselves how the rebound has been going. The guys are renting a place on Cayuga Lake and had good fishing there over the past couple of days, including down around some mid-lake areas.

Seneca Lake did not disappoint today! We got into the double-digits (Koen did by himself!) About half of the fish landed today were wild. Quite a few were dropped and most were on the younger, smaller side. We had fish going from 16″ up to 31″ today. The lake trout population here continues to rebuild and there will be some terrific fishing here over the next few years. If lamprey control continues to be consistent and successful, the sky is the limit here and this lake will be every bit the fishery that Cayuga Lake currently is – maybe even better!