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Lake Ontario trout and salmon charters Lake Ontario salmon and trout charters Lake Ontario salmon charters Lake Ontario fishing charters Oswego fishing charters Oswego salmon charters Oswego charter captains salmon and trout charters fishing lake ontario lake ontario fishing lake ontario salmon fishing trout salmon fishing charter lake ontario lake ontario salmon lake fishing reports ontario fish fish lake ontario lake ontario charters ontario fishing charter lake ontario fishing guides charter fishing lake oswego salmon charters lake ontario fishing charters salmon fishing charter salmon charters lake ontario salmon charters lake ontario trout charter 0swego fishing charters eastern lake ontario salmon charters eastern lake ontario fishing charters 1 Every year just before the charter fishing season begins, I always receive emails asking me to let folks know if and when we start catching salmon. Well, after my charter today with Steve Farrell, Jason, and Fred Sr. and Jr., I would have to say, "The kings are back!" Under slightly overcast skies, we left the dock at 5:00 AM, with a hint of daylight in the eastern sky. Ten minutes later, not far beyond the Oswego Harbor lighthouse, we were setting lines. The first hit came right in the wash of the motor as a line was being set. At 5:30 AM, the starboard Dipsy rod started bucking and the drag on the Penn reel finally stopped screeching as the line counter read 350'. Minutes later, Steve Farrell, photo left, boated a 20 lb. king, the first of the 2001 season, came aboard. That fish was followed by another 20+ lb. king, 2 browns, several lakers, a coho, and an Atlantic salmon..., steady fishing all morning. Check our fishing hotline for more photos of the day's catch. It could be an interesting season, with trout and salmon averaging larger than normal for this time of year. All you have to do is check the LOC Derby leaderboard,
2 When Rob Kring, his dad Bob, brother Gene, and nephew Logan stepped onboard the “Fish Doctor” just after 5:00 AM on Monday, May 2, the twin engines in my 28’ charter boat were all warmed up and ready to go. My rigger rods and planer board rods were already rigged with what I knew were the right lures for the early morning conditions we would be fishing in. We pushed off from the dock at Oswego Marina just after 5:30 AM on a drizzly morning. This was a special trip. Rob, stationed at the USCG office on the east side of Oswego Harbor, had booked the trip to get his father Bob out on the water for a little R&R after learning earlier that Bob had been diagnosed with a very serious health issue. Encouraged by the fantastic April brown trout fishing we had been enjoying all spring, and was determined to show the Kring family a great trip. After finding what I knew was the right location 3 miles east of Oswego Harbor, just outside the huge plume of muddy Oswego River water, we set our lines at about 6:00 AM. By 9:00 AM, the Kring fishing team, a family of real outdoorsmen, had put their limit of 12 browns, all taken on ultralight gear, in the cooler with fish up to 9.35 lbs. Photo left, Bob Krings battles a brown while his son Gene gets ready to net it and grandson Logan looks on. Unbelievable spring brown trout fishing. This is what the brown trout fishing has been like since my first charter on April 16. On my charter just prior to the Kring charter, 4 fishermen from northern New York boated their limit of 12 browns by 9:15 AM, the largest 9.115 lbs., plus an 8 lb. laker and a coho, as well as some released browns. I’ve fished spring browns on Lake Ontario since 1978, and this is the best brown trout fishing I’ve experienced since 1993. The larger of the 2-year old browns are already up 4 lbs., plus older, larger browns seem to be abundant. Although the browns are still feeding on gobies, I’m starting to see some to alewives in their stomachs. As the alewives begin to mass inshore in the next couple of weeks, browns will start feeding on these oil rich forage fish almost exclusively, and really start putting on the pounds. A 4 lb., 2-year old brown right now will weigh up to 7 to 8 lbs. by late August. With the Oswego River flowing at about 25,000 cfs as this was written on May 3, 2011, compared to a normal flow on this date of around 9500 cfs, the huge plume of nutrient laden river water has the area of the lake from Oswego Harbor east to Four Mile Point heavily colored…, perfect conditions for an extended period of spring brown trout fishing that should last well into June. Meanwhile, Fish Doctor anglers are just lovin’ the great brown trout fishing, not to mention some great eating brown trout filets. A few lake trout and occasional cohos and rainbows are the icing on the cake!
3 It took a while for the king salmon to show up, but they're here. Absent in May and June when salmon fishing was so good the past few years, everyone was wondering when they would show up off Oswego. They're here! The biggest king landed aboard the Fish Doctor as of the last day in June was 19 lb. 3 oz., but that all changed on July 1, when Tony Gelardi, Jr., owner of Pro-Flo Sportfishing, caught a 26 lb. 6 oz. king on a Michigan Stinger spoon. Fishing the spoon on a Dipsy Diver, the king hit with 205 feet showing on the line counter, but it wasn't long before Capt. Ernie, heard..., 939'. Now that's a blistering run. There seems to be several distinct size classes of kings in the area now, yearlings that are in the 20" range, all but mortally hooked fish being released, 2-year olds from 6-8 lbs., 3-year olds in around 20 lbs., and a few larger fish like the 26 lb. 6 oz. king we caught on July 1st. The largest reported off Oswego has been 29 lb. 9 oz., and is now leading the Summer LOC Derby. The 26 lb. 6 oz. fish would have been in 1st place in the Salmon Division of the LOC Derby, but you gotta be in it to win it!
4 Lake Ontario salmon fishing is starting to peak now as more and more adult kings concentrate in the southeastern end of Lake Ontario as they ready for spawning runs in tributaries like the Big Salmon and Oswego. We're fileting kings onboard every day now for Fish Doctor anglers, and the adults are heavy with eggs and milt. By early Sept., these fish will be stacked up right off the mouth of spawning streams. With the conditions of the fish we've been seeing like the big male at left, caught on 8/3/09, you can expect a few kings over 35 lbs. to be caught in late August and early September.
5 Last weekend on March 10, when Capt. Jeff Lantiegne trolled the shoreline of Lake Ontario in Mexico Bay for brown trout in his 17-footer, Miss Em, the lake surface temperature there was 34 degrees. This weekend..., that's yesteday, March 17, the surface temperature had increased to 43 degrees in the same area. Oh yeah, and the brown trout were biting! Holy smokes, folks! We're talking midMarch here. I've seen surface temperatures in midApril many years that were less than 43 degrees. Talk about getting a jump on the early spring brown trout fishing! The brown trout are biting, and Capt. Jeff and his fisherkids, Emily and Owen have the photos to prove it. Check out the nice brown trout that Owen boated on an ultralight Fish Doctor ShortStick yesterday morning, 3/17.
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9 King salmon in the Oswego area are long overdue this spring. Normally making their appearance in early May, we didn’t start catching them until this past week. With the peak alewife spawn normally around June 15 and increased numbers of alewives moving inshore in recent days, we’re betting the kings we’ve been boating are the vanguards of a major movement of salmon that are about to arrive on the Oswego scene. We are already seeing some of the fin-clipped king salmon stocked by the NYSDEC each year since the spring of 2008, with some of these fish over 20 lbs. now. This finclipping study is being done to determine the contribution of wild, naturally reproduced chinooks to the lakewide fishery. With a huge year class of 2-year old kings predicted this season, and the excellent condition of the kings we’ve caught so far, we’re guessing the salmon fishing this year should be outstanding. If the condition of the 20 lb. king salmon in the photo at left caught on June 7, 2011, is any indication, we could be looking at some real heavy weights this season.
10 The 2009 Lake Ontario fishing season is just around the corner, and there is good news for king salmon anglers. According to Jana Lantry, one of NYSDEC's finest fishery biologist and the person in charge of DEC's Lake Ontario creel census, the number of 2-year old king salmon harvested by anglers in 2008 was the 5th highest in 24 years. An estimated total of 48,963 2-year old kings were caught in 150,000 boat trips. This is the same age class of kings that will show up in 2009 as 20-30 lb. 3-year olds. More good news from fishery biologist Maureen Walsh, with the U.S. Biological Survey unit, headquartered in Oswego, NY. According to Maureen, forage trawling data collected aboard the fisheries research vessel, "Kaho", showed the index for total alewife biomass was up, primarily because of a strong 2005 year class, that presently dominates the age composition of the alewife population. The 2007 alewife year class abundance is "middle of the road", and could also contribute to alewife abundance pending the impacts of a colder-than-normal '08-'09 winter and juevenile alewife mortality. With the index for alewife adults and biomass up, let's hope good king salmon growth and survival continues. An abundant alewife forage produces heavy-bellied kings like the one, left, that was caught on May 2nd.
11 If you've been thinking about a salmon fishing charter on Lake Ontario or maybe a salmon fishing trip in your own boat, you could not pick a better time than right now, straight out of Oswego Harbor. Late last week, the salmon bite slowed, and over the weekend strong westerly winds and a nasty midday thunderstorm made salmon fishing tough. On Monday, westerly winds kept boats off the lake. For whatever reason, rough seas and high wind usually push king salmon into the Oswego area in midJuly, and that is exactly what happened. On Tuesday, July 14, two of the boats that fished in rough seas reported limit catches of kings. On Wednesday, July 15, on a short scouting trip prior to our 7/16 charter, we found lots of fish and bait on the fish finder, dropped a rigger to them down 170 feet, and boated a nice king in less than 5 minutes. Within the next 15 minutes we caught and released two browns. Reports from other boats fishing the Oswego area, were the same...., lots of nice kings. We're guessing our charters the rest of the week and this weekend will enjoy some very hot fishing. The king salmon in the photo at left must have been hungry. It hit a "Goldie Hawn" spoon that had only been in the water 5 minutes!
12 The fantastic and very unusual king salmon fishing in April and May spoiled all of us, but the kings “flew the coop” in midMay, hiding out somewhere far from Oswego in 200 mile long by 50 mile wide Lake Ontario. Everyone wondered when they would return. Well, the answer is, “Right now!” About a week ago heavy schools of alewives began moving inshore and the king salmon followed them. On Sat., June 2, Gabe Eagler, photo left, broke the ice with a nice king salmon, and we’ve been catching more and larger kings ever since. Along with the kings, steelhead also followed the bait inshore, and the steelhead fishing the past few days has been better than any I’ve seen in a long while. Just to ice the cake, we’re also catching some nice browns and lakers along with the salmon and steelies. From the looks of things right now, the kings are here to stay. With the warmer than normal winter and spring weather lake conditions are almost one month ahead of schedule. That means with a thermocline formed and the trout and salmon concentrating in the deeper, colder water, we’ll be having some excellent fishing conditions in June. Hope you’ll be joining us!
13 It happens every time, it seems. Winter "blesses" us with lots of snow followed by early spring rains, the Oswego River water level rises and great spring fishing for browns, cohos, rainbows, and kings results. It's happening right now! In recent days, flow in the Oswego has been around 18,000 cfs, well above normal. High flow carry lots of nutrients and plankton into Oswego Harbor. It's a magnet for baitfish, and predators follow. Fishing so far this spring has been excellent for browns, cohos, and rainbows, with a few kings also being reported. Look for hot king salmon action after the first of May.On April 17, 2008, it was time for our annual spring shake down cruise, just to make sure our 28', twin engine charter boat, the Fish Doctor, was purring like a kitten and all of the electronics, riggers, and other gear was working perfectly. It was also a good time to put some trolling gear in the water to check out whether the fishing was as good as the reports.Leaving the dock in midmorning, it didn't take long to find out. The first fish was a rainbow, the next two 2-year old browns up to about 4 lbs., and the last a 4 lb. coho. It was all we needed to know to confirm the reports we had heard about the great spring fishing, and we headed back to the dock. The best area we fished was less than 5 minutes from Oswego marina. As you can see in the photo, left, the browns are in nice shape. Nice fish Capt. Carol!
14 Every year, just about now, when folks contact me to inquire about a Lake Ontario fishing charter, I’m often asked, “How was the fishing last season?”, and “What do you expect this year?” The first question is the easiest, because I can base it on the results of more than one hundred 2009 charter trips, many with great catches of trout and salmon and a few when anglers worked hard for several fish. From my perspective, as a charter captain who has fished Lake Ontario since 1977, the fishing overall was excellent. Fish Doctor anglers saw plenty of chinooks and cohos boated during the season, increasing numbers of steelhead, lake trout, and landlocked salmon, and stable numbers of brown trout. The average size and condition of the fish continued to be excellent. If there was a down size, it was only that in the apring in the Oswego area chinooks showed up a little later than normal, and spring cohos left a little earlier. The real story of the 2009 season is best told by the results of the NYSDEC’s lakewide creel census, conducted each year since 1985. Would you believe an estimated 192,000 anglers fished a total of 63,000 boat trips and caught 228,000 trout and salmon, harvesting 193,000? Success rate was the best ever in 25 years of census, with a catch of 3.6 trout/salmon per boat trip, and charter boats doing even better with 8 trout/salmon per trip. Chinook salmon up to about 35 lbs. continued to dominate the catch, with anglers boating 101,000 kings, along with 21,700 cohos, 54,700 steelhead, 1,300 landlocks, 37,900 brown trout, and 11,200 lake trout. The steelhead catch rate was the highest in 25 years, with the coho catch rate the second highest. Although the catch of landlocked salmon was low, it was the highest since 1998, a great sign for the future.
15 If you've got cabin fever and are looking for an excuse to get out of the house this weekend, Capt. Ernie Lantiegne will be doing a series of seminars on "Catching Derby Winning Kings", at the Cabela's store in Hamburg, PA. He'll be speaking in one of the upstairs seminar rooms on Sat. and Sun. at 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM. He'll have a table on the Tackle Dept. floor of the store where you can chat with him, ask questions, and check out fishing gear. Capt. Ernie will be demonstrating the Pro-Troll flashers and Howie Flies he has used to win the $20,000 grand prize in the 2006 Fall LOC Derby and the $10,000 grand prize in the 2007 Spring LOC Derby. A Pro-Troll flasher and Howie Fly also won the grand prize for another lucky angler in the 2007 Fall LOC Derby. Check out the 38 lb. 14 oz. king, left, that won the grand prize for Jim Huftanel in August, 2006.You'll also have an opportunity to check out the unique new, actionized, mylar JitterFly that Capt. Ernie field tested during the 2007 season. It's a winner producing great catches of coho and king salmon, steelhead, and brown trout. You'll also see the all new Goby Fly, created to mimic the round goby, a major fish forage now in the Great Lakes.Hope we see you at Cabela's in Hamburg this weekend. [ARTICLETWOa][ARTICLETWOb][ARTICLETWOc][ARTICLETWOd] [ARTICLETHREEa][ARTICLETHREEb][ARTICLETHREEc][ARTICLETHREEd] [ARTICLEFOURa][ARTICLEFOURb][ARTICLEFOURc][ARTICLEFOURd]
16 Captain Ernie finally got a spare minute off the lake to do the drawing for the $1000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby we run each year from April thru June! Our golden Misty and all of her pups due in early August were sent to a pile of retriever dummies on the back lawn with the numbers 1 thru 5 written on them, for the winners of each of the following species divisions; #1 - Chinook Salmon, 22.5 lbs., Lori Duchaine #2 - Coho Salmon, 9.0 lbs., James Ciufetelli #3 - Lake Trout, 5.45 lbs., Dan LaRoque #4 - Brown Trout, 12.6 lbs., James Monroe #5 - Steelhead/Rainbow, 9.5 lbs., James Ciufetelli, Lori Duchaine had the largest fish, and Dan LaRoque the smallest, but James Ciufetelli had the deck stacked with two division winners. The verdict…, Misty retrieved #3, photo right. Congratulations Dan LaRoque! You might have caught the smallest fish in all of the divisions, Dan, but it was the luckiest! We’ll be sending you a check, Dan, for $420 and a gift certificate for an 8-hour trip in 2010 worth $580. We just wish all of our division leaders could have won. Thanks to all of you for fishing in our $1000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby. It was a blast being on the water with you, and we hope to see you again.
17 Cool spring weather has produced colder than normal water temperature, delayed the inshore movement of alewives and extended the spring brown trout fishing. Although erratic weather and winds have produced some challenging spring fishing thus far in the season, when conditions are right we've enjoyed some fantastic brown trout fishing. That was the case yesterday when Dave and Pat McMahon hit it just right, tangled with 7 nice browns and boated some dandies by 6:30 AM. They finished the morning with several more browns and a rainbow they released. Dave and Pat enjoy eating spring browns and kept their limtit of 6. Recently stocked yearling browns from 8 to 12 inches were a nuisance at times, but an encouraging sign for next season. These yearling browns will weigh 3 - 4 lbs. by next spring Midlake surface water temperatures are still in the mid-40's and inshore temperatures are in the 50's. The water temperature inside Oswego Harbor is still in the low 60's. Each spring, as alewives move inshore, we catch the largest browns of the season. With peak alewife spawn normally around midJune, the next few weeks should produce some lunker fish. Normally by now browns that are chowing down on alewives are bright silver with black spots. Interestingly, we're still seeing gobies in the stomachs of some browns, and these fish, like the one held by Capt. Ernie and Chuck in the photo, right, are much brighter colored than normal. Since browns usually get much brighter colored as they approach the fall spawning season, one has to wonder just what they'll look like come late season.
18 Capt. Jeff Lantiegne and his fishing buddies Frank and Tom braved the elements on Sat., March 19 to check out the early spring fishing on Lake Ontario. Launching the 16 foot “Miss Em II” out of the Big Salmon River, their target was the area off the mouth of Grindstone Creek, a mile west of the Big Salmon, where some dandy Atlantic salmon, plus some browns were caught in late March, 2010. When they got there, they weren’t surprised to see that the wind had blown the last of the winter’s ice into the area. At least one other boat had the same plan, but it wasn’t to be. The mouth of Grindstone Creek is an early hot spot for trout and salmon because schools of smelt stage there before running Grindstone to spawn. Where there are smelt, you can bet there are predators like salmon and trout. Before Jeff, Frank, and Tom headed off the lake for a warm cup of coffee, they boated a couple of hefty browns that hit stickbaits trolled from planer boards. The chunky brown in the photo, left, hit a blacki/silver Smithwick, a standard spring brown trout bait on Lake Ontario. Photo left, one of the browns netted aboard the “Miss EM II” on March 19, 2011. Way to go, you early birds!
19 If you were blown off by high winds today, 8/20/07, and are itching to talk about fishing, Capt. Ernie, pictured left, will be at Bass Pro Shop's Auburn store from 4:00 - 8:00 PM today. He''ll be chatting with anglers about Lake Ontario trout and salmon trolling techniques, and at 7:00 PM will be giving a seminar on "Techniques for Catching Derby Winning Kings". Capt. Ernie guided Fish Doctor angler, Jim Huftanel, to a $20,000 Grand Prize winning 38 lb. 14 oz. king salmon in the 2006 Fall LOC Derby, with 7,000 derby entrants competing for 18 days in that derby. Then he followed that win by guiding Fish Doctor angler, Jim Unkel, to a $10,000 Grand Prize winning 24 lb. 2 oz. king salmon in the 2007 Spring LOC Derby, with 4,500 entrants competing for 10 days. In tonight's "Catching Derby Kings" seminar at the Auburn Bass Pro Shop seminar, Capt. Ernie will detail the techniques he uses to select for monster, big money kings. Hope you can make it. [ARTICLETWOa][ARTICLETWOb][ARTICLETWOc][ARTICLETWOd] [ARTICLETHREEa][ARTICLETHREEb][ARTICLETHREEc][ARTICLETHREEd] [ARTICLEFOURa][ARTICLEFOURb][ARTICLEFOURc][ARTICLEFOURd]
20 Ask Sal Furnare about the spring, 2011, brown trout fishing, and he’ll tell you it’s the best he’s ever seen. Sal boated a 20.3 lb. brown aboard the Fish Doctor on 5/6/11…, no wonder he’s psyched about the brown trout fishing. He’s not the only one. Since April 16, all but one group of Fish Doctor anglers has limited out on a combination of predominantly browns, but also cohos, lake trout, and a few rainbows and Atlantics. On these trips, I have seen more 8 lb.and larger browns caught than we’ve boated since 1994. What brown trout fishing! Even better news for the anglers who enjoy catching shallow water browns on ultralight Fish Doctor tackle…, First, the weather that we’ve had so far, with cool air temps and higher than normal rainfall, has produced the best spring brown trout fishing in the Oswego area that I’ve ever seen. It is so good that several charter captains from ports west of Oswego have temporarily moved their boats to Oswego. Lake water temperature outside Oswego Harbor is still in the low to mid 50’s…, optimum for browns. The plume of Oswego River water has extended slightly colored water for miles outside the harbor producing perfect fishing conditions and a situation where browns bite all day. Secondly, the weather forecast for the next 10 days thru May 25 calls for rain 8 out of 10 days, nightly air temps in the 50’s and highs no more than 70 degrees. The water temperature in the Oswego River has actually dropped from 61 to 59 degrees from May 14 to May 16, and the flow has increased slightly from about 20,000 cfs. to 20,400 cfs. Normal flow of the Oswego River at this date is around 7,000 cfs. This kind of weather and water conditions will extend this year’s fantastic spring brown trout fishing well into June. Third, with the abundance of alewives we’re seeing in shallow right now and the numbers increasing until peak spawn around June 15, browns are really putting on the feed bag, and I expect to see some real lunkers in the next few weeks.
21 The question eastern Lake Ontario anglers were asking all July and early August was, "Where are the king salmon?" Salmon fishing was slow and everybody was wondering whether the kings would show up off Oswego and in Mexico Bay. Gary and Carla Delair and their fishing partners Art and Chris have the answer, photo left. They limited out on 8/29/08, with 11 kings and 1 coho by noon. Nice catch guys! They were out there somewhere all along!One thing we all tend to forget is that Lake Ontario is 193 miles long, 53 miles wide, and 862 feet deep. The surface area is an immense 10,229 sq. miles. Sooo..., there is lots of room out there for kings to "hide", and since most New York anglers fish less than 5 miles from shore, we're only scratching the surface, you might say, when it comes to locating salmon.
