Empire Team Trail kicked off the season out of Union Springs, NY on Cayuga Lake. A regular stop for the Elites, Cayuga is roughly 40 miles long and offers a multitude of structure, cover, and forage. Anglers can truly fish to their strengths and have a legitimate shot at Lunker largemouth and smallmouth alike.
In spite of the additional challenges presented by COVID, we had 59 boats in the field, and teams were chasing both giant bass and coveted trail points. The north end was mostly spawned-out, with big bites few and far between. Further down the lake water temps were still relatively cool from the 400+ foot depths of Cayuga, but days leading up to the event there wasn’t much sign of the smallmouth moving to the banks. For those that took the gamble and headed south on tournament day, it paid off big time!
Taking top honors, Eric Sullivan and Tom Russell brought in a monster bag of smallmouth, tipping the scales at a whopping 29.5 pounds, anchored by a 7.14 Lunker.
Behind them was Jason Chier and Jonathan Evans, also with an impressive bag of smallmouth weighing-in at 26.38 pounds.
Congratulations to our top teams on showing what NY fishing is all about!
