RiverRat22

I used it for bass fishing and jigging for lake trout on Cayuga this year. I don’t troll but I bet it’d be a lot of fun to point it behind the boat and watch the fish come in. 
 

For bass fishing, I think trolling motor mounted transducer is the way to go. I started the season with it on a transducer pole but got sick of having to stow both my trolling motor and transducer pole whenever I wanted to run to a new spot. With it mounted on the TM I’m basically always panning around with the foot pedal. When it was pole mounted I never really panned around because it meant having to take my hand off my reel and stop fishing. 
 

I don’t think livescope has really helped me catch anymore lakers.  Laker fishing is more about finding a good spot with regular downscan sonar before even stopping and putting a lure in the water. Regular sonar works pretty good for vertical jigging anyways.  It’s just more fun seeing the fish react on livescope. 

Part of what makes it hard for me to figure out is just how much bait there is. Between the perch, gobies, and alewives there’s smallmouth food everywhere I look. 
 

I found a spot last time out that was just loaded with gobies. I fished it hard but never caught a bass. Maybe I’ll try to find some areas with more alewives next time. 

On 9/5/2023 at 9:51 PM, Gill-T said:

I am not an expert on Cayuga but I have fished for bass on a few of the bigger fingers. I would look for deep water around points. They are more pelagic than largemouths and chase alewife schools but they probably feel more comfortable with some rock under them.  Derp points allow for ambushing alewives while chewing on crawdads. 

Thank you Gill. I’ve wondered a lot about how pelagic they are. 

I’m looking for some help catching some smallmouth on Cayuga. I’m taking my dad fishing this weekend and would love to catch a couple smallies with him. 

This is my first year fishing Cayuga (moved here from Florida). I had a great spring catching largemouth and smallmouth but have really struggled to catch anything this summer. 

I’m not looking to steal anyone’s spot or anything. I just want some advice on what type of stuff to find them in. Should I look shallow or deep? Weeds or rock? Steep or gradual drop offs?  I mostly fish from the power plant south to Trumansburg since that’s where I caught them in the spring. Is that just a bad area?  I feel like I’ve tried everything and all I catch are perch and some random rainbows. 
 

Thanks in advance.
 

Picture of my boat. Feel free to stop and say hi if you see me out there. 
 

1 minute ago, MXFisher said:

Very cool pics. Thanks for sharing. What site do you find those on?

 

https://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/modis/region_map.html

NOAA monitors all the Great Lakes. I’m actually new to the finger lakes area but used these satellite images all the time when I lived in Ohio and fished the west end of Lake Erie. That area gets hit with algae blooms every summer. 

Thought I’d share the satellite images. Dean’s Cove area still looks green, but the farther south the cleaner the water. 
 

https://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/modis/modis.php?region=o&page=1