22 Right after Labor Day, when the kings and cohos moved east from Oswego to Mexico Bay and staged off the mouth of the Big Salmon River, Fish Doctor Charters moved with them. The result..., THE HOTTEST SALMON FISHING WE'VE SEEN SINCE THE 1980'S!!! We’ve been fishing every day since Labor Day, and…, WHAT SALMON FISHING. We’re talking king salmon and cohos, lots of them. I have not seen such a concentration of kings and cohos in any area of Lake Ontario since the late 1980’s. September salmon Fishing has been absolutely spectacular. More and more cohos and kings stage in front of the river every day. A combination of low flow(335 cfs on 9/14) and warm water temperature(74.5 degrees on 9/13) in the Big Salmon River are keeping them from running the river. In addition, the lake surface temperature is still warm, in the low 70’s, and the thermocline, the top layer of cold water, is holding around 35 to 45 feet. Kings and cohos are concentrated in meganumbers within a mile or two of the mouth of the Big Salmon and will remain there until the weather cools and rains increase the flow in the river. When that happens massive numbers of salmon will pour into the river to spawn. In the meantime, Fish Doctor anglers have been enjoying some of the best salmon fishing Captain Ernie has seen since 1977. Just ask Dave Ober and his fishing buddy Ed, from Maine. On the morning of Sept. 12, by 9:30 AM, they boated 10 kings and 3 cohos, keeping 3 cohos and 3 kings, and releasing kings up to 30 lbs…., and the salmon continued to hit after that! Check out the dandy coho salmon, photo left, that Ed boated on the morning of 9/12/11. The Fish Doctor is moored in the Little Salmon River and we’ll be fishing salmon thru the end of Sept. We still have Sept. 26-29 open.
23 Here's another chance to catch Capt. Ernie's seminar on "Catching Derby Winning Kings". You'll find him at Bass Pro Shop's Lake Ontario Sportfishing Showcase this weekend at the Bass Pro store in Auburn, NY. His seminars are scheduled for Friday at 7:00 PM and Saturday at 2:00 PM. In this seminar, you'll learn exactly how Fish Doctor anglers Jim Huftanel and Jim Unkel won two grand prizes for a total of $30,000 in cash fishing aboard the "Fish Doctor" in the Fall 2006 LOC Derby and the Spring 2007 LOC Derby. Capt. Ernie, left, holds the Fish Doctor king that placed in the Summer 2007 LOC. You'll learn the details about how monster kings behave, where to locate these monsters, and how to rig copper and tune trolling flies to catch these big-dollar kings. Along with Capt. Ernie, DEC's Jana Lantry wil review results of DEC's 200 the lakewide Lake Ontario creel census, and captains Mike Dumesnil, Mike McGrath, Frank Campbell, and Vinny Pierleoni will will give seminars on everything from carp fishing to trout and salmon fishing in L. Ontario. If you're looking for some fishing action this weekend, the Auburn Bass Pro Shop is where you'll find it.
24 Wow, what a way to start the 2012 season! King salmon in April like I’ve never seen before, plus browns, and occasional rainbows, cohos, lakers, and Atlantic salmon. If you can’t believe we’re catching April kings, just ask Dave and Pat McMahon, who fished aboard the Fish Doctor on the morning of April 26, 2012. This husband/wife team has fished with me for 15 years, including on many spring trips. They could not believe it. Leaving the dock at Oswego Marina at 6:00 AM, it was only a 5-minute run to 40 feet of water where I had been catching kings. We set up our lines with a dodger/fly on one corner rigger back 15 feet and down 30 feet, and a spoon on the other corner rigger at the same depth, but back 25 feet. Spoons were rigged on two Dipsy Diver rods, plus two leadcore lines fished from the planer boards. By 9:00 AM Patty and Dave had boated 6 kings up to 18.8 lbs. and lost several others. Along with the salmon they boated 6 browns up to 12.7 lbs., plus three lake trout. At one time, they had 5 fish on at once, three of them kings. They released all but four king salmon, two browns, and two lakers, photo left. Fish Doctor anglers have caught kings on every trip where wind/wave conditions allowed us to fish outside Oswego Harbor. We have also caught a number of kings inside Oswego Harbor, beginning April 13 and as late as April 22. Very unusual fishing for April. If this salmon fishing continues, 2012 could be the best king salmon season on record in Lake Ontario
25 We're back on the water and the spring brown trout fishing has been excellent. With inshore water temperatures along the lake shore as high as 49 degrees and a bit higher in Oswego Harbor the browns are feeding heavily and providing lots of action on stickbaits and small spoons fished from planer boards and downriggers. A few cohos, rainbows, lake trout and even kings are being caught. On our last two trips, Saturday and Sunday, April 18 and 19, our Fish Doctor anglers did well, boating plenty of good eating browns, one rainbow, and a nice lake trout. With the weather staying cooler than normal, and night time air temperatures predicted to drop into the 30's during the night this week, we could be looking at an extended season of excellent shallow water brown trout fishing. Check out the nice catch taken by the Reyell party on Saturday, 4/18.
26 In, 2012, when all the attention was focused on king salmon, and fishing pressure on browns was much less than normal, we predicted the 2013 season would be exceptional for big browns. Well, that is exactly what is happening so far in April. Just ask Marc Douglas and his crew from northern New York, who fished aboard the Fish Doctor on Sunday, April 21. We had been catching browns and lakers since early April, but after a huge blow on April 20, I knew fishing conditions had changed drastically. Despite some very muddy water and a few heavy rollers, we located the browns on a mudline east of Oswego Harbor. Marc and his crew boated 9 browns, 2 cohos, 1 Atlantic salmon, and 1 rainbow by noon. Seven of the browns ranged between 7 and 14 lbs. With a limit of browns, rainbows, and cohos in the cooler, we headed offshore hunting for lake trout, and found them, adding 6 lakers from 4 to 10 lbs. to their catch. Baitfish are abundant with the browns gorging on gizzard shad and alewives in the shallows, and the lakers feeding heavily on alewives in deep water. With this much bait around, I’m betting Fish Doctor anglers will be catching some really hefty browns throughout the remainder of the season. Photo, left, Jacque, with an 11 lb. 7 oz. brown he boated on a Fish Doctor noodle rod in shallow water on April 15.
27 We just pulled our 28’ charter boat, the “Fish Doctor” out of the water a few days ago, so this is officially the end of the 2012 Lake Ontario fishing season for us. And, what a season it was! Never since, 1977, in the 35 years Fish Doctor Charters has fished Lake Ontario, have our anglers enjoyed better trout and salmon fishing. Fishing for king salmon, brown trout, and steelhead, from early April thru late September was as good as we’ve ever seen. Lake trout, coho salmon, and an occasional Atlantic salmon added to the fun and excitement. That's Kevin Conte and his crew with one of many limit catches of kings this past season. Thanks to all of you Fish Doctor anglers, 2012 was our busiest season since the early 1990’s. Some of you like Rick Morford and Phil Croad have fished with us for more than 25 years. Many others fished aboard the Fish Doctor for the first time in 2012. We thank all of you for making our charter fishing business what it is, and we hope to see you all next year!
28 It happens every time, it seems. Winter "blesses" us with lots of snow followed by early spring rains, the Oswego River water level rises and great spring fishing for browns, cohos, rainbows, and kings results. It's happening right now! In recent days, flow in the Oswego has been around 18,000 cfs, well above normal. High flow carry lots of nutrients and plankton into Oswego Harbor. It's a magnet for baitfish, and predators follow. Fishing so far this spring has been excellent for browns, cohos, and rainbows, with a few kings also being reported. Look for hot king salmon action after the first of May.On April 17, 2008, it was time for our annual spring shake down cruise, just to make sure our 28', twin engine charter boat, the Fish Doctor, was purring like a kitten and all of the electronics, riggers, and other gear was working perfectly. It was also a good time to put some trolling gear in the water to check out whether the fishing was as good as the reports. Leaving the dock in midmorning, it didn't take long to find out. The first fish was a rainbow, the next two 2-year old browns up to about 4 lbs., and the last a 4 lb. coho. It was all we needed to know to confirm the reports we had heard about the great spring fishing, and we headed back to the dock. The best area we fished was less than 5 minutes from Oswego marina. As you can see in the photo, left, the browns are in nice shape. Nice fish Capt. Carol!
29 We've got good news and bad news on the salmon fishing. The kings are chowing down on an abundance of bait and are really starting to fill out. We've got a number of fish between 23 and 27 lbs. in recent trips, and a fish over 33 lbs. was entered in the Little Salmon River Challenge last weekend. It's been tough, but we've been catching some dandies. Just ask 5-year old Brayden, left, who helped muscle in this king on 7/26/09. The bad news is that recent erratic winds first pushed the thermocline and cold water down to 140 feet and more, then south winds raised it to 50 feet scattering fish and bait, and making salmon fishing tough for the last few days, and the number of kings caught less than normal, whatever normal is??? We're hoping the winds settle down and start to blow GENTLY from the west, concentrating bait and big kings, and improving our catch. One thing we do know..., no matter what the weather thousands of kings will soon start to stage in the Oswego-Mexico Bay area as these big fish get the urge to spawn. We'll be there waiting for them! As for the brown trout fishing, we have only good news. The browns are concentrated and the fishing is good and will stay good until about the first of September when this species gets lockjaw, thinking more about spawning than feeding.
30 The recent lake effect snows we've had along southeastern Lake Ontario's shoreline, are good reason to start thinking SPRING! A glimpse at the photo, left, tells the story. On the morning of Jan. 20, in just about three hours, 20" of lake effect snow fell, followed by 6" in late afternoon, and another 20" by the next morning. The bad news..., the shoveling and plowing! BUT, the great news..., lots of snow cover means high spring runoff and fantastic spring brown trout, coho, and chinook salmon fishing off the Oswego River where warm, nutrient laden water attract bait fish and predators.As for spring fishing in 2008, it would be hard to ever top 2007's unbelievable fishing for 4-8 lb. 2-year old browns. In 31 years of fishing Lake Ontario, this captain has never seen more or larger 2-year old browns. These fish, as 8 - 14 lb. 3-year olds should provide the best trophy brown trout fishing we've had in many moons. The outlook for 2008 chinook salmon fishing is as upbeat as you can imagine. The 2007 NYSDEC creel census showed that the catch rate of trout and salmon in May, June and July was the 3rd to 4th highest in 23 years. The catch rate of chinook in July set an all time record. In 2007, we caught and carefully released large numbers of 13" to 23" young chinook salmon, many, we're guessing, wild fish from the Salmon River and other tribs. An abundance of these young wild fish plus an annual stocking of 1.7 million chinooks means great king salmon fishing down the road. Steelhead and cohos are also showing up in greater numbers in our spring catch. Fish Doctor anglers who have fished in late April, May, and early June, know about the delicious eating, 3-5 lb. cohos that have added lots of excitement to their trip. In June, we catch cohos further offshore along with steelhead in the thermal bars where temperature breaks concentrate baitfish and predators. [ARTICLETWOa][ARTICLETWOb][ARTICLETWOc][ARTICLETWOd] [ARTICLETHREEa][ARTICLETHREEb][ARTICLETHREEc][ARTICLETHREEd] [ARTICLEFOURa][ARTICLEFOURb][ARTICLEFOURc][ARTICLEFOURd]
31 Happy holidays from Carol and Ernie at Adirondac Goldens and Fish Doctor Charters. We wish you and your loved ones the happiest, healthiest holiday ever! We also want to thank you all for your friendship and business in 2009, one of our best seasons ever. Since we started our golden business in 1970 and our charter fishing business in 1974 we have always strived to provide you with the best, whether it was a golden retriever pup or a charter fishing trip for trout and salmon on Lake Ontario. Whether the dogs find birds or the trout and salmon cooperate, we know we’ve done our job if we have treated you as we would like to be treated. Our 2009 lake charter fishing season for trout and salmon was even busier than 2008, with more charters in the months of June and September than we’ve done since 2003. The reason…, repeat business from all of our great friends and customers, plus an improved presence on the Google and Yahoo search engines thanks to a great computer guru friend who helped us accomplish that. Our customers came to us as far away as California to the west, Maine to the east, Quebec to the north and Florida to the south. In 2010, we’ll continue to charter fish out of Oswego Marina, fishing charter trips from early April to mid-September, when your captain will once again be heading west to hunt sharptails, prairie chickens, and Hungarian partridge. From the DEC reports we’ve seen, we expect another steady season for brown trout, chinook and coho salmon. Because of the increased numbers of 2-year old 18-21 inch landlocked salmon caught and released(25” size limit)this year, a steady improvement in the eastern lake steelhead population, and good numbers of young lake trout coming on strong, we expect improved fishing for all three of these species in 2010. In 2010, we’ll be expanding Adirondac Goldens with the addition of two new female Adirondac pups to our kennel from Misty and Laker litters that are just now going to new owners from as far away as Kansas, Texas, Alaska, and England. Carol will gain more time for hunt test training thru her work with professional trainer, Terry Price, in North Carolina, and will be spending some time there training this winter. She hopes to earn AKC Master titles on two Adirondac males and three Adirondac females in 2010. Oh, yes, and how could we not mention a highlight of the 2009 season? One of Carol’s pups, Adirondac Tea for Two, owned and trained by Tony Zappia and handled by Megan Baker, bested all other female goldens in the nation this year, winning the Derby Stake at the 2009 National Golden Specialty!
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33 Just ask Dave and Don Lewis, both experienced Vermont anglers who fished aboard the Fish Doctor with Capt. Ernie on April 21, and they’ll tell you the spring brown trout season couldn’t have gotten off to a better start. Leaving the dock at 5:30 AM, the captain was starting to get some good natured ribbing from the two brothers when we hadn’t had a touch in the first hour, trolling the warm water plume of the Oswego River, just outside Oswego Harbor. Knowing how well the browns, and rainbows had hit the day before after sunup, it was too early to get too nervous with 7 more hours of our 8-hour trip ahead of us. It was just about 6:30 AM when the fish gods threw “The Switch”. The first fish, a domestic rainbow trout just shy of the legal 21” size limit hit an R&R Flutterdevle. From then until 11:00 AM, it was steady action on browns, another rainbow, and a couple of landlocked salmon. The biggest brown weighed in at 10.6 lbs. With the surface water temperature in Oswego Harbor in the mid to high 50’s already, you can expect inshore brown trout action to probably last to only the end of May this year, insteady of midJune. We still have a few weekday openings left in May, plus Sun., May 30th(Memorial Day Weekend), so if you would like to cash in on Lake Ontario’s spring fishing, email us at elantiegne@twcny.rr.com or info@fishdoctorcharters.com Photo left, Dave Lewis with a lunker brown he caught aboard the Fish Doctor on April 21.
34 The verdict is in! Capt. Carol drew the winner from the hat and it is "D.J." Vaughn with a 7.4 lb. laker, one of only three lakers caught from April thru June! D.J. also caught a 5 lb. 2 oz. coho that won the Coho Division. Congratulations "D.J.". You definitely had the cards stacked in your favor with two entries in the hat! That's D.J. left, with the $1,000 smile, receiving the grand prize winning check from Capt. Ernie on a July 15th trip.The other leaders in the species divisions were; Chinook Salmon - Jim and Tyler Unkel, 24 lbs. 2 oz. Steelhead - Jim Powell, 10 lb. 2 oz. Brown Trout - Dan Barry, 12 lb. 3 oz. Thanks to all who fished our Spring Derby. We'll be having another in 2008. [ARTICLETWOa][ARTICLETWOb][ARTICLETWOc][ARTICLETWOd] [ARTICLETHREEa][ARTICLETHREEb][ARTICLETHREEc][ARTICLETHREEd] [ARTICLEFOURa][ARTICLEFOURb][ARTICLEFOURc][ARTICLEFOURd]
35 In our last Fish Doctor e-newsletter you received in early May, you saw an article entitled, “The Kings Are Back”. Well, I should have “knocked on wood”, because shortly after, around midMay, the kings departed and we hadn’t seen them again in any numbers until midJune, when they followed the spawning alewives inshore. Now I’m going to tell you, “They Are REALLY Back!!! Wow, what salmon and trout fishing we’ve had since June 20! Ask Minnesotans, James Ciuffetelli and his 12-year old son Jimmy, who fished aboard the Fish Doctor on June 21, 22, and 23, and they’ll tell you about catching over 60 kings, many of them 17-22 inches in three 8-hour trips, but also some nice kings from 10 to 22 lbs. They also caught cohos up to 9.0 lbs., steelhead up to 9.5 lbs., and a few lake trout, domestic rainbows, brown trout, and one Atlantic salmon. That’s a “ Lake Ontario Grand Slam”…, every species of salmon and trout in the big lake in one trip! If you’re thinking about a trout and salmon charter on Lake Ontario, you couldn’t pick a better time than right now, and I expect the salmon fishing to remain good thru the end of the season. Although we’re book solid in the month of August, we still have some AM and PM openings in late June and July, plus three openings in Sept. You can contact us at info@fishdoctorcharters.com
36 Ask Dan Barry and Dick Victory about brown trout fishing this spring out of Oswego and they'll chew your ear off about their recent trip on May 13, 2008 aboard the Fish Doctor with Capt. Ernie. After a slow start in a spot with frigid water and no browns, Capt. Ernie changed locations, did some searching, and after a false start with a gigundus sheepshead, found the browns and Dan and Dick enjoyed great action all morning long. The final tally was somewhere around 25 browns with nine of them weighing between 7 and 9 lbs. All but one of the browns was released. These were fresh fish that had just moved into the area, as you can see by the photo at left. All but two of the browns were landed on custom built, ultralight Fish Doctor noodle rods and rigger rods and light line. Most of the browns were caught in 15-20 feet of water. The hot items were Sutton spoons, orange/crush Stingers, and lemon lime Flutterdevles. With the chilly weather we've had recently, expect shallow water brown trout fishing to continue through early June.
37 Fish Doctor Charters wishes all of our anglers and friends Happy New Year, 2011! Thanks to you, the folks who helped us master the internet, and the professionals at Oswego Marina who kept us on the water, the past charter fishing season was a great one on Lake Ontario. For those of you still in the North Country, hang in there! For those down south with the rest of the “snowbirds”, enjoy! Speaking of the North Country, I included a photo, left, taken at Gone Fish Inn, our residence in Mexico, New York, just before we left for the South Country. With 33 years experience fishing the lake, 28 years of that in the charter fishing business, I’ve seen a lot of waves roll across this great lake’s horizon. Year in and year out, there have been few ups and downs in the fishing, and the 2010 season was no exception. According to the New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation’s Lake Ontario creel census, conducted since 1985, fishing in 2010 was some of the best ever; • the 2nd consecutive year of record trout and salmon catch rates • the 8th consecutive year of exceptional chinook salmon catch rates • the third consecutive year of record steelhead catch rates • the third best year of coho fishing • the 5th best year of brown trout fishing The down side, was the weather, which made fishing challenging at times, and downright impossible on occasion. The up side was the great fishing, and the surprises, some of the most exciting fishing prospects for the next few years that I’ve ever seen on Lake Ontario. Fish Doctor Charters started operating on Lake Ontario part time in 1982 and full time in 1988. It has been our immense pleasure to share some great fishing experiences with you during all those years. Thank you so much.
38 Here's an update of our recent newsletter about our Cabela's seminars by Captain's Jeff and Ernie Lantiegne at Cabela's Captain's Weekend on Mar. 8 and 9. Capt. Jeff's seminars in Hamburg, Pa, on fishing copper line for trout and salmon will be at 3:00 PM on Sat. and noon on Sun. Stop and say hello at his exhibit table on the tackle dept. floor. He'll have the latest from Pro-Troll, Howie Fly, and JitterFly. The 32 lb. king at left was caught by Fish Doctor angler Henry Tharaut on copper line on August 14, 2007.Meanwhile, 800 miles away, Capt. Ernie will be at the Cabela's store in Richfield, WI, where he'll give a seminar on "Catching Derby Winning Kings" at 10:30 AM on Sat. and 1:30 PM on Sun. He'll also be demonstrating gear from Pro-Troll, Howie's Tackle, and JitterFly. [ARTICLETWOa][ARTICLETWOb][ARTICLETWOc][ARTICLETWOd] [ARTICLETHREEa][ARTICLETHREEb][ARTICLETHREEc][ARTICLETHREEd] [ARTICLEFOURa][ARTICLEFOURb][ARTICLEFOURc][ARTICLEFOURd]
39 Most of us like to look on the bright side, especially folks who fish. If the fish aren’t biting, they should start any minute. If they don’t start biting, well, it’ a nice day to be outside. If it really isn’t a nice day outside, well, your garden needed the rain anyway. You know, like we’ve all heard before, “A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work!” Well, those of you still in the northern New York may be having a little trouble looking on the bright side this winter. On the night of Jan. 24, in Saranac Lake, NY, it was 47 degrees below zero, and -22 degrees in Watertown on the east end of Lake Ontario. In Syracuse, NY, south of Lake Ontario where they usually get less snow than in Mexico, NY, where I live, by Jan. 22, 2011. 109.8 inches of snow had fallen. The average snowfall by that date is 59.3 inches! So far, we’re talking a far much colder and snowier winter than normal. The record snowfall for Syracuse is 191 inches, and the area is well on its way to that. The Oswego River and Niagra River are New York State’s two largest Lake Ontario tributaries emptying directly into deep water areas of the lake.. I moor my charter boat at the mouth of the Oswego River in Oswego Harbor, right in the city of Oswego, NY. The river’s watershed is huge, stretching all the way south to the southern drainages of the largest Finger Lakes, Cayuga, Seneca, and others. It includes Syracuse area, and tens of thousands of acres of farm land. When the snow melts the spring runoff funnels down the Oswego, increasing the flow into the lake. Warmed by the sun, laden with nutrients, the food of plankton, it attracts baitfish like smelt and alewives as it enters the lake. Following the baitfish…, predators like brown trout, rainbows, chinook and coho salmon, and Atlantic salmon. Yes, folks in Central New York are having a tough winter and are sure to be tired of shoveling and plowing snow. We’re hearing lots of groaning, but we’re also hearing, “Snow, baby, snow!”, not only by skiers and snowmobilers, but by Lake Ontario anglers who know that a heavier than normal snow pack makes for better than normal spring fishing! Since, 2000, the two winters with the highest Syracuse snowfall were 2000-01 with 191.9” and 2003-04 with 181.3”. It’s not a coincidence that my two best springs for chinook salmon fishing offshore of Oswego Harbor were 2001 and 2004, when flow in the Oswego River was high from the huge snow melt. In 2004, Fish Doctor anglers boated 201 chinook salmon in 31 trips just outside Oswego Harbor. The reason...,high flows are like a magnet to baitfish, trout and salmon. If the cold weather and snowfall in Syracuse and central New York continues, we will be looking at one of the heaviest snowfalls in the past 20 years, and some super salmon fishing this spring. Sitting here in North Carolina as I write this, I apologize to those folks up north who are wearing out snow shovels, but as I look forward to the upcoming season, I think I’ll join the chorus, “Snow, baby, snow!” In the photo at left, taken in Feb., 2007, the snow was so deep the dogs walked up on the roof of the house!
