Cayuga Perch Event

 Dave, Shu and I spent a full day on Cayuga Lake this week.  In the north end of the lake there is a spot inn about 11-20' feet of water where the perch fisherman congregate.  We avoid this crowd and use the fish finder to help us find the schools of fish.  

Recently we have come to understand what represents schools of perch look like on the fish finder screen.  They do not look life the traditional hooks, rather the screen looks like a rippled carpet on the bottom.

We probably caught 200 fish and kept 72.  Our rule is to keep perch in the 10"-14" size.  Anything outside this slot is released.  A new favorite bait store we have found is Dave's Bait and Tackle.  The owner is extremely knowledgeable and sells quality bait.

That night we enjoyed a driveway perch fry with all my girls, the Flanagans and Shu.  Looks like crappie fishing is our next adventure.

Couple of Good Days on Cayuga

Nice perch Jess!

 Last week I got to spend two days on Cayuga Lake with Dave, Jessica, and Jake.  We launched out of Dean's Cove and fished primarily in that area.  Near the large dead tree on the west shore were the usual 500 boats sitting on an acre of water perch fishing.  I can't stand fishing in tight quarters, especially on a big lake.  We stayed away and brought home 38 perch over 12 inches.  Jessica caught a gigantic perch!  The next day we caught 9 beautiful lake trout in 2 hours.  We caught them jigging in 156 feet of water where we had located a large bait ball of alewives.  I know they were alewives as when I cleaned the fish there were literally 15-20 alewives in each of their stomachs.  

Team Effort

The quality of the lake trout are immensely better in Cayuga Lake than Keuka Lake.  I am sure the demise of the alewives population on Keuka Lake is to blame.  I have only ever found ONE alewive in a Keuka Lake Trout.  I usually find perch minnows or shiners.

We ventured up to the mud lock area looking for crappie, but at 50 degrees the water temperature was still too cold for them.

Jigged up a nice trout

Love fall...crappie, perch, bow hunting and Argentine Chorizo

Venison Argentine Chorizo sausage

The fall season is well underway.  A couple of weekends ago, after splitting a lot of shag-bark hickory, Dave brought over his freshly packed venison Argentine Chorizo.  It was absolutely incredible.  I had never had anything like it.  John, Mark, Bill, Scott, Jessica and Tracy all enjoyed the food and company.

We have been pulling and resetting tree stands.   On the Suor property we took down a great stand that overlooked the infamous "mines of Moria".  The "mines" have been clearcut and leveled by a new owner.  We also took down the tall stand on the Quaker Meeting House side of the property.   Out in Bloomfield Tieg, Jessica, Hannah and Jake took down the stand by Charlie's and moved it east.  Great two person stand for gun hunting.

Last weekend was absolutely beautiful, a true Indian summer weekend.  With Hannah in school, Jessica in the Adks, Jake at Penn State and Tracy doing report cards I spent the weekend with Dave fishing.  On Saturday we went to Irondequiot Bay looking for perch.  We debated about going to the canal between Cayuga and Seneca lakes but neither of us had been on the bay for a couple of years.  It proved to be a good day.  WE tucked away in a bay and caught a pile of perch with some nice large mouth bass thrown in too.  We ended up leaving with 33 perch over 12 inches.  We probably threw back another 50 dinks.  There were lots of bait fish in the bay.  We caught these perch, surprisingly, 6-10' feet off shore.

Bow hunting with Jessica, Jake and Cole...and splitting wood

Sunday was a "change your life" kind of day.  I have great memories of fishing for crappie on Chautauqua Lake and Honeoye Lake in the spring for crappie.  But for some reason I had it in my head that crappie could only be caught during a very short window of time in the spring.  Well when Dave told me that he had connected with an "old timer" who crushes the crappie in the fall, named John, and that John was going to give us a lesson on Canandaigua Lake....my reply was, yeah, and the best time to hunt whitetail is in May....no one catches crappie in the fall.

Canandaigua Lake perch & crappie

Irondequiot Bay catch

So we go to the Naples boat launch where we are met by a young man named Dylan who worked with Cornell and was inspecting boats for invasive species.  Dylan worked the ramp all fall.  He told us of all the trout, salmon, perch and bass fisherman had been catching.  When I asked him how the crappie fishing had been and he replied that no one catches crappie in the fall to which I glared at Dave who shrugged me off.

