Early April saw crazy warm weather. Temperatures were in the 80s for over a week. Perfect for staying relatively warm fishing on the freezing cold Keuka, Cayuga, and Lake Ontario.
I have been able to get out 5 times this month with close friends and family. Our first trip was on our 24' Grady White fishing for perch on Keuka Lake. As this blog has shown we have had banner outings early April on this lake for perch.....like keeping 50 over 12" per group outing....historically. Well Keuka is a different lake to day than days of ole. It is well documented about the challenges of this lake with struggling alewives populations and unsuccessful (so far) reintroduction of ciscoes to the lake. We fished 8 hours....Branchport, the fork, and Hammondsport. Not only did we not get a perch bite, but we never even saw a perch or minnow in the crystal clear water. In years past you could see large clouds of minnows and schools of perch. We inadvertently caught three small lake trout. Fun to catch on a perch rig, but not very big. When I cleaned them I found nothing in their stomachs.
Fortunately the next four outings were extremely successful. Trip number 2 saw us on Cayuga Lake fishing for perch. As is typical this time of year there were a PILE of boats all bunched up around two spots on the north end of the lake. They were crushing dinks but we fish for the 12"+ perch so we actively looked for such fish. We found them in 20' of water, while the masses were all fishing 10-14'. Interesting observation that perch minnows were found in the perch we cleaned. I thought only pike were cannibalistic....who knew?!
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| Huge Cisco |
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| Released Lake Trout |
Third trip had us hunting brown trout on Lake Ontario. April is the hot time to catch brown trout in shallow water. We launched out of Charlotte and headed east about ten miles to get away from all the other boats. While it was warm inshore, it was 42 degrees on the water. We caught four brown trout, a small mouth bass, and a big cisco. All the fish were gorging on minnows and gobies.
The fourth trip saw Dave, Shu and I return to Cayuga Lake. This time the fish were in 18 feet of water and we crushed em! We got our bait from Daves Bait & Tackle near Auburn which is a favorite of ours. This time I saved the carcasses of 12 perch to make fish broth from and then used the broth to make Caldo de pescado.
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| In the perch bellies |
Yesterday we traveled to Hamlin NY to fish for trout on Lake Ontario west of Rochester. This time Jessica joined Dave and I. First trolling line set out hooked a king salmon in the first 5 minutes and in 10 feet of water. We ended up keeping this king and two brown trout.
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| Jessica with a king salmon and brown trout |
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