40 Good fishing trips depend on good fishing conditions, and Jack Davis and his son, "Jackson", found just that on Sunday, June 8, 2008. What resulted was a classic late spring brown trout trip on Lake Ontario, climaxed by Jack's lunker 11 lb. 9 oz. brown, left. When Capt. Ernie arrived at the marina and boarded our 28' charter boat, the Fish Doctor at 4:30 AM to get ready for a 5:00 AM departure, he knew the weather, overcast skies, a light west wind, and no major weather changes predicted, was perfect..., condition #1. When Jack, "Jackson", and Capt. Ernie saw gulls and terns actively searching for bait, thhe knew a major activity period was underway..., condition #2 Watching the surface water temperature gauge drop from the high 60's to the low 60's and the subsurface water temperature 15' down drop to the mid50's, Capt. Ernie knew that their location was perfect..., condition #3. It all added up to a spring brown trout bonanza. Way to go jack and "Jackson".
41 Saturday, April 16 was one of those days when you wished Mother Nature had been a bit kinder. Air temperature was in the low 30’s when I arrived at Oswego Marina at 5:30. I climbed aboard my charter boat, the “Fish Doctor” and flicked on the VHF radio, dialing it in to the marine weather forecast… 100% chance of rain with sustained southeast winds of 30 mph with gusts to 50 mph…, whew! As I stood on the dock, waiting for both engines to warm up and the cabin heater to kick in, I could see that it wasn’t happening yet…, no rain and only moderate winds. Maybe the weather man would be wrong. My crew of 5 Clarkson University graduates showed up right on time. We introduced each other as everyone climbed aboard, hoping for a good trip and some cooperation from both Mother Nature and some trout and salmon. Six hours later, as we headed back to the dock, my crew had boated a cooler full of beautiful trout and salmon. Despite the weather turning nastier, they Dan, Kate, Mark, Adam, and Jeremiah had boated 11 browns, 2 cohos, and one rainbow trout that was released. A great trip with a hardy group of young people, photo left. Our catch gave me a preview of what I think will be a great spring fishery in the Oswego area for browns, cohos, and rainbows. The 3 to 4 pound 2-year old browns my Clarkson crew boated were stocked at about 8 inches in May 2010, impressive growth. By late August, these same fish will grow to 6-8 lbs. All of the fish we boated were feeding on gobies, the perfect winter forage for shore oriented winter brown trout when alewives have migrated to their midlake wintering area. From our catch and the reports I’ve heard, it appears we’re looking at an abundant 2011 brown trout population, and some great spring and summer brown trout fishing.
42 Yes, the $1,000 Fish Doctor Spring Derby, running from April thru the end of June for Fish Doctor charters is in full swing. We have slightly one month left until it ends, and it's impossible to know whether the current leaders will hold. Cohos might just fly the coop and no more will be caught. Lakers are few and far between..., will we catch another? Jim and Tyler Unkel's big 24.2 lb. king is a good one, but there will be plenty of bigger ones around by late June. We usually catch both browns and steelies larger than the current leaders, but.... for now, current leaders, enjoy your moment of "fame" while you can and keep your fingers crossed. Whatever the case, someone aboard the Fish Doctor will catch or already has caught a trout or salmon during the April - June derby with a$1,000 check "attached". For those sitting on top of the leader board right now, enjoy your moment of "fame"! Here are the current leaders; Lake Trout - D.J. Vaughn, 7 lb. 6 oz., Lotsa dodger/fly Brown Trout - Chad Beeseley, 11 lb. 0 oz., Sutton Spoon Steelhead - Jim Powel, 10 lb. 2 oz. Coho Salmon - D.J. Vaughn, 5 lb. 2 oz. Chinook Salmon - Jim and Tyler Unkel, 24 lb. 2 oz., White ProChip, LBB Howie After the end of June, we'll put the leaders of the brown trout, lake trout, king salmon, coho salmon, and steelhead/rainbow categories in the "Hat" and draw the $1,000 winner! Good luck. That's Jim Powell in the photo, left, with Capt. Ernie about to release his 10 lb. 2 oz. steelhead. [ARTICLETWOa][ARTICLETWOb][ARTICLETWOc][ARTICLETWOd] [ARTICLETHREEa][ARTICLETHREEb][ARTICLETHREEc][ARTICLETHREEd] [ARTICLEFOURa][ARTICLEFOURb][ARTICLEFOURc][ARTICLEFOURd]
43 When Rob Kring, his dad Bob, brother Gene, and nephew Logan stepped onboard the “Fish Doctor” just after 5:00 AM on Monday, May 2, the twin engines in my 28’ charter boat were all warmed up and ready to go. My rigger rods and planer board rods were already rigged with what I knew were the right lures for the early morning conditions we would be fishing in. We pushed off from the dock at Oswego Marina just after 5:30 AM on a drizzly morning. This was a special trip. Rob, stationed at the USCG office on the east side of Oswego Harbor, had booked the trip to get his father Bob out on the water for a little R&R after learning earlier that Bob had been diagnosed with a very serious health issue. Encouraged by the fantastic April brown trout fishing we had been enjoying all spring, and was determined to show the Kring family a great trip. After finding what I knew was the right location 3 miles east of Oswego Harbor, just outside the huge plume of muddy Oswego River water, we set our lines at about 6:00 AM. By 9:00 AM, the Kring fishing team, a family of real outdoorsmen, had put their limit of 12 browns, all taken on ultralight gear, in the cooler with fish up to 9.35 lbs. Photo left, Bob Krings battles a brown while his son Gene gets ready to net it and grandson Logan looks on. Unbelievable spring brown trout fishing. This is what the brown trout fishing has been like since my first charter on April 16. On my charter just prior to the Kring charter, 4 fishermen from northern New York boated their limit of 12 browns by 9:15 AM, the largest 9.115 lbs., plus an 8 lb. laker and a coho, as well as some released browns. I’ve fished spring browns on Lake Ontario since 1978, and this is the best brown trout fishing I’ve experienced since 1993. The larger of the 2-year old browns are already up 4 lbs., plus older, larger browns seem to be abundant. Although the browns are still feeding on gobies, I’m starting to see some to alewives in their stomachs. As the alewives begin to mass inshore in the next couple of weeks, browns will start feeding on these oil rich forage fish almost exclusively, and really start putting on the pounds. A 4 lb., 2-year old brown right now will weigh up to 7 to 8 lbs. by late August. With the Oswego River flowing at about 25,000 cfs as this was written on May 3, 2011, compared to a normal flow on this date of around 9500 cfs, the huge plume of nutrient laden river water has the area of the lake from Oswego Harbor east to Four Mile Point heavily colored…, perfect conditions for an extended period of spring brown trout fishing that should last well into June. Meanwhile, Fish Doctor anglers are just lovin’ the great brown trout fishing, not to mention some great eating brown trout filets. A few lake trout and occasional cohos and rainbows are the icing on the cake!
44 No one knows why the kings arrived in eastern Lake Ontario so late this season, but they are finally here, along with some cohos. It started happening this past weekend when anglers fishing the Oswego area in 150-500 feet of water began catching more kings. By Sunday, Fish Doctor anglers boated the first dark king of the season. No longer bright silver, this 21 1/2 lb. king salmon was thinking more about spawning than feeding when it hit a magnum green dolphin Stinger. The arrival of the kings is great news for anglers who will be fishing the Fall LOC Derby which begins on August 15 and continues thru midday on Sept. 1st. The grand prize winner who catches the trout or salmon will walk away with a cool $20,000 in cash. Fish Doctor charters won the Fall Loc in 2006 with a 38 lb. 14 oz. king. Recently, a 37 pound king was reported takend in the Oswego area. If you're fishing with us aboard the "Fish Doctor" during the Fall LOC, don't forget to enter the derby. You can enter online at
45 It’s hard to believe, but the brown trout fishing has gotten even better, plus we’re starting to catch more steelhead. Fishing for lake trout has been good, along with occasional rainbows, Atlantics,and cohos. All these predators are heavy with alewives that will be reaching peak spawn by midJune. Fish Doctor anglers have been focusing on trophy brown trout and we haven’t been doing much fishing for chinook salmon. We’re starting to hear a few reports of some chinooks being caught and will start fishing them in early June. Inshore surface water temperatures have started to warm, and the browns are starting to move out into deeper water where they will concentrate below the thermocline by the end of June. Summer fishing for browns will be as good as the fishing we’ve enjoyed this spring. July and early August brown trout fishing is always fun, especially because of the shorts and T-shirt weather and the mixed bag of browns, chinooks, lake trout, and steelhead we catch in midsummer. Photo left, Darin, Dave, and John made the trip from North Carolina, and boated some trophy browns early on the morning of May 24.
46 If you're within driving distance of the Cabela's store in East Hartford, Conn., stop over this weekend and say hello to Capt. Ernie. He'll be there all day Saturday and Sunday, March 15 and 16 attending Cabela's Spring Great Outdoors Days. He'll be doing a seminar on "Fishing Lake Ontario for Trout and Salmon", including a 2008 forecast of the fishing this season. Capt. Ernie will man an exhibit table all day Saturday and Sunday on the tackle dept. floor. At this weekend's event, Cabela's is emphasizing women and children in the outdoors, and Fish Doctor Charters couldn't be more supportive. Each season we fish with many families, women and children, along with the guys, and love to show them our great trout and salmon fishing. Take a kid fishing this season! [ARTICLETWOa][ARTICLETWOb][ARTICLETWOc][ARTICLETWOd] [ARTICLETHREEa][ARTICLETHREEb][ARTICLETHREEc][ARTICLETHREEd] [ARTICLEFOURa][ARTICLEFOURb][ARTICLEFOURc][ARTICLEFOURd]
47 Each spring for the past three years, Fish Doctor Charters anglers have had a lot of fun fishing our $1000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby. The angler who catches the largest chinook salmon, brown trout, Atlantic salmon, steelhead/rainbow, coho salmon, and lake trout in the months of April, May, and June all have their names placed in a hat and a drawing is held in early July to determine the grand prize winner. Instead of actually putting the names in a hat, we’ve added a little fun to the drawing by giving each of the division winners a number, writing it on a retriever dummy, putting the dummies in a pile in the back yard, and having one of our Adirondac goldens retrieve the winner, who is awarded a $600 Fish Doctor gift certificate and $400 in cash. This year our Adirondac golden, Magic, picked the winner,#3, John Furnare, photo left. On May 6, John was fishing with his dad Sal, brother, and a friend aboard the Fish Doctor for brown trout. Along with a cooler full of browns, Sal Furnare had iced the cake with a monster 20.3 lb. brown, the largest brown ever entered in our brown trout division. Less than an hour later, it was John’s turn in the rotation when something hit a cheater right in the prop wash. After some wild action tight to the stern, John boated what turned out to be the largest Atlantic salmon taken this year in our $1000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby. Our division winners were; Chinook Salmon - 16.25 lbs., Bob Simon Brown Trout - 20.3 lbs., Sal Furnare Atlantic Salmon – 11.2 lbs., John Furnare Rainbow/steelhead – 10.2 lbs., Jeffrey Bell Coho – 8.15 lbs. , Skip Holt Lake Trout – 9.4 lbs., Larry Rowland Thanks folks for fishing with us again in the spring of 2011. We wish all of you could have won.
48 Another great year of lake fishing for trout and salmon is behind us and the 2009 season is just ahead if we can survive another lake effect winter here in Mexico, NY. It's a time of year when things slow down a bit here at Gone Fish Inn, and out thoughts drift to our fishing friends. Carol and I thank all of you for fishing and hunting with us in 2008, and wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. We appreciate all the emails we receive from you, especially the photos and progress reports of puppies from our Adirondac goldens. And, speaking of goldens, we now have a litter of nine 3-week old Brandi x Pete puppies, 8 boys and 1 girl, that will be ready to go at 8 weeks. Another litter of Misty x Cooper pups are due to whelp Jan. 8. Check these litters out at
49 It’s hard to believe, but the spring, 2012, fishing season on Lake Ontario is just 1 ½ months away. The Fish Doctor, our 28’ charter fishing boat, will be on the water in Oswego Marina, in Oswego, NY, in the first week of April, and we’ll be trolling the inshore waters around Oswego Harbor for early season brown trout and spring cohos, plus occasional rainbows and Atlantic salmon. Further offshore, we’ll be fishing the bottom in deeper water for lake trout. This winter has been unusually mild in the North Country along the Lake Ontario coastline with warmer than normal temperatures and almost no snow. On the weekend of Feb. 11, strange as it seems, there was only a dusting of snow on the ground around our home in Mexico, NY. That compares to 120 inches in the four days following Valentine’s Day about 6years ago! According to my North Country contacts, there was no ice cover at all on Lake Ontario in the vicinity of Oswego Harbor or inside the harbor, strange, unusual conditions, for sure! With this in mind, we’re guessing there will be an earlier than normal start to the 2012 fishing season, and some pretty spectacular April brown trout fishing. Last year, in 2011, brown trout fishing was some of the best ever. This spring, look for more of the same, including plenty of big carryover browns from last year, plus good numbers of good sized 2-year old browns up to 3-4 lbs. that we saw in our catch last fall. Along with the browns, especially in April and early May, we normally catch spring cohos and occasional rainbows and Atlantic salmon in the shallows along shore on ultralight tackle. In deeper water, fishing for lake trout is hot and heavy . Chinook salmon often show up in good numbers in deeper water off Oswego Harbor in early May, but they are like silvery, deep water phantoms…, you never really know when they will arrive on the scene. It’s impossible to say what the weather will be the rest of the winter, but with only one month of cold weather left, no ice cover on Lake Ontario, and no snow pack along the shoreline, no matter what Old Man Winter does to us, it can’t be too bad. Look for the Fish Doctor trolling out of Oswego Harbor the first week of April! April 11, Tim and Garrett Delaney help Emily show off an early spring brown trout she boated on April 22, 2011.
50 Time to let this one out of the bag. A favorite of Capt. Jeff aboard the "Miss Em" and a regular, and sort of "secret" aboard the "Fish Doctor", 11" HotChips and Howie Flies really come into their own in late August and September, just about the time all of us are looking for a monster $20,000 LOC Derby king. Nothing new to West Coast commercial salmon trollers, any 11" flasher trailed by bait, a hoochie, or a fly will catch kings. But, Capt. Ernie has found that Pro-Troll's 11" HotChip with a Howie Fly has the perfect action for kings at the same trolling speed that you fish the 8" ProChip and HotChip. Fish 11" HotChips by themselves, or in a set of 8" ProChips or HotChips. DEADLY!!..., as shown by Peter Mooney, left, with an 8/17/07 king that couldn't resist the "Big Guy" trailed by a glitter mirage Howie Fly. The effectiveness of the EChip in the HotChip speaks for itself. Just check the LOC Derby leader board since 2003. Ditto for Howie Flies, the original, time tested Great Lakes trout and salmon trolling fly for the past 30 years, copied by many, matched by none. Fish Pro-Troll's 11" HotChips with Howie Flies on a 36" leader for agressive fish and up to a 48" leader for lazy fish and troll them at 2.3 - 2.7 mph. GOOD LUCK TO YOU IN THE FALL 2007 LOC DERBY!!! [ARTICLETWOa][ARTICLETWOb][ARTICLETWOc][ARTICLETWOd] [ARTICLETHREEa][ARTICLETHREEb][ARTICLETHREEc][ARTICLETHREEd] [ARTICLEFOURa][ARTICLEFOURb][ARTICLEFOURc][ARTICLEFOURd]
51 Wow, have the browns ever been biting this spring! Since late March, we’ve been getting reports about limit catches of browns, along with a few rainbows, cohos, and Atlantic salmon in shallow water along the shoreline. With our charter boat now on the water, we can tell you…, brown trout fishing is hot!!! I ran the Fish Doctor from the Little Salmon River 11 ½ miles to Oswego Harbor on Saturday, April 7. As I eased the boat into the harbor, it was obvious that news about the great spring fishing had gotten around. With seas too rough for boats to fish the main lake, a dozen boats were trolling inside the harbor. As I pulled up alongside dock #21 where the Fish Doctor is moored at Oswego Marina, a nearby captain not only confirmed that brown trout fishing had been excellent, but also that a few king salmon up to 18 lbs. had been caught right inside the harbor the previous day. Sunday dawned clear and calm, and it was time for a shakedown cruise to make sure the Fish Doctor was shipshape before the charter I had scheduled the next day. Capt. Carol and I left the dock at 10:30 AM and returned at noon. Not only did the boat engines purr like kittens and all the gear work perfectly, we boated 7 browns, one rainbow, one coho, and two Atlantic salmon in bright sunny conditions and gin clear water. Wow, what a way to start the season! Photo left, 2-year old April browns like this are plentiful and super eating. Mother Nature has ruled ever since with high winds and rough seas that have kept us off the water, but as of today, Thursday April 12, it looks like the weather pattern has changed with calmer, warmer weather expected. I’ll be on the water Friday and Saturday, and you’ll see a report on the fishing hotline on my Fish Doctor web site.
52 Sooo..., you thought we were hibernating all winter here in Mexico, NY, and instead we were giving our Fish Doctor Charters web site
53 Each season Fish Doctor Charters sponsors our own $1000 Spring Fishing Derby for anglers who fish with us in April, May, and June. Folks who catch the largest king salmon, coho salmon, Atlantic salmon, brown trout, lake trout, and rainbow/steelhead qualify for the $1000 grand prize drawing, an 8-hour 2013 trip valued at $640, plus $360 in cash. In addition, the R&R Tackle Company is adding to the grand prize in 2012 by donating a selection of their R&R trout and salmon trolling spoons. Thanks to R&R owner Dave Wilczak for supporting the Fish Doctor Derby. This year our spring derby is in full swing and the derby leaders are Brown Trout – 12.7 lbs., Dave McMahon Rainbow Trout – 3.5 lbs., Robert Tobin Lake Trout – , 11.8 lb., Mike Sadoski, Jr. Chinook Salmon – 20.8 lbs., Lindsey DiBello, photo left. Coho Salmon – 3.0 lbs., Garrett Delaney Atlantic Salmon – 7.0 lbs. (We have your photo and will get your name!)
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55 Just ask Kevin Conte, Krissy, and Joe, with a salmon triple on in the photo, left, about the June 2012 salmon fishing in Lake Ontario just 5 minutes out of Oswego Harbor. They will tell you about their June 18, 2012 fishing charter aboard the Fish Doctor when the kings and steelhead were hitting nonstop. They boated their limit of kings and steelhead, and released fish after fish on an overcast windy day. It has been that way almost every trip in June, both morning and afternoon, and the action has continued into July. Between the finclipped stocked kings and the kings in the population from natural reproduction, I don’t think I’ve see this many kings caught in the month of June since I first started fishing the lake in the spring of 1978. In addition to kings, the number of steelhead we caught was definitely the most ever for June. We saw lots of aerial action from these acrobatic sea run rainbows. By the last few days of June the steelhead had scattered a bit, but the browns took up the slack. With alewives abundant, condition of the trout and salmon is excellent and kings as large as 38 lbs. have already been taken. By midAugust, as coho salmon move into the southeast corner of Lake Ontario where we fish and mix with the king salmon already in the area, action should get even hotter. Check our recently update fishing hotline and blog for the latest info.
56 Our season started began on April 11 with some great brown trout fishing that has continued to date, despite some erratic spring weather. An abundance of 2-4 lb. 2-year old browns has provided lots of action and bigger browns up to 11 lbs. 8 oz. have provided some real thrills on ultralight tackle for Fish Doctor anglers. Lots of spring browns means consistent brown trout fishing right through the summer.Patty McMahon broke the king salmon ice on May 5 with a 14 lb. 4 oz. chromer and Fish Doctor anglers have been catching them ever since. Rick Coonce cashed in on the salmon action on May 8 with his limit of kings, including the 17.9 lb. silvery torpedoe Rick is holding in the photo at left. These spring kings are silvery right down onto their tail. As alewives continue to move inshore in the Oswego area through June, the kings won't be far away and we expect to see some hot salmon action aboard our charter boat, the "Fish Doctor"
57 Back in early June, king salmon showed up right in front of Oswego Harbor in 92 feet of water and provided some fast action for Fish Doctor anglers for a few days. A week later, these nomads of the deep vamoosed, and made themselves scarce, somewhere in the 10,000 square miles of the lake. Since this past weekend, June 27-28, that changed when the kings showed up on the scene once again, just outside Oswego Harbor, where they've been lying in wait for post spawn alewives that are gradually moving back out from their shallow spawning areas into the deeper, colder water. During this past week, the salmon fishing has been improving daily and our anglers have been catching some beautiful, mint silver kings along with a few nice lakers, and occasional steelhead, coho, and browns. If water and weather conditions remain normal for July, you can expect the kings to remain in the area in 100-500 feet of water, providing good fishing throughout the month of July. Photo left, Beau, "Mr. Lucky", Roskow, with one of the kings he caught on June 30.