Well John was indeed a great fisherman.  He took us to specific places on the lake using both live bait and jigs.  We caught crappie hand over fish.  My paradigm is changed and now I cannot wait to try this technique on Chautauqua and the Finger Lakes in the fall.  Crappie are GREAT to eat and they are a fun fish to catch.

Oak Leaf Grubs ~ Crane Fly Larvae ~ Leatherjackets

There are a small group of Finger Lake fisherman/woman who can regularly go out and catch 12"+ per on a regular basis.  A lot goes into their success, but what most people do not realize is that the success is due quality of preparation and technique.  Their equipment is not expensive nor high end.

Myself I use an ultra-light rod and reel from Walmart with 4 pound test and tie a 4 pound fluorocarbon leader with two #6 Mosquito Hooks and a weight.

Quality bait is also essential.  I often reference the Outdoor Store in Bloomfield and Bubba's Bait in Pultney as my two favorite live bait stores.  There is however an incredible bait that the trophy perch fisherman use on a regular basis.  This bait is called oak leaf grubs, aka. leatherjackets, aka. crane fly larvae.

Finger Lake fisherman who catch the big ones use crane larvae bait in the winter and spring.  There is great classic regional lore around these baits.  People search high and low for these leatherjackets.  Once a fisherman finds them they never tell a soul where they found them, for if they do word gets out and their honey hole will get picked clean by other fisherman.

Today Johnny-boy and I took advantage of the unusually warm weather to go hunt for these elusive larvae.  I wanted to try a double secret location that I had stumbled upon previously.  With my grandfathers bamboo net and a dirt rake we hike down a stream until we came to a place where leaves were backed up against a log laying across the stream.  In five scoops we collected 107 grubs.  This should be good enough for two or three perch outings.

What is great about this location is that the grubs will be there every year.  That is why it is secret-secret where these locations are. Can't tell you where....  :-)

Keuka Lake & More Jack Perch

Keuka Lake Perch in January 2017 Apthorpes

JP, Shu, Johnny-boy, Jake and I headed out in the Grady White again looking for more Jack Perch on Keuka Lake.  Seneca and Cayuga lakes are the best known for their giant perch, but we have been really enjoying having similar success on Keuka Lake this winter.  The wind was a stiff 15-20mph out of the south so we headed to the sheltered bays.

Johnny-Boy, Shu, Jake and me January 2017 Keuka 

JP Perchasaurus

Shu tossing this one back

This outing I was conscious about using 4 pound fluorocarbon at the end of 4 pound monofilament.  I just use regular fluorocarbon line and not the "leader line".  The only time I ever think there is a difference is when we are musky/pike fishing and then I will use 80 pound fluoro-leaders.  I have also become sold on using Owner Mosquito Hooks #6....very impressed with them and that is all we use now.  There is no terminal tackle on our rigs.  I use a blood-knot to tie the fluoro to the mono line.  I put two hooks on loops.  Loops are important because they allow the minnow to swim naturally, important for catching big perch.

The cycle was typical for perch fishing.  We would get on the school for an hour than we would have to move with the school.  Fortunately Jake worked the anchor which was a huge help.  Jake and JP definitely caught the most fish with Shu catching the biggest, a lake trout in 26' of water.

Jake with a pickerel

Jake, Norwich Senior, USAF 

An interesting observation on these perch was that they were gorging themselves on perch minnows.  I always thought that pike were the only cannibal freshwater fish.  I read this article on Oneida perch and they will indeed eat their young.....The second observations is some of the perch had zebra mussels in their mouths.  The rigs we use are off the bottom so it could not have been a coincidental pickup from the bottom while hauling the fish in.  I looked up a research article on the subject and sure enough large perch will eat zebra mussels.

So we kept 75 perch over 10 inches amongst the 5 of us.  They were true slobs and our respective families all enjoyed a wonderful fish fry that evening.  Feels good to have five different "honey-holes" for perch now on Keuka Lake....really starting to get the lake dialed in.

