Again, here we go.

OK, I was too busy fishing this past 4 days to do much. However if you are looking here you're in the wrong spot- visit the new site much improved, the Cayuga Fisher, and if you tried to follow the link below to the reports, I'm sorry it's broken, but this one works from now on. Good luck.

here we go.

Okay, the Cayuga Fisher is now up and crawling along. Not much to look at yet, but the reports section is active and I'll be updating that regulary instead of this site. This will stay here for archival purposes... please check out the new reports!

No luck today.

Well I went out for a few hours in the kayak to try and jig up some lakers. Nothing doing as it was noon and windy... why I didn't take the boat. I'll be out tomorrow morning early with the boat though...

One of the reasons I'm moving this is the new-for-your-convenience feature of posting images... it automatically uploads them to the Blogger server! There's no way around it. Blogger (Google of course) steals your pictures!! So a big thumbs down to those guys. I'll be moving it soon. Page construction is underway on the new server. (thanks Chris!)(also of course I hope you'll add in when you get a chance...)

Bad news on the weather front. No rain and hot conditions have left streams far below average. Fall Creek spent 3 days at or above average last month... and it's headed for a record low by tomorrow afternoon. Rain! Please?

ps. I fixed the almost-very-mortifying typo.

fish and details

Hi everyone, (if there's anyone out there), things have been going well in the park. I've managed at least one laker every time out. Saturday I tried all morning with only one fish- the least productive so far... one fish in 5 hours. other times I've been going 1-2 lakers per hour which is a lot more fun!

Chris and I went out friday night in the boat at Taughannock for fun and fish. We messed around trying to catch lakers for a while but it was breezy and we were drifting too fast. Tried bass for a few minutes before pulling ashore and hanging out in some cool rocks. Wish I had a picture of that. Chris went swimming while I fished bass. Back out a little later I caught one before we headed in to Steve's party...

Beautiful afternoon on the water!

Other things: Seeing as this has become more or less just me I'm going to be switching it over shortly to another page. Keep checking here until I let you all know. New site will have lots of information, links, opinion, and photographs... and be a little more fun. Happy fishing everyone...

More lakers

Started off the day by catching some bait. Thet're still in at Taughannock but activit y is slowing. Still got a dozen or so alewives which I eventually froze. First light I headed out and around the point. After drifting a while through different depths I caught a medium sized smallmouth. At this point I trolled out a little further in hopes of more lake trout. Found some! First bite came just after I yelled to another boat. Turned up a nice female (she had eggs) around 26". Good sized fish for me still. Drifting around I caught a few more small ones over the next hour and a half or so. Jigging for these fish seems to be incredibly productive! It's also a lot cheaper than buying downriggers and it can be done in the rowboat... anyone want to go?

Just a big lake trout.

Well. I don't really know what to say here. After a great Grassroots festival dancing all night, breakfast at the Falls at 7:00, a nap and an unexpected fishing trip all add up to this absolutely huge lake trout.

I finally got out with John Gaulke, expert fisherman and local guide. He showed me what I should be doing out there! Basically what I have been doing, but with two important things. Actually only one of them is really important: confidence. That sums it all up. Know the fish are there and catch them. Of course we were using quality gear and he showed me some tricks and good lake and general fishing info... it was great to say the least.

We headed out into the lake around 3:30 and were fishing by four. A few minutes later I had my first hits, and then one that I lost. After a few more tries we moved slightly. It took a while to get used to it, feeling it on bottom and feeling the fish...

They really do bite lightly, so that's the hard part, but after getting a few takes you figure it out and start catching fish. I landed two smaller ones which I kept before hooking this one. 34" on a quick measure, maybe we could have squeezed a few more out of it by closing the mouth and making sure it was perfectly straight, but who cares! Monster laker! This fish DID NOT want to give up. A huge fight, it took a loooong time to land this fish.

This was the first fish in my life I couldn't move if I wanted to. Actually I spent 5 minutes trying to get it to budge before getting 10 feet on it... it was like fighting a drunken, sunken log. Any time I got it near the warmer water it headed straight down and I couldn't stop it! The rod was bent it two, drag cranked down, man was that awesome!!! I could go on and on about the whole trip, it was fantastic. John, thanks, excellent trip. Fish, thanks. Big fella- I hope you made it. A little trouble reviving that fish but I think it'll make it. That's all for now, over and out.

Pop's good old days

Hi everyone, this one's for my grandfather. While at his burial last weekend I found an old collage of photos of him. Here's a few of my favorites. The little girl is my mother! These didn't come out as well as I'd hoped, so you can't see the big grin on his face when he caught that fish...

Just a great man, none of you readers have met him so I don't want to bore you all, but he was a special figure in my life, especially as a child- we'd go visit for weeks at a time in the summers and he'd take us golfing and fishing, waterskiing and more. Always had a joke and a smile, and usually a silly hat on too.

In other matters I did some fishing myself, caught a handful of bass on my spinning gear and another handful of sunnies with my fly rod. It's a bit sad... the water quality in Peach Lake has been deteriorating and they recently introduced triploid grass carp to help control the weeds. Really they should be addressing the pollution problem instead. Anyway, I put the dock in to fish off of. It was great to be able to escape the madness and go fishing for a while. Good weekend all around with fishing, a burial and a wedding all tossed in the mix.