58 It has been an old fashioned winter so far along the southeast corner of Lake Ontario, with about 130” of snow to date and the official end of winter, 7:02 AM 3/20/13, still over a month away. Let’s see, 130” of snow…, that’s almost 11 feet, and the weather forecast is for plenty more the rest of the winter. For early season Lake Ontario fisherfolks, the more winter snow, the more spring snow melt, the higher the flow in tributaries like the Oswego River, and the better the fishing. We’ve said it before and it has been proven many times…, lots of runoff and high river flows produce some super brown trout fishing around Oswego Harbor, where I moor my charter boat. The water temperature in the Oswego River is always a bit warmer than in the frigid lake, attracting hordes of bait fish, a magnet for predators like big browns, photo left. Last spring, following a no-winter, early spring conditions were unusually warm with the Oswego River water temperature the last weekend of March 54 degrees, 20 degrees warmer than normal. Not only were brown trout concentrated in the warm water plume of the Oswego River, on April 9, my first charter of the season, Fish Doctor anglers boated king salmon up to 17 lbs, right inside Oswego Harbor. No one expects that again this season. It’s tough to predict right now, but I’m guessing in April brown trout and lake trout fishing will continue to be excellent with a few more big browns around than normal. Occasional Atlantic salmon, cohos, and rainbow trout will rev up the action now and then, as they usually do. As for king salmon, April, 2012, was a real spoiler. It would be great to see the kings again this April. By early May, we should be catching them, along with some steelhead, a great start to the 2013 season.
59 Capt. Ernie fished his first brown trout charter of the year on 4/20/07 and found ideal conditions off Oswego. Surprisingly surface water temperatures are already in the low to high 40's, with the warmest water fished about 48 degrees, under sunny skies, and a light northwest wind. His crew boated browns up to 7 lbs., all mint silver with bulging bellies. Lots of fun on 8 lb. test line and ultralight rods, and super eating this time of year.Flow in the Oswego River is huge right now, producing a large area of turbid water east of Oswego Harbor, making fishing conditions perfect, pretty much any time of the day. With the recent snowfall and precipitation throughout the Oswego drainage basin, including most of Central New York, flow in the Oswego River will remain high, and inshore brown trout fishing will continue to be good into midJune.Stickbaits and spoons were the key on 8/20/07, especially the brighter patterns in the turbid water. The best spoons were silver/brass/orange #44 Suttons, 3100 lemon/lime Flutterdevles, and a custom brass/orange/pearl scale #44 Sutton. Hot Stickbaits were the fire tiger Smithwick, black/chartreuse/silver Smithwick, green speck Jr. Thunderstick, and Kiro Kin Megabait. The best news is the 2-year old browns caught on 4/20 were mint silver, heavy-bellied, and weighed up to 4 1/2 lbs. These same fish were stocked at 8-9 inces in May 2006. Tremendous growth, but just average for Lake Ontario. These 2-year olds will weigh an average of about 7 lbs. by Sept. Every year a few browns between 20 and 30 lbs. are caught in eastern Lake Ontario.. [ARTICLETWOa][ARTICLETWOb][ARTICLETWOc][ARTICLETWOd] [ARTICLETHREEa][ARTICLETHREEb][ARTICLETHREEc][ARTICLETHREEd] [ARTICLEFOURa][ARTICLEFOURb][ARTICLEFOURc][ARTICLEFOURd]
60 Dan Barry, Steve, and Dick had a good day on June 13 with a few decent browns, rainbows, and a steelhead in the box as quitting time approached. Just about then, a 200' section of copper popped free from a release on a board and moments later the fattest brown trout of the spring was thrashing in the net. The verdict..., 11 lbs. 3 oz. for the heavy bellied brown, placing Dan at the top of the brown trout category in our $1,000 Fish Doctor Derby. Our derby runs through the end of June, when our $1,000 winner will be drawn from the five species category winners.Current leaders of the species categories; King Salmon - 24 lbs. 2 oz., Jim and Tyler Unkel, May 12, ProChip/LBB Howie Fly Coho Salmon - 5 lbs. 2 oz., D.J. Vaughn, May 4, Howitzer (red #00 dodger/grn Howie Fly) Rainbow/Steelhead - 10 lbs 2 oz., Jim Powell, May 19, Howitzer (dodger/grn Howie Fly) Brown Trout - 11.lbs. 3 oz., Dan Barry, June 12 , "Late Riser" ProChip/slv/grn Howie Fly Lake Trout - 7 lbs. 4 oz., D.J. Vaughn, LOTSA dodger/LOTSA Howie Fly Photo, left, Roberto, with a nice brown that didn't quite make the leader board. It hit a Sutton spoon on the copper. [ARTICLETWOa][ARTICLETWOb][ARTICLETWOc][ARTICLETWOd] [ARTICLETHREEa][ARTICLETHREEb][ARTICLETHREEc][ARTICLETHREEd] [ARTICLEFOURa][ARTICLEFOURb][ARTICLEFOURc][ARTICLEFOURd]
61 It's a beautiful day here at Gone Fish Inn, just 5 days before Christmas, 2007. Outside, the sky is cloudless blue and the sun, reflected by fresh fallen snow, is bright beyond description. Inside, twenty-one 1-month old golden pups keep us amused with their playful enthusiasm as they practice they practice their newly discovered barking skills. The old wood stove is cranked up, the coffee is perking, and the aroma of a fresh batch of moose chili is making my mouth water. Ahhh! Another fantastic Lake Ontario trout and salmon season is past us and the 2008 season is just around the corner. It's a time of year when things shift into a different gear and Carol's and my thoughts drift to family and friends. We want to wish all of you the happiest and healthiest of holidays. Thanks for all you've done for us. And, speaking of friends, Here is something by Carol that our Fish Doctor anglers read in the hard copy of our "Winter, 1995, Fish Doctor News" Fishing Friends By Carol L. Our fishing friends are the reason we're here. Our business, our life, and all we hold dear, is related to you, and how well we please you. But you make us feel special with all that you do. The clock on the wall let's our fisherfolks know, It's time to get movin'. The boat's gonna go. You've made bird houses, benches, fish cleaning tables, Photo albums, pottery, and treats of maple. You bring treats for the goldies, and us shoes, swings, and wine, a computer, a woodstove, and you take us to dine. Gone Fish Inn was designed by a dear architect friend, Who built Adirondack mansions in a rustic trend. Thanks to you we're outfitted in Cabela's best, To keep out the cold when the wind's from the West. Our problems are solved because on our team, Is a lawyer, some plumbers, and a salesman supreme. You bring us goodies, homemade and store bought, Jams, jellies, and pickels, breads and doughnuts, Buffalo burgers, elk steak and venison, too, You give our old dentures plenty to chew. Some big-hearted fella, with decoys galore, Keeps us in mallards you can't buy in the store. A real fishing Doctor(with real degrees), Wrote Ernie a prescription in between steelies! The gardens at Gone Fish Inn look so fair, Thanks to the shrubs, plants, and flowers you share. Your videos, photos, and emails of praise, Help us get through those rare bad days. We know we're lucky, and can only say thanks, To our fisherfolks friends, on that you can bank. We think you're the finest, 'cause you've met the test, So for 2008, we wish you only the very best. [ARTICLETWOa][ARTICLETWOb][ARTICLETWOc][ARTICLETWOd] [ARTICLETHREEa][ARTICLETHREEb][ARTICLETHREEc][ARTICLETHREEd] [ARTICLEFOURa][ARTICLEFOURb][ARTICLEFOURc][ARTICLEFOURd]
62 It happens every time, it seems. Winter "blesses" us with lots of snow followed by early spring rains, the Oswego River water level rises and great spring fishing for browns, cohos, rainbows, and kings results. It's happening right now! In recent days, flow in the Oswego has been around 18,000 cfs, well above normal. High flow carry lots of nutrients and plankton into Oswego Harbor. It's a magnet for baitfish, and predators follow. Fishing so far this spring has been excellent for browns, cohos, and rainbows, with a few kings also being reported. Look for hot king salmon action after the first of May.On April 17, 2008, it was time for our annual spring shake down cruise, just to make sure our 28', twin engine charter boat, the Fish Doctor, was purring like a kitten and all of the electronics, riggers, and other gear was working perfectly. It was also a good time to put some trolling gear in the water to check out whether the fishing was as good as the reports. Leaving the dock in midmorning, it didn't take long to find out. The first fish was a rainbow, the next two 2-year old browns up to about 4 lbs., and the last a 4 lb. coho. It was all we needed to know to confirm the reports we had heard about the great spring fishing, and we headed back to the dock. The best area we fished was less than 5 minutes from Oswego marina. As you can see in the photo, left, the browns are in nice shape. Nice fish Capt. Carol!
63 It's hard to believe, but the surface water temperature today, June 9, at noon was only 50.2 degrees about 100' northwest of the lighthouse at Oswego Harbor. Now that's downright chilly for early June, even for 862 feet deep Lake Ontario and a reflection of just how cool the weather has been in the last two months. On top of that, the main inshore movement of spawning alewives, the primary forage fish for Lake Ontario trout and salmon still has yet to occur. But..., since Sunday, June 9, when Jack and Jackson Davis fished aboard the "Fish Doctor" we've seen large schools of alewives on the fish finder and underwater camera staged in 60 to 90 feet of water, due north of Oswego Harbor. The peak of alewife spawning is usully June 15, and our guess is that this mother lode of alewives will move inshore soon. As you would guess, large concentrations of alewives attract large concentrations of predators, and king salmon, brown trout, surprising numbers of lake trout, steelhead, and even an occasional landlocked salmon have been caught in this area. On Sunday, June 7, the kings in the area weren't a bit camera shy, and the Davises and I watched 12 different king salmon follow or hit on camera. The highlight of the day was watching two nice kings on camera fighting for a fly. When the fastest one hit, we missed it!! Seconds later a Dipsy fired, and "Jackson" boated the nice king, left. With water temperatures cooler than normal, and hordes of alewives ready to move inshore, the area around Oswego Harbor is going to produce some very exciting fishing the rest of the month of June.
64 The NewYork State coastline of Lake Ontario is more than 200 miles long, with harbors scattered from Sacketts Harbor on the north eastern shore to the Niagara River on the west, but as with many things, all is not equal. Some harbors provide better spring fishing than others, especially for brown trout and king salmon. This is one of the main reasons why you’ll find the Fish Doctor moored in the spring at Oswego Marina. The magnet for baitfish and the trout and salmon that follow them in early spring is warm water. Most of that warm water flows into the lake from tributaries, like the Oswego River, one of Lake Ontario’s largest. The larger the river, the more warm water flowing into the lake, the greater the attraction to trout and salmon. This attraction lasts until about mid-June, when the temperature of the Oswego finally warms up too much for trout and salmon. Even now, despite the cold and snow, the water temperature of the Oswego River is rising. According to the USGS monitoring station at Lock 7, the water temperature from March 20 to 25 increased steadily each day from 35 degrees to almost 39 degrees. It doesn’t sound like much, and certainly isn’t anything you would want to take a dip in, but with fish able to sense a half degree change in water temperature, and the surface temperature of the main lake 34 degrees, the Oswego is working it’s magic. You can bet that baitfish, trout and salmon are already concentrating in and around Oswego Harbor where the river enters the lake. In early April, Fish Doctor anglers will be there, too! Photo left, Garrett Delaney, with a king salmon he caught in Oswego Harbor on April 13, 2012.
1 Not a bad "first-ever" brown, Sam. Way to go! Another nice, one..., 11.7 lbs. Troll the wrong spoon or stickbait for spring browns when they're fussy, and you'll struggle. The first brown "T" caught on 4/15/13 weighed 8.6 lbs. Remembering that a 3 lb. brown in April will grow to 5 lbs or more by September makes it easy to release them.
2 We're looking at late snows, cold water temps, and gin clear water in muh of the lake this spring. A perfect scenario for the AC shiner for early spring browns. Stingers, Suttons, Evil Eyes, and Flutterdevles are all part of the spring repertoire aboard the Fish Doctor. Thunderstick favorites - Blue Scale, Grey Scale, black/silver, fire tiger, Tennessee Shad, and others. You don't hear much about Yecks for spring browns, but they catch fish. When yearling alewives move inshore, one of the spoons that matches the hatch is the standard size Stinger.
3 Don't forget fixed cheaters in the spring. They work better than you might think, even shallow. Sunshine and a little color in the water = a ham. silver lemon/lime Flutterdevle. Tune it right. Fine tune trolling speed. You'll catch fish on #44s. If you want a fishing partner that doesn't complain no matter what, take a golden like Hfishing with you. Everyone fishes them and everyone catches browns on them..., the legendary glow froggy Stinger!
4 Here's an old favorite that still catches plenty of spring browns. It works even better if it's tuned, replacing the front hook with a second, chrome split ring. Switching the middle hook to a chrome,#6 Eagle Claw Lazer, and leaving the stock tail hook on it. Add some bks/slv dolleyes, and you have a winner. Smithwicks are a legend for browns in eastern L. Ontario, but don't get hung up on just the 4 1/2" model. The smaller 3 1/2" stickbait has it day, too. Black and silver and black and gold F-11 Rapalas take a lot of spring browns for Fish Doctor anglers. You've got to be kidding! Bells for spring browns. Moral of the story..., keep an open mind when things are tough. Take away my Suttons, and I'd probably have to quit fishing spring browns :)
5 #44 Suttons, no longer available, are worth their weight in gold,if you can find them. I've heard reports of a single #44 selling for up to $15 online. A few years back Smithwick stopped producing their Tennessee Bleeding Shad, but I was able to special order 100 of them. I'm glad I did, because they continue to be one of my hottest S'wick patterns. Nice to have a few on the Fish Doctor and for friends. No need to say much about Michigan Stingers for spring browns, one of the most popular spoons on the Great Lakes. It does help to tune them, though, for early spring browns in frigid water at slow trolling speeds. Switch the #2 treble to a #4 if browns are liking it at speeds less than 2 mph. A popular pattern for steelhead, the orange crush is also catches spring browns. Some early spring days it's all about a little different presentation, and slide divers do just that.
6 This 11" ProChip with ProTroll's new finish(no tape) was a hot item in moderate light conditionsfor for kings in late season with an Enforcer Sushi Fly on a 36" leader. Fish Doctor Charters introduced the Hot Tamale ProChip8, patterned after a Hot Tamale dodger we first started fishing in 2001, and it has been a steady producer for staged kings and cohos ever since. This one came from Capt. Billy Saiff. We call it "Reveille" because it gets us up and running every morning just at daylight..., big kings love it early. The 11" version works great on mag Dipsys and riggers. The 8" Reveille works good on the copper off the boards. Not as popular as they used to be, You'll find them in the water every morning aboard the Fish Doctor in late August and early Sept. This season some mornings they were all you needed on the Dipsys, riggers, and copper. If you're not fishing a Chaquita dodger in late August and September, you're missing a bet. It was dynamite this season all thru September on Dipsys and copper.
7 This king salmon boated on July 12 hit a chartreuse ProChip8 and a Fish Doctor fly on 300' of copper, then ran off all but 20 feet of backing as Styles Bridges wondered, "What have I got on here, a freight train?" Little Evelyn can barely hold up this hefty brown she boated on July 14. Tough little girl and a nice fish! Bill McFadden and his New England crew boated some dandy kings and steelhead on their July 20-21 trip aboard the Fish Doctor in 500 to 650 fow. When we say double, we mean two browns on the same rod at the same time, a 13.7 pounder on the terminal spoon, a Michigan Stinger, and a 7 lb.(est) brown on the cheated spoon, a Williams Wobbler HQ. You know the brown trout fishing is hot when you're catching them two at a time! Another nice July brown. Many of the browns are 10 to 14 lbs.
8 Krissy showed Kevin Conte and the rest of her group how to catch kings and steelhead on the morning of 6/18/12. Green ProChip8s and blue dolphin Michigan Stingers were hottt!!! Fish Doctor anglers have limited out on almost every trip since early June..., the best June king salmon fishing we've ever seen since 1978!!! Ken Little boated a 26.1 lb. king salmon on 6/10/12 to capture the Salmon Division of our $1000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby.That's one lunker king salmon, Ken for June 10. The same fish would weigh about 5 more pounds by Sept. We'll be announcing the winner of the drawing for our derby very shortly!!! Because fisherman are focusing almost exclusively on king salmon, with salmon fishing being so good this season, brown trout are being almost entirely overlooked. Dave and Gregg targeted browns on 7/3/12, their second day of a 2-day trip with me, and the action was nonstop. Their wasn't another boat fishing browns. The following report from a Lake Ontario fishery researcher couldn't be more positive; "Preliminary results from the alewife survey in April indicated that alewife remain in great condition, adult abundance and biomass improved and it appears that they pulled off a good year class last year." We recently received some new spoons from a friend in Sweden and have just started fishing them. They work for trout and salmon in Lake Vanern, Lake Vattern, the Baltic Sea and other Swedish lakes, so why not in Lake Ontario? The first one we call Stubby was in the water less than 5 minutes when a king hit it. The second, a little different, was in the water even less time when a brown hit it. these spoons have a unique pearl finish that should be deadly in Lake O's gin clear water. Oh, yeah, we will be fishing them the rest of the season and giving you a full report!!!
9 Ken Little, an old Adirondacker, boated the largest king salmon of the season onboard the Fish Doctor on 6/10/12, and now leads the King Salmon Division of the $1000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby. Nice king, ken!!! A Fish Doctor "lifer" Karl Schmitt and his dad and buddies have been fishing with us ever since we started our full time charter fishing business back in the 80's. Karl and his dad and crew limited out on kings, steelhead, browns, and lakers on June 9. Nice catch guys! With all the bait inshore now, big bellied browns like this one are the rule rather than the exception. When the bait moved in shallow big time last week, the steelhead and kings followed. Steelhead fishing has been fantastic ever since just outside Oswego harbor Some of the best news from the lake is that the lake trout population is coming on strong, after a decline in the population a few years back.
10 Great to see so many 2-year old kings this spring, both stocked and wild. Yearling kings just started showing up and the ones we've seen recently are larger than normal. 2013 should be another great year. Anglers aboard the Fish Doctor have been carefully releasing many kings this spring. With most of the attention focused on king salmon this spring, lots of nice brown trout are getting fat and sassy! Looks like the lakers are back. We're catching occasional lakers suspended, but finding a lot more right on bottom. Not hard to tell who lost(frowns!) and who won(smiles!) this pool for the biggest trout or salmon! Actually the boys on the left and right of this photo were only joking, or were they??? Jeeessss, guys, it was only a buck apiece! I know, I know..., it's the principle of the thing :)
11 Pat and Dave McMahon have fished for 15 years aboard the Fish Doctor, but they had never seen April fishing like they enjoyed on 4/26/12, when they were 6 for 10 on kings up to 18.8 lbs. by 9:00 AM, boated 6 browns up to 12.7 lbs., plus 3 lake trout. Even when it was blowing to hard to fish outside Oswego Harbor on 4/22, Curt, his two boys, and Mom were 2 for 3 on kings just inside the detached breakwall, and filled out the rest of their limit with browns. Oh, yeah, they also caught a laker in the harbor. Kevin Kerr booked a 4-boat trip with Fish Doctor Charters on 4/20/12, and all four boats caught kings, not to mention some nice browns. Hey, that's not a trout or salmon! This brown hit an ABU Garcia Rocket Minnow I now call "Blue Blazes", because it has been so hot for us on browns. It is especially speed tolerant and stable in rough water, and we've certainly fished in enough of that lately.
12 On rare occasions, I've heard of or seen a rare king salmon caught in Oswego Harbor in April, but on Friday, 4/13, I couldn't believe it when we boated three kings up to 17 lbs. inside Oswego Harbor, plus one just outside the harbor. Why are they there. You guessed it, the alewives have already moved in and kings, browns, cohos, rainbows, Atlantics, and lakers are all spitting up alewives As the end of the 4/13 charter drew near, just for the heck of it, we trolled out to 40 fow, thinking there must be kings just outside the harbor. It took 10 minutes to lock up with one at 11:00 AM in the bright sun! Another 4/13 chromer on a Dipsy. Holy smokes, Emily..., two browns at once on one rod! Those cheaters really catch spring browns Darren Levin with his first king salmon ever, boated just outside Oswego Harbor on 4/14/12. Nice chromer, Darren.
13 It’s definitely happening out of Oswego Harbor…, a major spring brown trout bite, plus some rainbows, cohos, kings, and Atlantics in shallow. Prior to a Monday(5/9) charter that ended up being a no-question-about-it blowoff with NW winds gusting to 36 knots, we slipped out late Sunday morning for a shakedown cruise. From 10:30 AM to noon, in the bright sun and gin clear water, Carol and I boated 7 browns, a rainbow, a coho(4 lbs.), and two sublegal Atlantics. We only fished in and around the harbor, but boats are reporting Our hottest spoon…, I know, I know, you’re tired of hearing it…, the #44 ham. Brass/silver Sutton. No bites on the boards. Nothing shallower than 15 feet on the riggers. With the water already crystal clear and tribs already low, it could definitely be a challenging spring to catch browns. Time will tell, but I’m hearing lots of reports full length of Lake Ontario’s New York coastline that kings are being caught shallow. This includes the Oswego area where at least 6 kings were caught right inside the harbor on Friday, May 6. We all know that the weather was unusually warm in March, and we also know that king salmon numbers are way up in the lake. It’s hard to say whether the shallow water king salmon fishing will continue or not, but my advice is to make sure your brown trout reels are spooled up with as much fresh line as you can squeeze on them, just in case you blunder into a screamer!!! For the past 20 years, Capt. Ernie has done on-water fishing classes aboard the Fish Doctor on Lake Ontario to give trout and salmon anglers a hands-on learning experience. A variety of 6-hour classes are offered, including spring brown trout, spring kings and cohos on eastern Lake Ontario, summer browns, summer kings, offshore steelhead, staged kings, and very specialized classes on fishing dodgers, flashers, whole bait, Sushi Flies and flies, catching derby winning kings, transition browns, and Pro-Am kings and browns. These classes have been very popular, and Capt. Ernie will be doing them again in 2008. We will be scheduling classes ahead of time on specific dates for a minimum of 4 anglers per trip and up to 6 per trip. We gladly schedule groups with a full crew of 4-6 anglers, but you do not need a full crew of four persons to participate. We will round up a full crew for you, if you need us to. Just contact us, and we'll take it from there. Right now, we’re looking at the following dates for classes; May 11 PM – Spring Brown Trout May 4 AM – Spring Kings June 15 PM – Transition Browns July 13 PM – Summer Browns If you’re interested in a class on any other dates, let us know, and we’ll see if we can organize one for you. We need a minimum of 4 anglers for a 6-hour class. Cost is $125/angler. One of our hottest items for spring kings when they’re less than 60 feet down is Pro-Troll’s standard white ProChip 8 with a Little Boy Blue fly trailing it. When the kings are fussy, I like to bait it with a Sushi strip. The orange crush, one of the hottest spring brown trout items aboard the Fish Doctor.
