It feels like we’ve hopped the fence. As we head into the Bassmaster Elite Series event on Cayuga this week, we’re in this season’s home stretch.
We’ve come over a big hill, and we’ve made the big change from being in the South to fishing in the North. This is going to bring some different experiences, so I got to thinking about the things I like about this Northern swing.
Weather: It’s hot as heck at my house in Oklahoma, but you come up here to central New York and it’s nice. You can have a 90-degree day, but the lack of humidity just gives it a totally different feel than our southern summers have.
It just makes this time of year bearable again. You want to wear a hoodie in the morning, which I think is awesome. It’s a feel-good touch that contributes to your overall comfort on the water.
Back home, I think we’ve recently had a heat index of 110, so getting up here to Cayuga and being comfortable is one of my favorite parts of the experience.
Scenery: I’m very proud of my Southern landscapes, but it’s a nice change of pace heading up north because I see things I don’t get to see a lot back home. Driving up here on Friday, hitting the last couple hours before evening and seeing all the big deer out in the corn fields and bean fields, it’s something new.
I’ve traveled so much in the South over the past few years, I know what to expect. I know what the lakes are going to be like. But up here, it’s still a little different; it’s still kind of new to me.
I’m still excited to drive around and see all the big windmills, the farmlands and the little bodies of water.
Dining: I like eating the yellow perch; it’s about as good as you can get in the freshwater. I’ve found a few restaurants up here that serve yellow perch, so if I have any time while I’m up here, I’ll be sure to stop by and sample this local fare.
Now, in addition to the personal stuff, there are also several practical points that I have to consider when I travel up north. For one thing, each state has different requirements for what you have to have in your boat.
Many states have specific laws for how much anchor rope you have to carry, what kind of safety gear you need and various licensing. For example, when I got up here, I reviewed the local requirements and found that I needed to replace an item in my safety kit. One trip to the local big box store was all it took, but I guess the point is that you always want to make sure you understand the local regulations whenever you travel to fish.
As for the actual fishing on Cayuga, the biggest thing is that we’re almost at the end of June and the water temperature was almost 64 degrees. That means I can fish shallow and the fish probably haven’t spawned that long ago.
That means a guy like me, who likes fishing shallow, can go up north and still compete shallow. That excites me because when we go to these places I haven’t been to a lot, it’s good to fish my confidence baits and techniques.
That’s why I look forward to going up north, because I know there will be a lot of fish caught shallow. If you go to Lake Erie or the St. Lawrence River, there’s going to be some fish caught out deep. But all in all, a guy can compete on the Northern swing by fishing shallow. He may not win every event, but he can compete by fishing shallow.
The temperature has a lot to do with it, but so does the cover — the grass, the rocks, the docks. Also, it’s the current. A lot of these fisheries have current so with the combination of this and the vegetation that’s in the water, the fish don’t have any reason to go out deep.
As far as my bait selection for this Northern swing, I’ll for sure have a Booyah Pad Crasher frog on my deck. I’ll also have a couple of flipping sticks rigged with a Booyah Bankroll Jig and a YUM Christie Critter, and I’ll probably have a One Knocker laid out as well.
The thing that makes it fun to fish just about any bait up here is that you don’t know what to expect. I anticipate Cayuga to be mainly a largemouth deal, but you could very well be out there flipping grass with a jig and catch a 3- or 4-pound smallmouth.
That’s one of the unique things about being up here — the little surprises that you get while you’re fishing. You could catch a smallmouth, a walleye, a trout. You really don’t know what you’re going to catch.
Hopefully, I can catch a bass — five good ones, actually.