Johnny Boy

Annual Tradition & Jumbo Perch on Keuka Lake

Jessica putting on a clinic

For the last few years we have got into a tradition of going on a perch outing the day or two before Christmas.  Every year we seem to tear them up and this year was no different.  There was a strong south west wind on Keuka Lake so we decided to try fishing in Hammondsport as the water would be fishable.  We took our Grady White Offshore 24 with 6 passengers for a half hour and very bumpy ride  from Branchport .

Charlie, Jake M., and Jessica

It had been three months since I started the Grady White but she started right up.  We got this big old boat because we wanted to be able to take our kids and their friends fishing particularly in the winter months as that is the best time to fish.  This boat is also sturdy enough to be safe on the Finger Lakes no matter how bad the wind and waves might get.  This trip we had 4 "kids" three of whom are college football players and the Grady was perfect for this "big" group.  Jessica, Jake M., and Charlie stayed in the cuddy for our journey south/north.

Charlie and the Captain

The night before I stopped at the Outdoor Store in Bloomfield for 6 dozen minnows.  The fatheads were larger than usual, probably 2", and it was the last they had.  The predicted warmer weather had caused a run on people buying bait.  My friend and I both were concerned that the minnows were too big but in hind sight we believe the larger minnows attributed to the fact that,  of the 46 perch we caught, there were none smaller than 10 inches.

In the south end of Keuka Lake there are hundreds if not thousands of migratory birds.  It was beautiful to see the snow geese, swans, and large flocks of ducks coming and going all day long.  We poked around looking for the perch between depths of 12-20 feet.  Finally we setup at 25 feet on the outside edge of weed bed.  Two hours later and 46 10+inch perch in the boat we called it a day.  My daughter Jessica, the only female on the boat, put on a clinic by totally catching way more than anyone else.

That night a friend of mind, John, and I cleaned all the fish in the garage.  The kids want, and shall receive, a big perch fry for a Christmas meal.

Fun Memorial Day on Seneca and Keuka lakes

Just got back from five days of fishing with a group of fathers & sons.  Five days before we left there was a bad storm in the region, especially in Branchport and Penn Yan.  It rained as much as 8 inches in one hour.  The result was lots of washouts and high water that resulted in Keuka Lake having a motorboat ban for the weekend and Seneca Lake had a 5 MPH speed limit.

Jake and Charlie with their perch caught while kayaking

Taylor's first cast 

What we did was trailered Mr. Flanagan's Lund and our Grady White over to Severne Point on Seneca Lake. The weather was stunningly beautiful and the boating ban made for a strangely surreal and calm setting on the lakes.  I have to admit I enjoyed the absence of jet skiers and speed boats, etc.  Friday night Dave made the camp venison prime rib sandwiches.  He smoked the roasts and red peppers than thinly sliced them his meat slicer that he had brought down just for this meal.  Unfortunately the next day Dave fell getting out of his boat and broke 3 ribs.  That was disappointing for sure.

Jake with his 2.5lb, 16 inch perch

At night the boys had fun staying up late and netting alewives that were attracted to the green underwater lights that Shu had put in around his dock.  We enjoyed nightly bon fires and healthy games of cards.  The deep fryer and Green Egg were used nightly for fish, chips, and venison.

 Discovered a great bait shop called 

Bubbas Bait Shop
10519 Cty Rt 76
Hammondsport, NY  607 868 7088

Great people and the bait was priced very fair.  I will still use the Outdoor Store for bait enroute to the Finger Lakes, but once I am there I will be using Bubba's for sure.

Canandaigua Fishing In January

What a beautiful day for fishing! Who can believe that on January 7th the water on Canandaigua would be 44 degrees and the air temperature 50 degrees?!

Today my neighbor Dave took Jake and I out in his boat for a day of fishing. My friend Dan Sharp of Honeoye Tackle recommended perch fishing on Canandaigua Lake and he was right on. We fished the north end of the lake near the Pump House from 8:00AM to 1:00 PM. A total of 12 keepers and probably another 12 were thrown back. A couple of surprises as I caught this nice smallmouth and a chain pickerel.

Jake was great! He was up at 6:00 AM, dressed in hunting pants and a 70's Army coat. He caught some real nice prch using a minnow and bottom weight. I never had to assist him with tangled lines or the like.