14 It's hard to believe, but when capt. Jeff Lantiegne trolled the shoreline of Mexico Bay in eastern Lake Ontario one week ago on March 10 the lake temperature was 34 degrees. This weekend, on March 17, his surace temp gauge read 43 degrees. That's warmer than the normal lake temperature in midApril! We're looking at a one month jump on the spring brown trout fishing. Wow!!! Capt. Jeff reports that with little runoff Lake Ontario is crystal clear and the browns are fussy. On 3/17, 9 of his 11 hits were on #44 Suttons, a Fish Doctor favorite in gin clear water. See his 3/17/12 trip on
15 Until Labor Day, when the cohos and kings moved east to Mexico Bay, you couldn't ask for better fishing just outside of Oswego Harbor in 70 to 90 feet of water! Right after Labor Day, Capt. Ernie followed the salmon to Mexico Bay, mooring the Fish Doctor in the L. Salmon River, just a few minutes from the mouth of the Big Salmon River where thousands of kings and cohos were staged. Good decision!!! ...and, right in the middle of the hot fishing on the lake on Sept. 15 our English Setter, Bandit, presented us with a litter of perfect pups! The kings and cohos were in cold water well away from the mouth of the Big Salmon until a 2-day blow on Sept. 15-16 ripped the lake apart and the salmon motherlode headed up the river. Lots of porpoising fish right at the river mouth, but typical..., zipper lipped! As usual, the later in Sept. it got, the tougher the fishing. Get it just right off the river mouth and you hammer them. Hold your mouth wrong, and they slap you in the face!
16 Until Labor Day, when the cohos and kings moved east to Mexico Bay, you couldn't ask for better fishing just outside of Oswego Harbor in 70 to 90 feet of water! Right after Labor Day, Capt. Ernie moved the Fish Doctor to Mexico Bay, mooring it in the L. Salmon River, just a few minutes from the mouth of the Big Salmon River where thousands of kings and cohos were staged. Good decision!!! The kings and cohos were in cold water well away from the mouth of the Big Salmon until a 2-day blow on Sept. 15-16 ripped the lake apart and the salmon motherlode headed up the river. Lots of porpoising fish right at the river mouth, but typical..., zipper lipped! As usual, the later in Sept. it got, the tougher the fishing. Get it just right off the river mouth and you hammer them. Hold your mouth wrong, and they slap you in the face!
17 Chris hold one of the the 3 kings she hooked on mag Dipsys along with an 18 lb. coho and 7 lb. brown in the last hour of an 8/27/11 shred charter. The hot item was an 11" ProChip training a mirage Fish Doctor fly.
18 Chris hold one of the the 3 kings she hooked on mag Dipsys along with an 18 lb. coho and 7 lb. brown in the last hour of an 8/27/11 shred charter. The hot item was an 11" ProChip trailing a mirage Fish Doctor fly. One of our hottest rigs in late August and early Sept. has been the white ProChip 11 and white Sushi Fly. Kings definitely like the aroma of a fresh strip of alewife "Sushi'd" in a fly! This immature king couldn't resist the smell of an alewife baited Sushi Fly behind a flashy golden retriever Slasher on a bright sunny day. Dan Barry, Dick, and Steve smoked 'em on 8/25/11 using 11" purple and chrome flashers and Fish Doctor flies. Yup, Patrik and his friend, Krista, traveled from Sweden to fish Lake Ontario king salmon, the first either had boated. Patrik Svenson is Pure Fishing's Global Director for Conventional Reels.
19 Biggest fish of the trip, Joey. Congratulations. Gary had dreamed about fishing Lake Ontario for 15 years and finally did it aboard the Fish Doctor. Way to go, Julie. 94-year old Andy Morford battles a 12 lb. brown to the net. This chubby king thought he was chowing down on the real thing!
20 Who says a kid can't "man handle" a king on copper? Capt. Ernie and Trinity team up to show off a nice king that she boated on a 7' Fish Doctor Shortstick. Wow, Anne..., and you reeled this one in all by yourself on 400 feet of copper. Way to go!!! Patience Buckley enjoyed a sunny but bumpy afternoon aboard the Fish Doctor because her Mom, Lorraine, made sure she and her sister Naomi and brother Ambrose took dramamine before their trip. Some days when the Fish Doctor is really on 'em, you just can't do anything wrong.
21 A little water therapy aboard the Fish Doctor with Capt. Ernie goes a long way in helping heal some of the physical and mental wounds of these marine warriors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Thanks to Hunts for Healing for all the work this great privately supported Pennsylvania based organization does to help transition our fighting men and women back to their normal lives. We sponsor Hunts for Healing and hope you will, too. Contact
22 A beautiful Oswego sunrise greeted three generations of Rowlands, Gene, Larry, and Pat, as they headed out on a 6-hour trip with Captain Ernie aboard the Fish Doctor on June 20, 2011. Pat, his Dad Larry, and grandfather Gene Rowland had a blast aboard the Fish Doctor boating browns, lakers, and king salmon up to 9 lbs. on custom built, light action Fish Doctor Shortsticks and Abu Garcia 7000 line counter reels. Fishing from the Green Can west of Oswego to Nine Mile Point in 40 to 100 fow has been hot and heavy both morning and afternoon. Afternoon fishing on 6/18 and 19 was exceptional. Gene, Larry, and Pat released a bunch of browns and all but one lake trout and king on 6/19/11. Like they said, why keep any more than you can eat? Fresh fish are always better than frozen, and if you don't freeze them, you have an excuse to go fishing again! Releasing browns will go a long way to improving the quality of our trophy brown trout fishery in Lake Ontario. Congratulations, Larry, on catching and releasing the 9.4 lb. laker that put you in the lead in the lake trout division of our $1000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby. We watched the beautiful laker swim away in good shape. Larry's laker was one of 6 or 8 lakers from 7 to 9 lbs. that were boated along with brown trout on the morning of 6/20. For the first couple of hours, between the lakers, browns, and small kings, it was tough to keep the lines in the water. Great to see the lakers coming on so strong. They have been suspended off bottom inshore and offshore in recent days. Every time one of our Fish Doctor anglers boats an Atlantic salmon, all I can think of is..., POTENTIAL! Wow, if Atlantics ever come on strong, Lake Ontario anglers could be looking at a fresh water fishery that would make most others on the North American planet pale in comparison. I believe we're looking at the potential for long lived Lake Ontario Atlantics to reach up to 50 lbs. Our boat record is 13.5 lbs. I've seen Atlantics that weighed 22.5 lbs. A friend sent a photo of a beautiful 14 pounder taken on 6/19/11, and the NYS record from Lake Ontario is 24.5 lbs. No wonder we're excited!
23 Never since I started fishing Lake Ontario in 1977 have I ever seen a fatter king salmon. One glimpse at a fish like this answers any questions about Lake Ontario's 2011 alewife forage base! After only fishing salmon rigs for about 45 minutes Bob Simon hooked up with this 16.25 lb. king. It hit on 155' of cable, flat on bottom in 140 fow. Katrina Tobin, from Barnesville Georgia, visited us with her husband Ernie on 6/7 and 6/8. Katrina finessed this acrobatic steelhead to the net and released it on the afternoon of June 7.. With plenty of alewives inshore browns have been "putting on the feed bag" since early June and are really starting to bulk up. Water temp on the afternoon of 6/9 when this brown was boated was 65 degrees just east of Oswego Harbor and 62 degrees down 20 feet. The browns, reluctant to move offshore are hitting in water as warm as 65 degrees. On the afternoon of 6/10/11,14-year old Timmy Fitzgerald celebrated his birthday with his Dad, Tim Sr., and his Uncle Walt and Frank. Under overcast skies they boated a cooler full of nice browns. Way to go, guys!
24 Conrad and Marcell drove down from Maine each year to fish browns, and they would be happy to tell you about the awesome brown trout fishing this year. In the photo above, Conrad has a fish on in each hand on planer board rods, and Marcell battles a third fish on a 6' KidStick that we use on the riggers. The brown trout fishing we've been enjoying with our Fish Doctor anglers this spring is so good it's hard comprehend. Could their be any better brown trout fishing on this planet? Black and silver F-11 Rapalas were just the ticket for early morning browns on 5/29/11. Yes, the brown trout are really biting, but that doesn't mean you have to keep every one you catch. Every fish boated that is properly handled and quickly and carefully released will improve our future fishery. If you've been looking for a line counter reel to use for rigger, Dipsy or wire fishing, check out Captain Ernie's Blog on our Fish Doctor web site. I've been fishing this reel for about three weeks in deep water for lake trout and on all my wire and mono Dipsy rods. You'll find a field test report on my blog. Love this reel!
25 Great brown, Sal. Haven't seen one over 20 lbs. in years. John Furnare and his buddy "Murph" teamed up to put these two nice Atlantics in the box. Silver/red spoons are a favorite for browns in early morning aboard the Fish Doctor. Patrik Svenson, from SVangsta, Sweden took this nice brown trout aboard the Fish Doctor on May 12 during an all morning brown trout bite. Patrik is Pure Fishing's Director for Conventional Reels, and brought some of Abu Garcia's 7000LCs with him. Sweet line counter reel with a special feature that is ideal for rigger and dipsy fishing. We've loaded up some of them with wire and mono, and will be reporting how they perform thru the rest of the season. May 6 was the first day this spring that I've seen the gulls really working the alewives in shallow water along shore. The mother lode hasn't moved in yet, but the browns are already feeding almost exclusively on alewives now.
26 Rev. Mike Catanzaro and son Tucker did a number on the browns on the afternoon of April 22, east of Oswego Harbor with no other boats in sight. 44 Suttons did most of the damage. Happy birthday, Tucker. Two-year old browns are in great shape this spring, with most of them still feeding on gobies, but I'm starting to see some alewives in a few of the fish I'm cleaning on board. Silver/blue spoons and stickbaits were the hot brown trout items on an overcast, drizzly morning, 5/2/11. Fileting and packaging the day's catch of 12 browns on 5/2/11, took only a few minutes as we headed back to the marina. Smithwicks are one of the most popular stickbaits on Lake Ontario for spring browns.
27 Tim and Garrett Delaney celebrated their April birthdayas aboard the Fish Doctor on the morning of April 22, 2011. With the help of fishing buddy, Em, 9 browns and 4 cohos came to the net by the end of their 5-hour trip. Too bad you didn't catch anything, Dad!
28 Tim and Garret Delaney celebrated their April birthdays aboard the Fish Doctor on the morning of April 22, 2011. With the help of fishing buddy, Em, 9 browns and 4 cohos came to the net by the end of their 5-hour trip. Too bad you didn't catch anything, Dad! Not a world record, Em, but this silvery coho will be mighty fine eating. 2-year old browns in the Oswego area this April are in nice shape and full of fight. This one hit a Kiro Kin Mega Bait, a favorite Fish Doctor stickbait, and put up a good fight on a custom built Fish Doctor noodle rod. Way to go, Garret! Em brought this nice brown to the boat on a 6' KidStick..., no problem! I don't know, Garret. All I can tell you, is get used to it. Nice brown, Em..., 8.5 lbs. on our Epson digital scale.
29 Hardy anglers Dan Tuttle, Kate, Mark, Adam, and Jeremiah, with some of the 14 browns, cohos, and a rainbow, they boated in tough windy, rainy, cold weather on April 16, 2001, in Oswego Harbor. What a great crew of sportsfolks!!! A pleasure for this captain to have onboard the Fish Doctor. Each of them is a graduate of Clarkson, Univ., Capt. Jeff's(Miss Em) alma mater. This guy is a fisherman. I'll vouch for that after watching him spend most of the trip in the cockpit of the Fish Doctor on a cold, wet, windy day watching rods and hooking fish. My hat's off to you, Mark! Nice job, despite losing the only fish of the trip, sorry :o) No problem with this young lady boating her limit of browns on 4/16. Nice job handling the rods, Kate. Gobies are an important forage fish for dropback spawning browns like this that need a good winter food source to regain the condition they lost while spawning in the fall. Black/silver F-11 Rapalas, blue/silver/orange Smithwicks, blue/silver Smithwicks, and blue/ham. silver Wolvering Ministreaks were the choice for browns on 4/16.
30 Frank, fishing aboard "Miss Em II" took this early spring brown on 3/19/11 on a black and silver Smithwick. A good early season stickbait with lots of action at slow, cold-water trolling speeds. A red Nils Master, not only a good rainbow/steelhead stickbait, but not a bad choice for browns, especially when the water is colored or they just want something different. One of our best baits in sunny weather, the MegaBait Kiro Kin. Slide Divers now have a place in the spring Fish Doctor arsenal, and catch a bunch of browns around Oswego Harbor, especially in combo with the right spoon.
31 Never, ever overlook Silver Streak's Miami Dolphin for spring kings on either end of L. Ontario. Is there anything a "Glow Froggy" Michigan Stinger won't catch??? You don't seem to hear much about brass/green, a hot one on my boat! If there is a hotter flasher/fly on the east end of Lake Ontario on an overcast day in May when the kings are 60 feet or shallower, I don't know what it is. The "JR" flasher, named for my good friend Jack, caught this coho off guard in August, 2010. This is one of those "when-it's-hot-it's-hot" rigs!
32 Since lake fishing reports having come to a screeching halt with the onset of North Country weather, there isn’t much to report. Sooo…, I thought you might be interested in some photos and info from the 2010 season showing gear used aboard the Fish Doctor to boat trout and salmon. You might find a few other photos included just for fun. The first photo of breakers crashing against the Oswego breakwall kind of sums up the 2010 season…, Windy!!! You’ve read it a kazillion times in my fishing reports and magazine articles. A favorite aboard the Fish Doctor…, Sutton spoons in the #44, #31, #71, #88, and #38, in a variety of finishes either plain or doctored with some paint or tape. They start catching browns and anything else that swims the productive waters of Lake Ontario in the spring when the season starts and are catching mature prespawn king salmon for Fish Doctor anglers in Sept. when the lake fishing season ends. Spring or summer, troll an NK28 Diehard, and you won’t go far wrong. They are a mighty king salmon bait, and will catch just about anything else. NKs are legendary for their speed tolerance, and catch fish from 1.7 mph to 4.5 mph. I prefer the version with the halogram tape, but both that and the plain Diehard will catch fish. When Pro-Troll introduced the ProChip and HotChip flashers, it didn’t take long for the 8” ProChip to catch on with Lake Ontario anglers. Finally, they had a speed tolerant flasher that would catch fish down to speeds as low as 1.5 mph. Everyone questioned the effect of the E-chip and wondered if the electrical current it generated made a difference. The bottom line, you cannot argue success, and the ProChip has produced a number of grand prize LOC Derby winners including for Fish Doctor anglers in the fall of 2006 and spring of 2007. A few years back, Lake Michigan legend Chip Porter introduced me to #00 fluorescent red dodgers and flies for cohos and steelhead…, blue flies for steelhead and green flies for cohos. The blue/gold cheddar fly in the photo catches lots of steelhead, whether
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37 Another season of excellent steelhead fishing. Atlantic salmon are definitely part of the future of the Lake Ontario salmonid fishery thanks to an agressive, intelligent management program by the Province of Ontario, Canada. There is no doubt that copper line fished from boards catches salmon and trout when the bite is slow. It also produces many of the larger fish we boat on the Fish Doctor. There are plenty of young lakers in Lake Ontario right now thanks to an improved stocking program, but not many lunkers. About half of the 2-year old kings we're seeing this season are unclipped wild fish. The other half are stocked, and identified by a missing adipose fin and a coded wire tag imbedded in the cartilage of their nose. The combination of stocked and wild kings is the reason for their abundance.
38 Enter portion of Article's body text here, HTML Is OK. Larry was struck by a snowmobile going 75 mph, was badly hurt, but fished aboard the Fish Doctor on 7/19 with his family. Way to go, Larry.
39 Styles Bridges a legendary English setter trainer and handler and his son "JP", one of the finest young men we've had onboard in a long time, fished with us on July 7, and did a number on the big kings. Gwen Butler, her husband Robert, and her son Blake traveled north from Georgia to fish aboard the Fish Doctor for king salmon and weren't disappointed. Husky left guard Blake Butler was the perfect man on the 500' copper rod when a nice king hammered a spoon fished from a Megaboard. A 300' copper section took this king for Robert Blake way up out of temp in early AM. Why it happens, I don't know, but I've seen spoon bites before in late July and early August. You can troll flashers and unbaited flies around right now until the cows come home, and you won't catch much on them. Meanwhile, spoons are firing consistently. If you want to get a fly to fire consistently right now, you had better bait it with an alewife strip. This is especially true for the larger flashers, particularly the 13" Slasher. I had a couple days, July 3 and 4, when all I needed was two riggers in the water fishing these rigs.
40 James and Jimmy Ciuffetelli flew in from Minnesota to try their hand on Lake Ontario for the trout and salmon fishing they had read about. After three days on Lake Ontario aboard the Fish Doctor, they couldn't believe the action packed fishing for king salmon, steelhead, cohos, a few browns and lakers, and an Atlantic salmon. More than half of the kings were yaarlings from 17-22 inches, but they also caught some nice kings from 6 to 22 lbs., steelhead up to 9.5 lbs., and cohos up to 9.0 lbs. Can you believe 12-year old Jimmy hauled this coho in all by himself on 600' of copper. Tough kid!!! Good coho guys. You are now leading the coho division of the $1000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby. Congrats James.
41 Dave Stoudemire fell from a tree stand, lost some vision, and ended up barely able to walk, but that didn't keep him off the Fish Doctor, where he took this big brown, and watched his friends and grand kids catch some other nice browns, rainbows, and an Atlantic. Dave just flew in from Texas where he worked out with the Dallas Cowboys..,, just in time to do battle with this nice brown on June 5. Any time you get major weather and heavy winds, June conditions change rapidly. Coping with these conditions can be challenging, but biggg browns are the reward. Overcast days are perfect for catching June browns. Domestic rainbows have been a welcome bonus while fishing browns inshore the entire spring. Early in the spring, most were just shy of the 21" minimum size limit, and were released. Lately, we've seen rainbows up to 24".
42 Ask 12-year old James Monroe, already a good fisherman, and he'll tell you a big Lake Ontario brown can really stretch your line! Conrad, another "Mainiac" is an old veteran when it comes to big browns. Black and silver Evil Eyes..., yum, yum! Suttons and sunshine go together. With an abundance of 3-4 inch alewives in the lake this spring, 2-year old browns are putting on the weight.
43 Jethro Pease, his brother and two boys from Maine had some good fishing on May 5 and 6 boating browns, kings, lakers, a rainbow, a steelhead, and an Atlantic salmon. Way to go, guys. Even though the fishing was tough on 5/16/10, Henry Buergel boated this nice Skamania steelhead. Joe Kroell, Brent, and the rest of their fishing buddies boated some nice browns on 5/20/10 during an early morning bite before the sun came up. John and Tina Ferro and their two boys Tim and Josh enjoyed an early morning brown trout flurry aboard the Fish Doctor on 5/21/10. It was all silver/blue and silver/black spoons early, then #44 HTBS Suttons in the sun. Offshore steelhead fishing was slow, but a 5 lb. coho rounded out their catch and put John Ferro on our $1000 Spring Derby leaderboard. No other spoon catches as many browns in April and May as the Eppinger Flutterdevle.
44 Lori Duchaine is no beginner when it comes to fishing. Her fishing partner, Steve LaDue, has many years of Adirondack fishing under his belt. Team these two up with their fishing friends, Joe and Jay, and you've got a formidable fishing team. Capt. Ernie already knew this before they showed up at the boat on the morning of May 7, because Steve had won the grand prize at the Colby Ice Fishing Classic..., a spring charter donated by Fish Doctor Charters. As we left Oswego Harbor Capt. Ernie sensed that conditions were right for a shot at kings and cohos in deep water. Lori, Steve, Joe, and Jay were game. The rods had barely gotten in the water, and Jay landed the first king, a 10 lb. The fishing wasn't fast and furious, but before we ended up back at the dock, there was one more king, a lunker that Lori landed, plus some good eating cohos. In recent trips offshore, we've Fish Doctor anglers have also boated Atlantic salmon, steelhead, browns, and lakers. When Jay boated his 10 pounder, in the excitement, he didn't notice that it had been fin-clipped. It was a 2-year old fish with an adipose fin clip we could see when we looked closely, plus an imbedded coded wire nose tag we knew was there, but couldn't see. This king is part of a new DEC study to compare the recruitment of chinooks from stocking versus natural reproduction. All of the chinooks stocked in L. Ontario now by New York and Canada are fin-clipped. Cohos are the most wild and crazy fish in Lake Ontario. They love gaudy lures, hit close to the boat, and are active all day. They are also very good eating. These fish were feeding on yearling alewives and smelt in the top 30 feet of water well offshore. Note the one orange spoon..., bright colors definitely rev up cohos. We're continuing to catch more Atlantic salmon this spring than in many years. The increased number of Atlantics we've seen so far this season and last may be a result of stocking and management changes by the Province of Ontario, Canada. If this is the case, Ontario expands the program and New York State follows suit we could be looking at the early stages of development of a world class trophy Atlantic salmon fishery, especially considering that Atlantics do not die when they spawn and live to be older than chinooks. Some very good news this spring..., not many lamprey attack marks on trout and salmon. Lampreys can devastate a salmonid fishery, they actually kill fish in some cases, and when a trout or salmon does survive the attack of this blood sucking predator/parasite, it retards the growth of the anemic fish. Worse yet, lampreys actually select for larger fish, compounding the problem and reducing the number of trophy size fish in the population.
