advice needed: 4 days in Ithaca, NY

[Andrew LaVigne]

Folks - heading for Ithaca for a long wedding weekend, and have a couple days to play around on the water up there. Staying at a house on Cayuga lake with access to canoe/kayak. Have a car, but limited due to the group we're with, so probably not doing any drives longer than an hour or so to fish. 

From what I can tell, the lake may be an ok option for bass/pickerel/maybe trout?, as long as I have a full-sink line available, and some of the tributary streams have smallmouth below & trout above their falls. Looking for a little more in-depth guidance and recs, though. 

Anybody spent much time fishing up there? 

[Bobby Davis]

I went to college about an hour and a half South of Ithaca, and could give you some advice about place to fish down there if interested.  Send me an email if you want.

[Greggory DiSalvo]

I fish Canandaigua Lake a lot and this time of year I have the best luck with bass.  Pickerel will bite, but fall and early spring is much better for them.  I don't have too much experience with the trout up there, but i'd imagine most of them have moved back into the lakes by now and are getting down deep. The same can be said for the lakers.  This time of year, you'd have to go out trolling deep.  Closer to Ithica is Waneta lake, a small one at the base of Keuka.  I grew up pounding this lake for bass.  It's an amazing fishery, buy horribly weedy.  I haven't ever fly fished it, but topwater at dawn dusk used to be the ticket with chuggers, jitterbugs, and poppers.  Whatever you would throw should either float or have a weed guard.  With all these lakes, I have the best luck around point and creek mouths where there is ample grass. Fish along drop-offs.  Clousers and crayfish patterns have been my late morning early evening ticket while I use poppers and big foam bugs at night.  Many of these lakes get busy during the day and the fisheries have certainly suffered for it, but you should be able to at least get into a few bass, a slew of rock bass, yellow perch, and maybe a few other critters.  

Sorry to say I don't have any Ithica specific intel, so worth calling some tackle shops.  

Gregg

On Wednesday, June 28, 2017 at 10:49:52 AM UTC-4, Andrew LaVigne wrote:

[Yambag Nelson]

I used to fish the finger lakes quite a bit.  Most of the streams flowing into the south end of Cayuga get runs of trout and salmon in the fall and spring, but there are not likely to be any around this time of year.  If you are interested in trout, one option would be salmon creek about the falls.  It is mostly a stocked fishery but I used to do ok up there.  If you want wild fish, Cayuga inlet will have juevenile rainbows that might get up to 8 or 9 inches.  There are tons of public fishing areas and there will be absolutely no one up there fishing.  I never fished Fall Creek above the falls, but I believe they stock up there.  Those three streams are all within a 10-15 minute drive from Ithaca and receive virtually no pressure outside of the spring run or stocking.  Fall Creek flows right through town/Cornell and is worth stopping by just to check out the falls.

As far as the lake itself, you are generally going to need a boat.  One spot that used to be popular was the outflow at Miliken Station.  It has been years since I've been there, but it is a warmwater discharge that would attract trout and salmon during the colder months.  Not sure what is there during the summer, but I would guess the outflow might still attract fish.    

If you feel like driving, Catherine Creek flows into Seneca and probably has juevenile wild rainbows and maybe a couple resident fish.  There is tons of access there was well. 

One other thing you may want to look into is the Brown Drake or Hex hatch over on Skaneatles.  This would be right at dark but can bring a lot of fish up.  June is normally the time but it could still be going. 

On Wednesday, June 28, 2017 at 10:49:52 AM UTC-4, Andrew LaVigne wrote: