Originally Posted by bulletbob
No Muskies in Cayuga..The "deep" Lake Trout lakes in NJ are 60 feet and a mile or two long.. Cayuga is 435 feet deep and 40 miles long... You can catch fish jigging, but trollers outcatch jiggers by a wide margin... There is one or two guys that guide here jigging for lakers, but the SMB in Cayuga is dead... there was a massive die off of SMB, Rock Bass, Sunfish, Carp, Bullheads Suckers, Perch,Pike, Pickerel, due to VHS, and in much of the lake they never recovered.. In the 90's it was nothing to catch 100 rock bass to 12 inches, along with dozens of big SMB, huge sunnies and perch, just with a worm and bobber.. The big die off was massive... They used bucket loaders and trucks to take the huge piles of dead fish off the shorelines.. Then the Gobies came, and now nothing can reproduce.. As soon as any fish nests, the nest is attacked by hundreds of gobies.. There are videos on YT.. The fish cannot reproduce... I haven't caught a sunfish in Cayuga in about 13 years.. I caught 2 rock bass there last year, the first since 2008.. They say the north end of the lake isn't as bad with gobies as its mud/sand bottom, but I dunno.. I was there last year and the bottom was simpy swarming with them.. What has happened to the fishing in this section of NY is a shame..
Most guys here aren't even aware because they troll only, and since the alewives are still ok, and lake trout eat gobies, all is well.. The fish are stocked, and grow quickly, and are caught most readily by trollers...
Any species that lives near shore and is not stocked is either gone or close to it... Nothing can be done at this point really.. All the invasives are well established, and the system is part of the Great lakes .. all connected.. Next up??... Grass Carp.... bob
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