45 Steve, with one of the king salmon boated on 5/4. Fred, Sr., with a brown boated on 5/4. Fred, Jr. boated an Atlantic like this. Fred Jr. with a lake trout..., 5/4. Jason with a king that hit an NK28 Diehard.
46 Fish Doctor anglers have been sampling the inshore fishing in the Oswego area for the past week, and have seen some nice 3 to 4-year old browns up to 10.6 lbs. and fair to good numbers of 2-year old browns in the 3-5 lb. class, along with some domestic rainbows, and a few cohos, and landlocked salmon. Because of the lower than normal snow and rainfall in March and April, the Oswego River is low(+/- 1000 cfs)and there isn't much color in the water, making browns tougher to catch. Surface water temperature is much higher than normal..., would you believe 56 degrees in the Oswego Marina slip? Cool weather since the beginning of April has kept the water from warming, and on 4/25, the water temp in Oswego Harbor was 57 degrees. The main lake temp at the weather buoy is still just barely less than 40 degrees as of 4/27/AM. With no heavy winds until today, and nothing to produce any colored water along the shoreline west of Oswego, gin clear water with visibility to well over 20' has made brown trout fishing tough in that direction. Four Mile Pt., east of Oswego, influenced by the Oswego River plume has been producing fish for some boats, but our best fishing has been right in and around the harbor. Standard stickbaits and spoons have been producing most of the browns with Kiro Kin SB90 Megabaits, R&R Flutterdevles, Dunkin Donut Flutterdevles, and ham. brass/silver #44 Suttons fished on the boards and riggers, our best baits. Be sure to fish some spoons off the boards. One of the really impressive things we've noticed so far this spring is the condition of the browns, rainbows, landlocks and cohos we've been catching at Oswego. The reason..., we're seeing not only gobies in these fish, but also smelt, lots of 3"-4" yearling alewives, a few adult alewives, and lots of spottail shiners. There is a ton of bait for hungry spring predators. This is good news and bad news, BECAUSE it really puts the weight on fish, but it also makes them tougher to catch, with shorter feeding periods and fussier fish. This is exactly what we've been seeing on our trips. Activity periods have been short most trips, and fish have been very picky about lure selection. Rewarding, but challenging spring fishing. Speaking of smelt, "Miss Em" tells me that internet reports from the Niagara River earlier in April were talking a smelt run there so thick that dip netters on the New York side of the river were limiting out with two dips..., same numbers on the Canadian side. I saw some huge concentrations of smelt on the lake last summer just west of Oswego, and a lot more smelt than normal in stomachs of the trout/salmon I cleaned thru the season. Since smelt occupy a little different niche in Lake Ontario's aquatic ecosystem than alewives, often provide forage for salmonids at different depths than alewives, and are a favorite forage of the Atlantic salmon we've been seeing in increasing numbers, recently, the resurgence of Lake Ontario's smelt population is a huge plus for the Ontario fishery. When I started cleaning brown trout that Fish Doctor anglers had been catching in and around Oswego Harbor in the past week, I was surprised to see so many yearling alewives in their stomachs. These are alewives that hatched in 2009. Then, on April 25, after catching some rainbows and browns in shallow, we boated out to deeper water to fish for lakers. When we checked the stomachs of the ones we cleaned..., lots of yearling alewives and a few smelt. Hmmm...??? Last time I saw this many yearling alewives in the stomachs of lake trout taken on bottom in 200 fow in April we were looking at one of the strongest year classes of alewives in recent history. The jury is still out on this one, and we won't know for sure until the results of trawling by the research vessels "Kaho" and "Seth Green", but my guess is that we're looking at a very good forage situation in Lake Ontario for the next few years. Something else we've noticed this spring while fishing browns around Oswego Harbor..., until 4/25, we hadn't seen a single adult or transformer lamprey mark on the larger browns we've been catching, which have been riddled with lamprey attack marks in recent years. It wasn't until 4/25 that I noticed a transformer wound on a 10.4 lb. brown, and an old(maybe 2009?) adult scar on an 8 lb. brown. I have yet to see any lamprey attack marks on 3-4 lb. 2-year old browns, domestic rainbows, Atlantic salmon, cohos, or lake trout. Lampreys can kill fish outright if they withdraw enough body fluids while feeding, and they restrict the growth of the fish they feed on when they don't kill the fish. Lampreys definitely target larger fish, and seem to select lake trout and brown trout over other species. One thing we know for sure..., when lamprey numbers aren't controlled adequately, they seriously reduce the number of larger fish in the population, and I believe this is exactly why in recent years we haven't seen the numbers of brown trout 15 lbs. and larger that we used to see back in the '80's and '90's. If browns can get a break from lampreys for even just one year, we should see some bigger browns. We're already seeing more 3-year old browns this spring than last. Could be a result of more effective lamprey control. Let's hope so.
47 As a Lake Ontario charter captain with 30 years of experience under my keel, I’ve been asked many times, “If you had only one spoon to use in Lake Ontario for trout and salmon, what would it be?” Well, to answer that, I’ll take it one step farther. If I had only one spoon to use for trout and salmon anywhere on a flatline, leadcore or copper line, or a downrigger or Dipsy, , it would be an ultralight flutter spoon called a Sutton, in Size #44. If I could select a few different sizes of Suttons, I would add the #31, #71, #88 and #38. The first time I fished Lake Ontario in September, 1977, with my fishing partner Mac Collins, five out of the six kings my partner and I caught were on a flat silver #88 Sutton. Since then, Sutton spoons in a variety of sizes and stock finishes, plus customized versions I concoct myself, have caught every species of trout and salmon in Lake Ontario for me including, cohos, steelhead, lake trout, domestic rainbow trout, landlocked salmon, several thousand brown trout, plus walleyes and bass. Suttons, by far, are the most popular trolling spoon for trout and salmon in New York’s Finger Lakes, where they originated many years ago, and continue to be manufactured in Naples, at the south end of Canandaigua Lake. They have had and continue to have one of the finest silver plated finishes on the market. Suttons are available in both ultralight flutterspoons and heavier casting spoons. They are available in a variety of finishes including flat and hammered silver, brass, copper, silver/brass, and silver/copper depending on the model and size. My favorite is the ultralight flutterspoon because it can be tweaked to troll properly at speeds from 1.5 – 3.0 mph. These spoons come from the factory with a light treble hook which produces good action at slow speeds. For my purposes on Lake Ontario, I replace the treble on all Sutton spoons with a single Mustad siwash hook. On my favorite, the 3” long #44 Sutton, I use a Size #1, #1/0 or #2/0 depending on the speed I’ll be trolling for different species and the spoon action I’m trying to achieve. With the factory bend and a single # 1 hook, the #44 rigged with a #1 crosslock snap on a light leader will start to spin at 2.0 mph. Small crosslock snaps improve the action of any flutterspoon at slow speeds. Rigged with the same small crosslock snap, but a 1/0 Siwash hook, the #44 will start to spin at 2.3 mph. Rig a #44 Sutton with a #2/0 Siwash hook and a #2 Sampo coastlock ball bearing snap swivel it will wobble up to about 2.7 mph. Flatten the spoon thru the middle and bend back a 3/8” length of the nose of the spoon, and it will wobble up to about 3.0 mph. For brown trout, tune a Sutton to wobble. King salmon prefer a spoon that wobbles, but will hit spinning spoons when they’re aggressively feeding. Domestic rainbows sometimes prefer a flutterspoon that spins. Vary the size of the Sutton you’re fishing from the smaller, 3” #44 and #31 to the larger #71 and #38 depending on the size of the bait fish trout and salmon are targeting. One of my my favorite Suttons in Lake Ontario’s gin-clear water when it’s sunny is the stock hammered silver/brass finish. A 1/16” stripe of fluorescent orange paint along the silver edge of a hammered silver/brass Sutton produces more fish in colored water under sunny skies. A flat silver Sutton with a diagonal stripe of light blue lazer tape is one of my favorites for brown trout in clear water and low light. Your own custom touches of tape and paint are sometimes just what the doctor ordered. I’ll never forget that first Lake Ontario trip with Mac Collins. As he removed a crumpled #88 Sutton from a big king’s toothy maw, I suggested the spoon was ready for the garbage heap. “No way,” Mac said. “This baby is just starting to get a little character!” Mac put another “peppermint twist” in the spoon, rigged it on a downrigger and promptly caught another king on it. You can order Sutton Spoons online at www.allseasonssports.com With all the snow and ice outside, it’s hard to believe, but Lake Ontario’s spring brown trout season is just two months away. When that time comes, step aboard my charter fishing boat, and you’ll see some specialized rods and reels designed for one purpose, catching Lake Ontario brown trout. Although, my tackle is used exclusively for fishing Lake Ontario, the same gear will catch browns in clear water lakes and ponds anywhere this wary salmonid swims. The same system is effective for shallow water landlocks, rainbows, brook trout, and lakers. Long, 9-foot graphite noodle rods custom built on 3 to 5-weight fly rod blanks are my tools of choice for planer boards. The shorter 6-foot, 4-10 lb. class rods you’ll see are for shallow downrigging. With most of Lake Ontario’s early spring brown trout action close to shore in 5 to 15 feet of water, these ultralight rods are fitted with light, levelwind Penn 965 International reels. Spooled with 10 lb. Penn Premium monofilament line, in hi-vis colors for planer boards and clear for riggers. An 8-foot monofilament leader testing 4-8 lbs. is attached to the main line. Leaders vary from 4 to 8 lb.test depending on water clarity, and are rigged with a small #1 crosslock snap on one end and a black barrel swivel on the other. If you’re trolling light flutter spoons like the #44 Sutton, small spoons like Needlefish, and lightweight stickbaits, the light leader and crosslock snap are critical for producing optimum lure action. Unfortunately, many anglers still troll for browns with heavy line and large terminal snaps, limiting their success. Since the reduction of phosphate levels and the introduction of zebra mussels in Lake Ontario, clarity of the water has increased dramatically, with a chartreuse downrigger weight occasionally visible to a depth of 35 feet. In this gin clear water, light line is key to catching spooky spring browns. Watch one of the these small planers duck and bob over the waves, and you can see why they’re deadly with streamer flies for landlocks. Ultralight rods, are a definite advantage for shallow water brown trout. These soft-action rods will put far more browns in the net than heavy stiff rods, especially if you’re trolling small stickbaits like an F-7 or F-9 Rapala with tiny treble hooks. Ultralight rods are an absolute must if you’re fishing leaders in the 4-8 lb. class. Tests of our rods with a hand held scale show that under a heavy bend only about one to two pounds of pressure is generally applied on the line. No wonder those little hooks stick in a brown trout’s jaw like a burr in a dog’s coat! Many early spring brown trout fishermen curse bright sunny conditions. They do well early and late in the day or when it’s overcast, but strike out in the bright sun. Yet, sunny spring days produce some of my best spring brown trout. Why? Two reasons. First, if it’s bright and sunny, I seek out areas of colored or turbid water where runoff from river mouths discharges warm, muddy water into the lake, a favorite hang out for baitfish and big browns. Another hot spot is a windswept shoreline where turbulence from wave action increases turbidity. Colored water provides cover for baitfish, and browns remain active in these areas later in the day there when it”s. Secondly, if the only option is clear water, I troll lures on light leaders from planer boards, well away from the disturbed area around the boat. If you don’t fish with planer boards rigged with boards, you might want to try one of Church Tackles inline side planers, like the 5 Ľ inch TX-6. The TX-6 attaches directly to your line and is small enough to use on a light rod. It has a built in release and planes away from the boat carrying the lure as far out to the side as you want to fish it. Watch one of the these small planers duck and bob over the waves, and you can see why they’re deadly with streamer flies for landlocks. I like to attach aTX-6 planers securely to the line, and unsnap the line from the release on the board when the planer approaches the rod tip as the fish is being landed. Last but not least, if you fish light gear for any type of fish, needle sharp hooks are a must, because it is close to impossible to really set the hook well with light, stretchy mono. Sharpen hooks religiously. Use chemically sharpened hooks like those manufactured by Mustad, Gamakatsu, and VMC. You Will see the difference. It had to be frustrating. The two anglers trolling near us in the 16-footer just outside eastern Lake Ontario’s Oswego Harbor hadn’t moved a rod. In a flat calm sea I watched the smaller boat’s every move and repeatedly dodged their planer boards that had to be more than 100 feet off their beam with lines set no closer than 50 feet from the boat. Four of our 6 planer board lines were stone dead, but finicky April browns were hammering the tuned black and silver F-11 Rapalas on the other two lines, set just 15’ out from the boat and 70’ back. “It’s all about the cone of disturbance”, I thought to myself. A few years earlier, trolling for staged king salmon in 12 feet of crystal clear water off the mouth of the Salmon River, my son Randy hollered to me from the cockpit, “Dad, come look at this!” As I peered over the gunnel in the direction he was pointing, I could clearly see the sandy bottom under the boat. Then I saw what he had, a huge school of kings that we were trolling through, moving about 25 feet away from the boat as we passed through them, almost as if we had an invisible plow attached to our hull. Every time we trolled through the school, the fish moved away from the boat exactly the same distance. Again, I thought, “It’s all about the cone of disturbance.” Cone of disturbance or COD for short, is a concept you don’t hear much about from Great Lakes trollers. A few savvy anglers, though, use it to consistently boat more trout and salmon. It’s the area of disturbance around a boat that pushes surface oriented fish away vertically, and horizontally a certain distance to what I like to call the “sweet spot”. Reverse this concept, and the same factors can actually attract fish from a distance to the outer edge of the COD around a boat. Things like boat visibility, engine and outdrive noise, prop disturbance and flash, hull vibration, and electrical charge all repel fish a certain distance from a boat. That distance depends on other factors like species behavior, water clarity, light conditions, and lake surface conditions. From experience, I’m convinced that even subtle things like engine lifter noise, affects COD. For some species like the crazy, fearless coho, with a definite attraction to motion and noise, outer limits of the COD may be within arm’s reach. But other more sensitive or wary species like chinooks and browns behave differently, and are seldom caught as close to the boat. For each individual boat, each species has it’s own sweet spot. The bottom line for anglers is about taking advantage of fish concentrations when presenting baits and lures. As a boat “plows” through the water and pushes fish out to the edge of the COD, fish tend to concentrate a certain distance from the boat. Theoretically, if that distance was 25’ off the beam, and steelhead were equally distributed just under the surface, the concentration of fish in the sweet spot would be 150% or 1 1/2 times greater than the average distribution on the lake surface. Not a bad spot to target, eh? Effective rigger, Dipsy, sinking line, and planer board setbacks are as much a part of COD as are the perpendicular distances vertically and horizontally from from the hull of the boat. As a boat moves past fish, of course, they may eventually move at whatever distance back behind the boat. Fish a Dipsy Diver with 6 – 10 feet of leader on 15 feet of line to the rod tip for spring browns in clear water and you’ll likely draw a blank. Fish a Slide Diver, one of my favorites, on 15’ of line but with a 20 feet or longer setback to a lure, and you’ll likely hook up. The other important factor here is fish activity level. We all know fish are not active 24-7. I saw a good example of this at a major sporting goods retail store recently where I was doing a seminar and talking with anglers near the store’s huge aquaria for several hours. While there, I noticed a landlocked salmon, constantly swimming around the aquaria for a couple of hours. Then, for no apparent reason, it suspended motionless, hardly gilling, in a corner of the aquaria, and stayed there for several hours. It reminded me of a scene in an instructional video by master flyfisherman Jim Teeny where he unsuccessfully cast flies to several inactive steelhead lying almost motionless in a shallow run, then chucked a rock at them to break the dormant “spell”, moving them to another location, and then hooked up on his first cast, all filmed from 50 feet above. Anyone who has spent much time fishing Great Lakes steelhead offshore has seen these fish, lying motionless, just barely below the surface, seemingly dormant. That changes when a boat passes close to them and “kicks them in the butt”. You’ll often find more active fish at the sweet spot along the edge of the COD. The COD varies from boat to boat. My 28’ twin engine Baha, with oversized mufflers on V-8 engines, catches fish much closer to the boat than a 26’ 4-Wynns I/O I operated years ago. BZ(before zebra mussels) when water visibility was 3-5 feet in Lake Ontario, my son Jeff tipped me off to one of the hottest COD recipes I’ve ever used for surface oriented steelhead, a green size #1 Dipsy Diver on the #3 setting with no ring, on 20 lb. test mono, 25 feet from the rod tip. It not only took more steelhead than any other rod on the boat, the fish caught on it averaged larger. The same recipe was deadly on inshore browns. Thinking more in vertical terms rather than horizontal, one of the deadliest recipes I ever used BZ for staged kings off the mouth of the Salmon River was a tuned #88 Sutton 15 feet behind the weight and 18 feet down over 20 feet of water. Today, AZ(after zebra mussels), with water visibility greater than 30 feet at times, those recipes have changed, and are more variable, especially as water turbidity varies. Fishing in early spring in the turbid plume of the Oswego River in 20-30 feet of water, I still catch browns on Dipsy Divers 25 feet from the rod tip, but in clearer water 40 feet of line to the rod tip is a better recipe. Short rigger setbacks in 20 feet of crystal clear water no longer work for me for staged kings. I’ve always said that all it takes is one blistering hot rod to make a fishing trip successful, and on many trips on my charter boat, that rod is fishing the sweet spot on the edge of the COD. If your way out rods that are often deadly don’t seem to be working, tuck things in a bit, because chances are, revved up trout and salmon may be eyeballing you boatside as you troll by. Mono Dipsy rods work great for spring browns. Here's a depth chart for 20 lb. test; Line – 20# Maxima Speed – 2.5 mph Large Dipsy (no ring) Lg Dip,(ring) Depth(ft.) No. 1 No. 3 No.1 No. 3 10 - - - - - - - 15 - - - - - - - 20 - 45 - - - - 25 - - 55 - - - - 30 - - 70 - - 55 - 35 - - 90 - - 65 - 40 - - 115 - - 80 - 45 - - 155 - - 105 - 50 - - 200 - - 125 - 55 - - 250 - - 150 - 60 - - - - - - - 65 - - - - - 200 - Here are a few of the popular Stingers for spring browns; Spring Browns: MI fav.: - Emerald Shiner - Gator - Tuxedo - Smelt - Emerald Shiner Hologram - Sodus Point Buckeye Fish Doctor spring favorites: - Tuxedo(overcast) - Bitter Lemon(sunny, slightly turbid) - Kevorkian(muddy, overcast) - ham. Plain Jane(brs/grn), overcast - dbl Orange Crush, (sun on cheater) - Blue Bubble(rainy day spoon) - Green Bubble(sunny day) - Glow Froggy(overcast, turbid)
48 For salmon fishing aboard the Fish Doctor, the right "Medicine" for big, lazy late summer chinook salmon is Pro-Troll's big guys, the 11" ProChip and HotChip. When we're using flies, we fish a 36" leader(nose of fly to end of leader) when the bite is hot, but stretch the leader length to 48" when the bite slows. Sushi flies, standard mylar flies baited with alewife strips, are our favorite. When big kings want meat, we fish whole bait, real alewives by Familiar Bite. Leader length to the bait heads are 48" to 56" now, but we'll stretch that out to up to 72" by late August and Sept. Long leader lengths are the ticket for LOC Derby winners$$$ There's something about fishing a single spoon on copper way away from the boat on a Megaboard..., they catch BIGGGG kings! There's no question that flashers and flies are the rage for king salmon on Lake Ontario these days, but anglers shouldn't overlook spoons. At times, there is a major fly bite, but at other times kibngs want spoons. One of our favorites this season is Michigan Stinger's new "Salt & Pepper" pattern in the Stingray. We named it after the legendary "Salt & Pepper" J-plug, in a similar color. Fresh, high quality whole bait means everything when you're fishing meat for king salmon. The primary forage for kings in Lake Ontario is alewives, and Familiar Bite Bait is the only company that sells it. Their bait is top quality, BUT it's up to the angler to take it from there and handle the bait properly to maintain this quality. Familiar Bite alewives are sold frozen in vaccuum packed styrofoam trays. BEFORE thawing, pierce the bag. Then open it and let the bait thaw just enough to separate it. Place the partly frozen bait in a salt brine the evening before you're going to use it. I place the brine jar of bait right in a small cooler along with a similar size jar of frozen salt ice and carry the cooler onboard. Any leftover baits are fileted into bait strips for Sushi Flies and placed in a ziplock bag with salt. I carry these in the same cooler as the whole bait. Quality alewives mean everything when you're fishing kings. Fish Doctor anglers have been catching some beautiful browns in the thermocline intersect in recent days. You'll find them anywhere from Ford Shoals to Catfish Creek, with major concentrations off Alcan and Catfish Ck. They always like spoons, but late summer browns find it tough to pass up dodger/fly and flasher/fly combos.
49 Here's a versatile glow green flasher that we've used for years and now Michigan Stinger is producing it. In low light, we like a glow green fly with it, with either a glow minisquid insert or glow white and glow green beads. In the sun, it will catch fish with a Crusher Fly, LOTSA Fly, and others. If you haven't fished the NASA fly, you should. This is one of "Miss Em's" favorites in the sun behind a stock green ProChip 8 on a 23" leader. Here's a new one from Silver Streak that we call "Giggles" because of the reaction of a young lady on board the Fish Doctor when we put this girlie magnum spoon in the water on August 1, 2009, for the first time. It didn't take long for a nice king to slam it. The most overlooked flasher on Lake Ontario, if not all the Great Lakes? I'd say it's Pro-Troll's 11" Hotchip. It's good anywhere, but really deadly behind a magnum Dipsy Diver. Although 11" flashers catch fish right fromt he get-go in early May, they become even deadlier as the season goes on. That's O.K. guys, we don't mind having this one all to ourselves on Lake Ontario! Almost forgot to mention..., the hot item on 8/1/09 was the chrome/silver prism 11" HotChip with a Mirage fly on a 36" leader..., whew!!
