Captain Bill's Blog

Wilson Harbor Invitational

Captain Bill — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:25:13 GMT

We fished the Wilson Harbor Invitational this past weekend and had a great time. We caught a TON of Kings over the two days that we fished, but they just weren't big enough to put us in the money. On Friday we pre-fished down past Olcott in 100-240FOW and we had a great class size of fish. Most of the Kings came on DW Superslimsin Midnight Special, NBK, and 42nd fished off of our Cannon DT10's down anywhere from 40-100'. We also took a fair number of fish on our Blood Run 300 and 400 Super Coppers and off of our Walker Deeper Divers out 120-300' pulling Spin Dr/ Sigg's Rigs fly combos. Our best combos were a green dot Spinny pulling a Siggs Billy V Glow Ghost and a white Spinny pulling a Siggs Gangster fly. We had a big box full of Kings like the one below on Friday:

On Saturday we went back to our waypoints from the day before only to find that the larger Kings had moved elsewhere. So we went into search mode. Just like the day before we took a bunch of fish, but today they weren't the size that we needed. At the end of the day we had boated well over 20 Kings but our average size was way off the winning pace. We never were able to find the larger fish that we were over the day before. As always Kevin Jerge did a great job in putting together the event and we were treated to another fantastic dinner and awards ceremony. A big congratulations goes out to Hank Condes and his team for putting together the winning box and taking home the $25,000 first place check!

We'll be back fishing Cayuga Lake for the rest of the season now. Our plans to fish the Lake Ontario Pro-Am series fell through at the last minute so we'll be focusing our efforts on charters and the tournaments and derbies here on Cayuga Lake. We still have availability for your Cayuga Lake charter this year - shoot me an email at capt.bill@billyvsportfishing.com or give me a call at 607-592-9012 to book your trip.

Until Next Time,
Fish On!!

~Capt. Bill

Cayuga Lake report - May 6, 2012

Captain Bill — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:51:59 GMT

Today Jay and I were joined by Jon and his parents Kan and Beverly for a charter/fishing lesson on Cayuga Lake. Jon is addicted to fishing for trout and salmon of all types and we did our best to help shorten the learning curve for him today. We left the dock at 6am and headed to the south end of the lake only to find that the lake still hadn't cleared from the 4" of rain that we received on Thursday night. We were able to dig a few fish out of the chocolate milk water on the east shore but quickly decided to point the boat north to try and find some better colored water. There was a very clear color break in the water at about Portland point and we worked it for a bit and managed a nice Atlantic for our efforts. There was a lot of debris in the water that kept fouling our lines so we headed over into the green water on the west side and pointed it towards Taughannock. We had a very steady pick of fish on that troll in everything from 30-275 FOW. Stick baits off of planer boards did most of the damage - Thin Fins, Jr Thundersticks, and Rapalas in white, black/gold, and chartreuse all took fish. We also took fish today from our Cannon Downriggers down anywhere from 20-50' pulling Dreamweaver Superslims in Midnight Special, Gator, and Die Hard patterns.

Once we got to Taughannock we were rewarded with a very nice flurry of fish to wrap up our trip. I think we were able to show Jon a few tricks (he took a couple of pages of notes!) and helped to cement his love for fishing. I wouldn't be surprised to see Jon out in his own boat someday!

We'll be up in Wilson on Lake Ontario for the Wilson Harbor Invitational next weekend so stay tuned right here for a full report. Once we get back home to Cayuga Lake the lake should have cleared up and the fishing should continue to be incredible. Give me a call at 607-592-9012 to book your Cayuga Lake adventure today!

Until Next Time,
Fish On!!

~Capt. Bill

Cayuga shakedown report - April 29, 2012

Captain Bill — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:47:21 GMT

The low water levels on Cayuga Lake have kept us from putting the boat in the water, but last weeks snow storm and the resulting run off gave us just enough water to get our season started. It's a full month later than I had hoped, but here it is - our 2012 shakedown report!

Dad, Jay, and I left Myers Point at 6:15 this morning and motored towards the south end. It was 24 degrees when we left the dock and it was all I could do to see where I was going with the ice that had built up on the windshield of the boat. We set up on the East side north of Esty point and put out a smorgasbord of Rapalas, Jr. Thundersticks, Thin Fins, and Super Slims. It didn't take long and we boated a nice healthy 3 lb brown. After that it was the Landlocked Salmon show - we put 19 of them in the boat by 10:00am! Most of them were 3-4 lbs but we had a few that were pushing 6-7 lbs. We stayed in 10-15 FOW for the most part and we found most water to be 44-45 degrees, but we trolled into some 48 degree water at the far south end of the lake. There really wasn't much of a color pattern today - they took every color that we put out, but they did seem to prefer stick baits flatlined off of our planer boards over spoons on the riggers. Best speed for us was 2.6-2.7mph on our Cannon Intellitroll. Once the sun got up into the sky it became a slow pick and we decided to head back to the marina to work on the boat. I'm glad that we called it a day when we did because the wind kicked up pretty good out of the North shortly after we got back to the dock.

We're looking forward to getting after it this spring so keep an eye out here for the very latest from Cayuga Lake! We still have some charter dates available - give us a call at 607-592-9012 or email me at capt.bill@billyvsportfishing.com to lock in your 2012 Cayuga Lake trip.

Until Next Time,
Fish On!!

~Capt. Bill