50 We've all run in to the same situation...,a hot early morning salmon bite, then the doldrums in midmorning. When that happens aboard the Fish Doctor, we break out the Sushi! No, not for lunch, Familiar Bite alewife strips for use as bait on mylar trolling flies behind ruddered 8" flashers, 11" flashers, and Kingston Tackle Slashers. They are deadly. We'll have more info on this deadly technique on Capt. Ernie's article in the latest issue of Great Lakes Angler. The brown trout fishing is improving as the weather conditions smooth out and the thermocline steadies. There has been a pretty fair brown trout bite the past couple days in the thermocline intersect at 55 - 65 feet between Oswego and Nine Mile, and some of the biggest fish are coming on dodgers and flies. Here's a tip for you..., If you have any "squirrel flies", you know, the ones that are all chewed up and about half size..., use them behind dodgers for browns. They like the smaller, small profile flies. That's why we tie our own Fish Doctor "Clear Water Specials", a shorter than normal, slim profile fly with slightly smaller hooks in the Tournament Tie Fishing in 4-6 footers, or worse? Try running spoons on copper with 75-100 feet of 20# leader. The rougher it is the better the technique works. I looked at the new NK28 I had received from Northern King to test, and new it would be a winner the second I saw it. Twenty minutes in the water,and we took our first fish on it, a nice steelhead. I looked at the purple halogram glow spoon in the steelies name and said, "We've got to give this one a name, because it's going to be hot!" How about "Barney", the angler beside me said, and "Barney" it is. Several kings later, "Barney" looked like it had been in a bar room brawl. Not yet available from Northern King, let's hope it becomes a regular.
51 Everyone has their favorite salmon fishing spoon, but one of my favorites out of Oswego is Northern King's NK28 in the 42nd Spoon. I like it when the water is clear and the light level is low, especially fished in combination with flashers. On a recent charter fishing trip, our first 6 hits came on the same pattern. Day in and day out, if you're salmon fishing on Lake Ontario in the month of June and July, there isn't a better spoon to run behind a Dipsy Diver than a Purple Thunder Mauler. I like to run it behind a metallic purple Dipsy Diver, and use two versions..., a glow ladder over a flat silver ladder in low light or deep water, and the opposite in bright light. If you're salmon fishing on Lake Ontario and the bite slows, think about running whole alewives because salmon will hit them when they'll hit nothing else. I run them behind 8"and 11" ProChip flashers or clean, in combination with flashers and flies or flashers and bait. ProChip 8 flashers revolutionized salmon fishing on Lake Ontario when they were introduced in 2003. Fished with a trailing fly or whole bait, Thousands of king salmon, cohos, steelhead, brown trout, and lake trout have been caught on them since. I use 23" to 27" leaders on the flies behind the ProChip 8 and 36" to 48" leaders behind the ProChip 11. If you're looking for an all-around spoon for kings and anything else that swims in cold water, you can't go wrong with Michigan Stinger's Sting Ray in any number of patterns. It's the perfect size for midsummer kings and is very speed tolerant. Patterns like the black alewife and blue dolphin are legendary on the Great Lakes. The mongoose pattern is a favorite in the sun.
52 Lake Ontario salmon fishing can be unpredictable. Book a salmon fishing charter well ahead of time, and much of your success will depend on weather and water conditions. This was the case late last week when the salmon bite slowed. Then, over the weekend, weather and westerly winds reared their ugly heads and made fishing tough. That has all changed now, with good numbers of king salmon straight out of Oswego Harbor producing sizzling action. No boats fished the heavy seas on Monday, but a couple of boats reported limit catches of kings on Tues., July 14. Reports were also good on July 15. On a short scouting trip prior to a 7/16/charter, it took only 5 minutes to connect with a nice king salmon, and only 15 more minutes to catch and release two browns. We have a feeling our charter crew for tomorrow, July 16, will see some exceptional salmon and brown trout fishing. Tackle manufacturers love it and anglers hate it. We're talking about fussy salmon and trout that love a lure one day and hate it the next. We've all been there. You finally find the "magic" lure that you hammer the fish on trip after trip. Then, all of a sudden something changes and what once was "magic" is no more. And, that is why we've all got a selection of plugs, lures, and flies in our tackle boxes that would make any tackle shop owner smile! Assuming you're on fish, and you've got everything else together, finding the right bait or lure can be critical. Speaking of spoons, here are some that have been working aboard the Fish Doctor in late June and July for browns and kings; - Goldie Hawn - 42 Second Spoon - Spook - 71 Sutton, hammered brass/silver - #3200 Lemon Lime Flutterdevle - Mongoose and glow Mongoose - Glow black alewife, standard and Sting Ray Stingers - Monkey Puke, standard Stinger - Purple Thunder Mauler - Blue Dolphin, Stinger Mag - gold Green Dolphin, Stinger Mag Speaking of baits, one of the most consistent aboard the Fish Doctor is just that, bait..., whole bait by Familiar Bite. Every morning, that's all we're running to start with on the riggers, generally behind flashers, but also clean. One of the pleasant surprises on eastern Lake Ontario the past three years has been the steelhead we've been catching. 2009 has been no different with some nice steelies being taken, recently in 350 to 450 feet of water. If you haven't checked out our blog, you'll find it on our home page at
53 There's no question about it, July is our favorite month to fish Lake Ontario. Why? Well, because it's the easiest month of the year to locate kings, steelhead, browns, and lakers, all concentrated in an below the thermocline, usually deeper than 70 feet. Remove the top 70 feet of 10,000 square mile L.Ontario, and cold water loving trout and salmon definitely are more concentrated. Add to this the fact that trout and salmon in midsummer are feeding actively..., gorging on alewives and smelt. Later, by midAugust, both browns and adult king salmon start thinking about spawning, and it's not unusual to see fish with rock hard stomachs that haven't fed in some time. Add to this beautiful midsummer weather and you've got a winner! July, 2009, is no exception. In late June, alewives that had just finished spawning were moving back offshore and concentrated in 60 to 90 feet of water. With a thermocline starting to form about 75 feet down, king salmon were starting to bunch up just outside the alewife schools in 90 to 180 feet of water. On June 29 and 30, Rudy Heirling, Beau Roskow, and their fishing buddies George and Bruce, got a taste of the fishing to come in July, boating some nice lakers, and kings. On July 2nd, kings up to 18 lbs. a steelhead, a coho, and some browns, all made up a nice multispecies catch, typical of the month of July. If you're planning on fishing Lake Ontario in the Oswego area in the next few days, if you can locate bait, in this case alewives and smelt, you will locate the predators that feed on them..., kings, steelhead, browns, lakers, and maybe even a coho. On July 2nd, straight out of Oswego, we saw school after school of bait flat on bottom in 60 to 90 feet of water(fow). Temp at 65 feet was 60 degrees, and 43 degrees at 100 feet. Beyond 90 fow, bait was suspended and very scattered out to about 165 feet from in front the college to the Seith Energy plant. The past few days there has been a good bite in shallow from 100 to 120 fow early, then fishing gets tough. We've moved out deeper in late morning, and continued to catch fish there. Capt. Ernie saw the same activity pattern on 7/2/09. No question that flashers and flies, including our favorites, ProChip 8s and ProChip 11s, are the most used attractors on Lake Ontario at the moment. Everyone is trolling them in combination with spoons. Sooo..., what does Mr. Fish think of this, especially when there are lots of boats in an area? Well, my guess is they're "saying"..., "Oh, ho, hum..., there goes another flasher and fly..., been there done that!" My answer to this..., troll something different, especially dodgers and flies. And, that is exactly what I fished on the morning of 7/2, a complete set of dodgers and flies on the riggers, Dipsys, copper, and thumper rod..., not one other thing in the water. Not only that, I wasn't poking along at flasher speed. My thumper rod signalled that my dodgers were rolling, ripping along at 2.7-3.0 mph. The result, some nice kings, a 7 lb. steelhead, a 6 lb. surprise coho, and some browns. Who said browns can't catch a fast moving bait. You can bet that these fish hadn't seen a 100% spread of dodgers and flies all season. If you're planning on being onboard our charter boat, the "Fish Doctor" between now and July 19 during the Summer LOC Derby, don't forget to enter at
54 Year in and year out, the area in and around Oswego Harbor produces great fishing for browns and it's just a few minutes from the marina. Why? Well, if you were around a few years back when the cormorants made their daily flight by the thousands from the Henderson Harbor area to Oswego Harbor, you'd understand. They weren't flying there for the exercise. They were flying there because the warm, nutrient laden water from the Oswego River is like a magnet to baitfish, alewives, spottails, small gizzard shad, and today, gobies. Other predators, including browns are attracted there for the same reason..., FOOD! Speaking of gobies, they are the reason we no longer see thousands of cormorants making the flight to Oswego every morning..., thank the Lord. Because cormorants stay at home and feed on the plentiful gobies in the northeast portion of the lake, survival of stocked brown trout and steelhead has improved dramatically, creating the excellent fishing we've enjoyed the past few years. Nowhere in Lake Ontario is lure selection and presentation any more important than when you're on "harbor patrol"! Figure out the recipe, and you'll enjoy consistent good fishing. When surface water temps approach 70 degrees or higher in the harbor, I fish mostly spoons on riggers, Dipsys, Slide Divers, and leadcore. Suttons, Evil Eyes, Stingers and Flutterdevles are my favorites. Color selection is crucial with the slightest changes in color important. Hammered silver/brass, black/silver, silver/green, silver/red, silver blue, silver blue/green, silver/lemon lime, glow green, brass/orange, brass/green are some of my favorite patterns. A variety of rigger setbacks work, but one of the keys is to fish one or more cheaters, even in the shallow water. On May 21 between Alcan and Seith, gulls and terns filled the air diving on bait and big browns, that were gorging on alewives filled the water. At the time, I thought peak alewive spawn had arrived, but three days later, the alewives were gone, and the browns in the general vicinity of Oswego Harbor returned to a diet of gobies along with occasional alewives. That is about to change with large schools of alewives staged just outside of Oswego Harbor in 60 to 90 FOW. Browns, rainbows, steelhead, kings, lake trout, and occasional cohos and landlocks are all being caught in the area. On Sun., June 7, good numbers of kings were bunched up on this bait in 92-94 fow, and produced some good action. We saw around 12 kings on the underwater camera, and watched two of them competing to get to a baited glow/green fly behind an 11" Alaskan(silver/green stripe) flasher. Weather was overcast with a flat sea. Surface temperatures have changed drastically outside the harbor, and on Tuesday, at noon, just 100 feet NW of the lighthouse, surface temp was a surprising 50.2 degrees. One thing many anglers overlook is the use of cheaters for shallow water browns. They aren't hot every day, but somedays they are on fire. I like a 6-8 foot leader, and cheat it two feet above the release. Orange crush, and silver red 3 1/2 inch spoons are my favorites. It took me way to long to catch on to using Slide Divers for spring browns, but now that I have, they've become a standard part of my spring brown trout arsenal. I fish them on braided line on the #4 setting, with a 25' - 50' setback, and 8 feet of 15# test fluorocarbon leader. The Lite Bite Slide Diver is just the ticket when you're dealing with occasional freshly stocked yearling browns. One word of caution..., Slide Divers are a bit tough on line, even braided line, so remember to check your line frequently and trim off any that's frayed. The Summer LOC Derby runs from June 20 to July 19 with a $7500 grand prize. You can enter online at
55 Patty McMahon is a verteran Fish Doctor angler, and it didn't really surprise her when the 6' KidStick bent to the water and the Penn965 International reel started screaming. Fifteen minutes later after a give and take battle on 8 lb. test mono, a mint silver 14 lb. king came to the boat. Congratulations Patty on boating the first king of the 2009 Fish Doctor season. Patty had been presented with a one-of-a-kind PINK Fish Doctor hooded sweatshirt just before the trip, and was wearing it when she fished. Patty's king hit a #44 Sutton fished just off the bottom in 30 feet of water just outside the Oswego Lighthouse. Steve Wetmore and his fishing buddies John, Scott and Mike are regulars aboard the Fish Doctor and know all about the fantastic May king salmon fishing near Oswego Harbor. They've boated many May kings, including a quad(four on and in at once). They also know all about persistence when the fish aren't jumping in the boat. That was the secret to Mike's king on May 6 on a cold, windy, foggy day. When the king slammed a White ProChip and Illusion fly on a wire Dipsy, Mike was ready and took advanntage of the opportunity to put a delicious eating fish in the box. Rick Coonce is a very lucky man. His thoughtful wife purchased a Fish Doctor gift certificate for him a Christmas present. Mike's timing for the trip was right on Friday, May 8, when he caught and released some nice chunky browns the first half of the morning, then went out deeper and boated his limit of 16 to 18 lb. kings between 9:00 and 11:00 AM. Thanks to veteran spoon puller Bill Demerlee for the spoon that took two of these fish for Rick. "Here he comes! Here he comes!" was all I heard as all hands, instead of being on deck, were pointing at my 16" dropdown flat screen. Sure enough, 35 feet down a nice king appeared from nowhere, swam up to a Mystery squirrel fly behind a "Late Riser" ProChip and nonchalantly inhaled it. With Everyone still watching the screen, and pointing at the thrashing fish still on camera, I was momentarily alone in the stern of the boat with a screaming reel and a very upset king salmon. A fraction of a second behind me, Chris Collis grabbed the rod, and the fight was on. In flat glassy conditions under a bright sun, it's tough to beat a "Late Riser" ProChip and either a Pretty Jane or Mystery fly. If you're thinking about switching to the 300 lb. test monofilament "Zip Line" that we use aboard the Fish Doctor for planer board tether line, BEWARE! Unless you leave your nylong line on a Canon planer board reel, the mono line, which stretches under pressure will contract and crack the planer board reel. The solution to the problem is to NOT reel the board in under pressure. Just have someone else pull it in while you reel the slack line on the spool.
56 April 18 dawned with some pretty brisk winds from the west when we left the dock at 6:00 AM, and it was questionable if the Reyell party was going to have decent fishing brown trout fishing conditions. The first few hours were not only a bit bumpy, but fishing was slow until about 8:00, as we trolled east from Oswego Harbor. We doubled on browns, both on blue dolphin("2-tone") Flutterdevles at about 8:30, and knew we had found fish when we returned to the "X" on the chart plotter and doubled again. The tally was 10 browns up to 11 lbs. 1 oz., plus a 14 lb. 2 oz. laker by about 11:00 AM. All but three browns came on Flutterdeveles on the boards and riggers, all on a hammered silver blue/green pattern I call a "2-tone". What a shame that Eppinger no longer makes the silver plated hammered Flutterdevle. It's a killer on spring browns. Interestingly the browns had alewives as well as gobies in their stomachs. The laker, taken in 12 feet of water on a ham. silver/blue Flutterdevle, also had alewives in it. The 2-year old browns are averaging about 17 inches, but are in good shape after a winter of feeding on gobies. The older browns look good and most are much heavier than postspawn browns used to be before they were utilizing a winter goby forage. April 19, was pretty much a repeat of 4/18, but winds were from the NW on Sunday and it was a bit sunnier. We fished water temps ranging from 46 to 49 degrees inshore on both days. Congratulations to Fred Reyell and his cousin Dawn Reyell for leading the brown trout and lake trout divisions of our $1,000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby. You can check out the derby details here on our web site. Fred boated a lake trout that weighed 14 lb. 2 oz. on a 9' FD noodle rod and 8 lb. test line after a dogged battle. Dawn scored on an 11 lb. 1 oz. brown, also on a noodle rod and 8 lb. leader. It's hard to say if these fish will stand up through the end of June when the $1,000 derby ends, but..., YOU NEVER KNOW! Good luck Fred and Dawn! Cathy Reyell loves to fish, and caught her limit, including this postspawn brown on 4/18. Dawn Reyell has fished since she was a kid, and boated this nice brown on 4/18. Craig Reyell is a chip off the old block. Nice brown, Craig!
57 Since I published my last fishing hotline with the article on mag Dipsy Divers, I've received several emails from anglers who have tried them and quit using them. The problem they say is these deep diving Dipsys with a heavier leaded keel and 32% more planing surface pull too hard to be comfortable to fish on their Dipsy rods. How long are their Dipsy rods..., 9 to 10 feet. My solution..., a 7' Roller Dipsy rod that Capt. Jeff and I custom build with lightweight AFTCO roller guides. Shimano is the one manufacturer I know of who makes a 7' roller Dipsy rod. It's all about leverage. The longer rods up to 10' in length are definitely a man killer with an oversized mag Dipsy doing it's thing. Here's one that might be worth trying this season for browns. Michigan Stinger makes a goby pattern in both a plain and a glow finish with either a silver or copper cup. I didn't get my hands on any of these until well after the brown trout season was underway, but I caught browns and a couple of kings on all of the finishes. These spoons will definitely be hanging on the Fish Doctor lure rack when the 2009 spring brown trout season begins. One of the secrets to successful use of whole alewives for trout and salmon is preparation. One of the tricks..., place them in a salt brine the night before you're going to fish them without letting them thaw first. Remove all 8 of the alewives from the Familiar Bite vacuum pack, and run some cold water over them so they thaw just enough to pull them apart without ripping the fins. Then pop them into the brine. You'll find when you fish them that they stay firm longer and retain their scales nicely. I've seen it all when it comes to fancy knots in braided line, including a special glue. Well, if you want to tie a loop in the end of a braided line to attach a snap swivel or whatever, simply tie an overhand loop knot just as you do in wire line. It works perfectly. Speaking of knots, check out the "Video Tips" page on my
58 Whole bait, specifically whole Alewives by Familiar Bait, has always worked aboard the Fish Doctor for salmon and trout. But, with lots of kings in the east lake from early May throughout the season, and flashers or dodgers and flies working so well, bait took a back seat. Well, that all changed during the 2008 season, when kings were scattered, deep, and fussy. When the going gets tough for salmon on the Fish Doctor and there are fish under the boat, the last resort is whole bait. If you fished through the cut bait era on Lake Ontario, you know that bait is deadly. Problem..., trolling speed with cut bait is limited, slower than you need to troll when fish are scattered. Solution..., whole alewives that can be tuned to troll with the proper action at up to 3.2 mph. Fished behind 8" and 11" flashers, whole alewives saved the day for Fish Doctor anglers on many 2008 trips. If you aren't using it, you should be. It's an extra, deadly tool, when you need it. Everything eats gobies, especially when alewives aren't availbable. Just as I had seen in April, 2007, early April browns this season were gorging on gobies. During the remainder of the season I found gobies in every other trout and salmon species we caught. When alewives are present, they're preferred. But, when they aren't, gobies become a secondary forage, some times exclusively. Fact..., gobies seldom leave the bottom, except when startled, and then only darting up a foot or so. Sooo..., when trout and salmon are chowing on gobies, forget about the old spring trolling tactics for browns and scratch the bottom as if you were fishing lake trout. Megaboards, oversized triple planer boards, have been used aboard the Fish Doctor to fish copper ever since I saw them in action on a charter boat in Chesapeake Bay in April, 2006. They fish almost straight out off the beam of the boat and long lengths of copper doesn't pull them back like inline planers, especially on turns. On years like 2008, when fish are deep much of the time and 300, 400, and 500 feet or more of copper is necessary to reach preferred water temperature, megaboards are invaluable. When copper is hot, or fish are scattered horizontally and vertically, I fish up to three copper lines from each board, and a seventh copper rod down the chute. Sooo...,it's the 2008 salmon season, and temp is down 125 feet. No sense fishing Dipsys, right? Wrong, thanks to mag dipsys that on the #3 setting will dive to 130' on 350 to 400 feet(depending on currents) of 30# stainless, fishing a ProChip 8 flasher and fly. The Mag Dipsy is another tool that will help you keep the box full when the temp is deep. Don't get in a rut like I did and overlook the Lite Bite Slide Diver or standard Slide Diver. These handy dandy diving planers are well worth adding to your Lake Ontario arsenal, for everything from kings to browns. They were developed for fishing light-bite walleyes. There's a bit of a learning curve associated with rigging and using the Lite Bite Slide Diver, but the effort is worth it. I fished them extensively with spoons this season on braided line when browns, rainbows, and steelhead were in the top of the water column. They outfished standard Dipsys some days with a 20'-50 setback from the diver to the spoon.
59 Sorry about the break in fishing hotlines. I was GONE HUNTING! When you think back on the 2008 trout and salmon fishing season on Lake Ontario, one thing we probably agree on..., it was one of the toughest ever. When May began, the good numbers of kings we've seen off Oswego Harbor were not there, and it seemed that way most of the season, except for the last half of August and early Sept. when the kings were bunched up off Nine Mile. Much of the season conditions were not ideal with temperatures deep most of the time. The good news about the salmon fishing was the size and condition of the fish..., the Fall LOC Derby grand prize winner was a good 3 lbs. bigger than in 2007. One positive spinoff of the salmon season..., when conditions are tough, you work harder and learn more. New gear to us..., magnum Dipsy Divers..., absolutely invaluable for fishing deep water unreachable with standard Dipsys. Tough to fish on standard Dipsy Diver rods, our custom built Fish Doctor 7' roller Dipsy rods handled the mag Dipsys easily. By the end of the season, we had a new mag Dipsy Diver depth chart that will be expanded in 2009. In the deep water big flashers and whole alewives(Familiar Bait) saved many a trip. 11" Hot Spots, 11" ProChips and the big 13" Kingston Tackle Slashers spent a lot of time in the water. Thank the Lord for brown trout, They provided good fishing from the start to the end of the season. It seemed like the numbers of steelhead were up in midsummer, but that may have been because Fish Doctor crews spent more time cruising the high seas in search of kings. Lake trout numbers continued to be lower than the heydays of the past, but the good news here is that the lakers we caught were in beautiful condition and the Bureau of Fisheries thinks survival of the 2008 yearling lake trout stocking was excellent. Thanks to those of you who emailed reminders to update my fishing hotline. Sorry, but if you had checked my office door, you would have seen a large sign that said..., "GONE HUNTING!" As soon as I stepped off the boat in September, with bags already packed with shotgun shells and guns already cased and ready to go, I hopped in my gas-sipping Subaru Forester with my English Setter, Bandit, and headed for the setting sun. Destination..., South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming in search of sharptail grouse, prairie chickens, Hungarian partridge, and sage grouse on the wide open grasslands and sage brush prairies of the West. What a trip. Lots of sharptails and prairie chickens on the national grasslands in South Dakota, plus Huns and sharptails on the 27,000 acre Adschauer ranch in Faith, South Dakota, and more Huns and sharptails on the seemingly never ending 4,000 acres of wheat fields on the Bergsagel farm in Malta, Montana. The pheasant season was not open in September in any of the western states, but my setter Bandit worked hundreds and hundreds of pheasants during our hunt. As soon as I returned to New York ..., you guessed it..., more hunting for my favorite..., ruffed grouse. If it wasn't raining cats and dogs here in Mexico today, I'd probably be busting brush instead of being in the office! If you're an upland bird hunter and love hunting over dogs..., Go west, go west. Be ready to walk up to 10-15 miles a day, because these prairie birds are very scattered. My setter worked more birds out there in the 9 days we hunted than she will the rest of her days in the east. It's a heck of a long drive, but it's worth it. It's musky madness time! Our first musky trip is scheduled for Oct. 29 and our last for Dec. 6. More monster muskies swim the waters of the St. Lawrence River than any other water in the world. A 58-inch monster has already been caught in the river this fall. We're hoping a Fish Doctor musky hunter will be able to show you a photo of an even larger one before seaso's end! I've fished whole bait in one form or another for 50 years and Familiar Bait's whole alewives in Lake Ontario for four years or so. I'm not easily impressed at this stage of my fishing career, but after whole alewives saved trip after trip this past salmon fishing season when conditions were tough, especially when the kings were real deep, I admit I'm impressed. Fishing whole bait is all about (1) quality bait, (2) proper bring before use, (3) proper tuning/rigging, and, (4) proper use. I used it mostly this season behind large flashers like the 11" ProChip and Hot Spot, and the 13" Kingston Slasher, but also behind smaller ruddered flashers like the ProChip 8 and 8" Fish Catcher at speeds up to 3.0 MPH. Tuned properly whole bait is extremely speed tolerant. It is especially effective on large fish at slow speeds. It was quite and education this season to fish flashers and bait for kings "on-camera"! If salmon fishing continues to be tough, you'll see whole bait used more and more by anglers in the know. A pleasant surprise! I purchased one of the new X4 Fish Hawk down speed/temp probe and..., WOW, what a unit! Speed and temp readings are now constant as deep as you'll fish and the 9-volt battery life problem is gone. I fished the X4 with it's four AA batteries for 3 weeks of doubles without changing the batteries. Congratulations Fish Hawk on a nice unit!
60 Between the thunderstorms and high winds we've been dealing with lately, fishing has been challenging, but rewarding. Yes, the kings have been scattered and not as plentiful in July as normal, and the browns have been a bit fussy, but we've been catching some nice fish just the same. Just ask my grandkids, Emily and Owen, the real anglers in the Lantiegne family. Last Saturday, they fished the Little Salmon Challenge for the second straight year with their Mom Mary Anne and Dad Jeff, and placed 16th in a field of 110 boats. Their "hotspot" was about 8 miles west of Oswego Harbor in 250 - 450 fow. One of Dad's favorites, a Glow Froggy MI Stinger Mag took their biggest king..., about lbs. They also took a 9 lb. brown on a dodger and JitterFly. Way to go guys! If you're interested in late summer browns, one thing you should remember is that they change their "flavor" a bit from early summer, and start liking different offerings, including large spoons and flies behind dodgers or flashers. Anglers aboard the Fish Doctor have been catching browns the entire month of July on JitterFlies behind either dodgers or flashers. Yes, the kings have been scattered and we haven't been catching as many as normal, but the gals and kids aboard the Fish Doctor have been working their magic, and are still bringing a few nice salmon aboard. There has been a good spoon bite lately, and some of our hottest include Michigan Stingers in the ham. silver/glow green, Nitro Stingray Wonderbread, and mag glow frog, one of "Miss Em's" favorites. Another that has been working in glassy water under sunny skies is the Green Dolphin on a gold blank. On the copper from now on thru August, it's tough to beat a ProChip with a JitterFly. Some of our favorite combos for kings and browns aboard the Fish Doctor are the green/Guacamole or Sagoma Green, white/Snow White or Champagne, chartreuse/Pretty Jane or Sundance, chrome silver prism/Tatiana Mirage, Chaquita/Sagoma Green, and Hot Tamale/Green Hummer. The chartreuse/sundance is excellent for steelhead, and the Hot Tamale/Green Hummer is devastating for coho. Use at least 30' of 20# or 30# mono leader and a high quality ball bearing coastlock snap swivel. Fish the copper on boards or down the chute. We like a 7' custom Fish Doctor CopperStik with oversized guides and foregrip for the board lines, and an 8-9 foot rod for copper down the chute. The longer rod down the chute helps keep the copper out of the way when landing fish or setting lines. Yesssss!!! We finally have a top quality reel repair shop locally. Email Chris Misciagna at
61 It wasn't long ago, that we had to drop riggers to 110 - 130 feet to reach temp. This and 48 degrees at 45'. In 75 to 80 fow, where bait and browns had been plentiful two days prior, it looked like the black hole..., not a mark on the fish finder. In 40 fow, it was wall to wall bait and the browns were there. Suttons on light leader and a Lite Bite Slide Diver with various Stingers, depending on light conditions, were our hottest rigs. If you're not fishing the Lite Bite, you should be, especially when the temp is high. It has been catching fish for us all season from inside Oswego Harbor out to deeper water. Today it was catching browns with the Stinger 30' back, and 100 - 125 feet of 30# braided in the water, #3 setting. No question about it, the kings have been scarce in eastern Lake Ontario since about 4th of July weekend. Talk to the boys on the Canadian side, and you'll hear just the opposite..., lots of kings and rainbows, and ice water temps on or near the surface. Check west and you'll find that the winning boat in the Pro Division of the Pro-Am out of Sodus this past weekend did it with a two day limit of 100% browns. The kings are way overdue! After fishing JitterFlies for two seasons now, I can tell you this..., They catch not only kings, but browns, steelhead, and lakers, and they are absolutely devastating on cohos. If you're not fishing them, you should be with a 23" leader behind a ProChip. My hottest combos..., midlight - green ProChip/Guacamole J'Fly, sun with a ripple - char. ProChip/Sundance or Pretty Jane, sun with flat glassy surface, "Late Riser"/Sundance or Pretty Jane, low light and clear water - chrome ProChip/Blue Moon, low light - white/Snow White, midlight - white 'Chip/Champagne, late season cohos - Hot Tamale 'Chip/Green Hummer. Run an 8' leader to the 'Chip/J'Fly, if you're fishing them on a Dipsy. Don't fish any shorter than a 30' leader if you're running this combo on copper. Fish it any distance on riggers. One thing you'll find is the extra resistance caused by the action bib on the JitterFly slows down the rotation of a 'Chip, making it ideal for big fish, and outstanding in very rough water.
62 It took a while, but the kings have finally moved in off Oswego. Salmon fishing was slower than normal in May and June, but it picked up in the past week. The biggest fish onboard the Fish Doctor so far has been a 26 lb. 6 oz. heavy bellied king that was taken on a Dipsy and Mongoose Stinger fished down 90' over 125 fow on July 1st, one day after our $1000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby ended. Most of the action, though, has been on ProChips and JitterFlies. The kings have been scattered in 125 - 200 fow east and west of the harbor. Thursday at noon the temp was 55 degrees at 90' and 46 degrees at 100', shallower temp than the previous few days when we were catching kings on as much as 130' of cable. No question about it..., Jitterflies are deadly, and they have been producing most of the kings aboard the Fish Doctor recently, plus browns, rainbows, and a surprising number of lakers. Hot combos for kings in low light have been a white ProChip and Champagne(white/green) JitterFly, plus a green ProChip and a Guacamole(green/glow) Jitterfly. In the sun hot item honors have been shared between Sundance and Pretty Jane Jitterflies behind a stock chartreuse ProChip in the sun with a choppy surface or the "Late Riser" in the sun, but a flat glassy surface. One of the big pluses of the stock JitterFlies Fish Doctor anglers have been catching kings on this season is their 2-hook system. The stinger hook is a #2 VMC treble and the leading hook is a wide bend 2/0 VMC single. Similar to the familiar Tournament Tie, the double hooks on the JitterFly are deadly. Rainbows and steelhead like Jitterflies, too, and two of my favorite patterns in the sun are the Sundance and Pretty Jane behind a chartreuse ProChip. Rainbows and steelhead like white in low light, and the white ProChip and a Champagne JitterFly are one of my favorites in these conditions.
63 No one will argue that erratic spring weather, especially changeable winds, have made spring fishing challenging. BUT, Fish Doctor anglers will tell you that patience and persistence have paid off. Now that surface water temps have warmed to over 70 degrees in Oswego Harbor, in the low 60 degrees inshore and close to 60 degrees out to 200 fow, long overdue alwives are moving inshore, brown trout are becoming more concentrated, we're routinely seeing a few domestic rainbows, and scattered kings are still biting Lars Clute can tell you all about patience and persistence, and keeping your lines in the water for big browns. Lars now leads the brown trout division of the $1000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby and is in 2nd place in the Summer LOC Derby with a 13 lb. 5 oz. brown he and his crew from Warren Co., NY worked hard for. In 2-4 footers with a few browns hitting hammered silver/brass Suttons in the lee of Oswego Harbor breakwalls, it was tempting to fish there in the calmer water. But, instead, the crew headed by Karl Roberts willingly agreed to fish east in the bumpy seas and turbid water in hope some alewives and feeding browns might be there. The effort paid off with Lars' big brown that hit a custom painted black/silver/chartreuse Smithwick. Although kings have been much less plentiful in the Oswego area than the past 7 years, Fish Doctor anglers have boated some dandies. The word here is SCATTERED, and that's been the deal with the kings. Capt. Ernie has seen 6 king salmon boated in less than 20 fow this spring, and additional 12 adult kings caught in less than 70 fow, and offshore, kings boated out deep as 120 feet down. Although they didn't hit, we've seen what we think are kings(we think) on the fish finder as deep as 250' over 300 fow. With alewives few and far between in May, two of the adult kings we cleaned, one taken 30 feet down over 120 fow were stuffed with gobies. One of the keys to catching kings in these conditions is a wide spread from shallow to deep. Varied lengths of copperfished from boards is and down the chute is perfect. We've been waiting for lunker brown trout conditions. That means warmer water and major inshore movement of alewives. Both are happening right now. The more bait there is inshore, the better the chance to catch a monster brown. Sutton spoons, Stingers, Evil Eyes, Flutterdevles, and Yecks are Fish Doctor favorites this time of year. Chinook Salmon - 19.3 lbs., Beau Roskow Brown Trout - 13 lbs. 5 oz., Lars Clute Steelhead - 15.0 lbs., Chris Collis Lake Trout - 5 lb. 3 oz., Kris Barden Landlocked Salmon - 6 lb . 10 oz., Jackson Davis Coho Salmon - 3 lb. 2 oz., Darrell Williams
64 Ask Dan Barry and Dick Victory about brown trout fishing this spring out of Oswego and they'll chew your ear off about their trip on May 13, 2008 aboard the Fish Doctor with Capt. Ernie. With a slow start in a spot with frigid water and no browns, Capt. Ernie changed locations, did some searching, and after a false start with gigundus sheepshead, found the browns and Dan and Dick enjoyed great action all morning long. The final tally was somewhere around 25 browns with nine of them weighing between 7 and 9 lbs. These were fresh fish that had just moved into the area with no lamprey marks on any of the fish, except for one 8+ lb. brown with two hits(scales missing, but no wound). The hot item for the browns were Sutton spoons, orange/crush Stingers, and lemon lime Flutterdevles. One of the presentations that worked for us on 5/13/08 in the bright sun when spoons on the riggers and boards quit working was a lemon/lime Flutterdevle fished about 20' behind a Lite Bite Slide Diver with 30' of braided line between the diver and the rod tip. We've been fishing Lite Bite's all spring, and they now have a permanent place in the Fish Doctor arsenal. What's a charter captain do when he has a cancellation. No, he doesn't sleep or get started on a "Honey-do" list. He hops in the boat and does some scouting, and that's exactly what Capt. Ernie did on May 14, 2008. He had been wondering if there were any kings around after a couple days of west winds and a major movement of alewives into the Oswego Harbor area. The result..., 4 kings and 1 steelhead boated by 6:45 AM. A combination of ProChip Flashers and 4" Alewife JitterFlies, plus spoons did the trick. The hot spoon was a Diehard. The kings are here and just minutes away from Oswego Harbor!
65 Ask Dan Barry and Dick Victory about brown trout fishing this spring out of Oswego and they'll chew your ear off about their trip on May 13, 2008 aboard the Fish Doctor with Capt. Ernie. With a slow start in a spot with frigid water and no browns, Capt. Ernie changed locations, did some searching, and after a false start with gigundus sheepshead, found the browns and Dan and Dick enjoyed great action all morning long. The final tally was somewhere around 25 browns with nine of them weighing between 7 and 9 lbs. These were fresh fish that had just moved into the area with no lamprey marks on any of the fish, except for one 8+ lb. brown with two hits(scales missing, but no wound). The hot item for the browns were Sutton spoons, orange/crush Stingers, and lemon lime Flutterdevles. One of the presentations that worked for us on 5/13/08 in the bright sun when spoons on the riggers and boards quit working was a lemon/lime Flutterdevle fished about 20' behind a Lite Bite Slide Diver with 30' of braided line between the diver and the rod tip. We've been fishing Lite Bite's all spring, and they now have a permanent place in the Fish Doctor arsenal. What's a charter captain do when he has a cancellation. No, he doesn't sleep or get started on a "Honey-do" list. He hops in the boat and does some scouting, and that's exactly what Capt. Ernie did on May 14, 2008. He had been wondering if there were any kings around after a couple days of west winds and a major movement of alewives into the Oswego Harbor area. The result..., 4 kings and 1 steelhead boated by 6:45 AM. A combination of ProChip Flashers and 4" Alewife JitterFlies, plus spoons did the trick. The hot spoon was a Diehard. The kings are here and just minutes away from Oswego Harbor! This is the second season that we've held the $1000 Spring Fish Doctor Derby and it's generating a lot of excitement aboard our charter boat. Here are the standings so far; Brown Trout - 9.0 lbs., Dick Victory, May 13 King Salmon - 19.3 lbs., Beau Heierling, May 3 Steelhead - 15.0 lbs., Chris Collisj, April 26 Coho Salmon - none entered Lake Trout - none entered Leaders of each of the species category will qualify for a drawing for the $1000 Grand Prize at the end of June. Good luck everyone! If you're fishing .037 diam. twisted copper, you know that the price has doubled in the last year. We purchased a supply of bulk copper at the old price, and have Copper Setups on Penn 330GTI and 340GTI copper setups in stock at the old prices, plus 8% tax; 200' Copper Setup, 330GTI reel - $140.00 300' Copper Setup, 340GTI reel - $205.00 These include Cortland Spectron backing(35# on the 330GTI, 50# on the 340GTI) which is not as slippery in releases as Power Pro or Fireline, 20# test mono leader, and Spro swivels attaching leader and backing to the copper. We also have 200' and 300' spools of .037 diam. copper wire in stock at the following prices, plus 8% tax; 200' spool - $10.00 300' spool - $15.00
66 We predicted that heavy winter precipitation would create high water in the Oswego River and great spring fishing conditions around Oswego Harbor and that's exactly what happened. Surface water temperature as high as 48 degrees on Thurs., April 17, plus colored water all the way east to Four Mile Point has the browns, cohos and rainbows revved up and hammering spoons, stickbaits, and JitterFlies. Two-year old browns are looking good, with the larger fish already up to 4 lbs. Ditto for spring silvers(cohos). The rainbows and browns were all feeding on gobies. Kiro Kin Megabaits, black/silver Jitterflies, Black/silver Rapalas, and lemon/lime Flutterdevles all produced in 8 - 20 feet of water east of the harbor. Don't forget the $1000 Fish Doctor Spring Derby running from April thru June, 2008. Anyone who fishes aboard the Fish Doctor and registers with us is eligible. We'll weigh in your laker, brown, chinook, coho, and/or steelhead/rainbow and the largest of each species will end up in the "hat" for the drawing of the $1,000 grand prize. D.J. Vaughn was the lucky Fish Doctor angler in 2007. If you're looking for copper line; a complete Copper Setup with backing, copper, and leader on a Penn330, 340., or 345 GTI reel; a custom 7' Fish Doctor CopperStick; or would just like us to spool .037 diam. copper on your reel, we are where copper started. A lot of copper "experts" have been fishing copper for 2-4 years, or less. We've been fishing it since 1967, and know what you need. Contact us and we'll set you up with the right gear for fishing copper. Copper is deadly for spring kings with dodger or flashers and flies or with run straight with spoons. We usually don't start catching major numbers of kings offshore in 100 fow or more until after May, 1. A few April kings always show up in shallow water, including a 15 pounder boated by Todd Rogers and his crew east of Oswego Harbor in 6' of water on 4/16/07. Way to go, Todd and crew! Don't forget to enter the Spring LOC Derby before you fish aboard the Fish Doctor. With a $10,000 grand prize, it is well worth the $15.00, 1-day entry fee.
67 If you've been wondering where Capt. Ernie disappeared to, and why his fishing hotline hasn't been updated in a while, you might want to ask his little English Setter, Bandit. She'll tell you the grouse hunting has ben fannnntastic in the Adirondacks and northern Maine. It's back to the grindstone soon, though, because his first musky charter is Oct. 29. Too bad, Bandit! With flow currently at 750 cfs in the Salmon River and air and water temperatures cooling, conditions are perfect for the first big run of steelhead this fall, and that's exactly what reports from the Salmon River indicate. If you're thinking about steelhead, you might want to get your gear together and head for the Salmon River now. Early season steelies love single egg imitations like Glo Bugs(Oregon Cheese!) dead drifted along the bottom. If you're fishing from the bank, try the inside bend of the chute below the Paper Mill Pool. It's perfect in 700 - 1,000 cfs. Haven't really heard too many reports from the Oswego River recently, but the flow has jumped from around 1200 cfs on Oct. 20 to over 10,000 cfs today, Oct. 25. If domestic rainbows, and steelhead are ever going to run, they will run now. The river has had fair numbers of king salmon in it for several weeks, but low water has hindered anglers. You may want to give the Oswego a try. Captain Ernie's first musky charter on the St. Lawrence is Oct. 29, with trips booked until Dec. 8. Reports of numerous muskies up to 50 inches being already being caught in the big river look very promising. We'll keep you posted as the season progresses.
68 If you're looking for an easy spot to fish salmon right now without a lot of boat pressure, you couldn't find a better place than Oswego Harbor. Not many boats are fishing it and there is no shortage of kings. These staged kings, respectfully termed "Harbor Sharks" by some of our Fish Doctor anglers, are ready to rumble on their spawning beds, and have the chompers to do it with. Capt. Ernie has seen some male chinooks with their huge early fall mouths and gigundus(for a fish) teeth around a half inch in length. What a difference from the sleek, silvery feeding kings we catch in spring and midsummer. Some of our hottest items lately have been HotChips, not ProChips, trailed by Howie Flies and Jitterflies. HotChips have no rudder, and at the right speed have a much more erratic action than the steady roll of a ProChip. The erratic action is just the ticket for turning on lazy, but nasty, "Harbor Sharks". If you're fishing for king salmon out of Oswego Harbor and weather permits, consider a 5-7 mile cruise offshore to 500 - 600 fow where you'll find bait and plenty of steelhead and immature kings. On 9/22/07, we took our first inshore domestic rainbow of Sept., '07 right in front of the lighthouse. With surface temps down to 67 degrees just outside Oswego Harbor and subsurface temp 60 degrees at 55' staged kings which some of our Fish Doctor anglers refer to as "Harbor Sharks" are on the prowl. The big boars now have oversized mouths and some nasty teeth, and they are ready to rumble. "Ceegars"(big Orcas) in glow green/black ladderback are just the ticket for these prowlers before daylight, and they've been liking "yellow-bellied woodpeckers"(Orcas) in the colored harbor water after sunup. Weather permitting, you might want to cruise offshore and try for some steelhead. We've been finding them wherever there is bait, recently in 500 - 600 fow NW of the harbor. They are actively feeding and are full of large, adult alewives. Find bait and you'll find steelhead and immature kings. If it's bright and sunny with a chop on the water, try "Miss Em's" autumn favorite..., a chrome/silver prism ProChip or HotChip with a Mirage Howie Fly. I like to add a JItterfly head.
69 Anyone fishing eastern Lake Ontario in the past week will tell you the fishing for king and coho salmon has been some of the best ever. The kings aren't running quite as big as usual and lampreys are more abundant than ever before, but there are lots of kings and the action is hot and heavy. Depending on your location, there are also lots of cohos. Look for them in from 65 - 250 fow off 9 Mile Point, and a few days ago there were reports of hot coho fishing off the North Dunes. One of our hottest rigs the past 3 or 4 weeks has been 11" HotChips and other flashers trailed by a Howie Fly on a 36" to 48" leader. Maybe it's just because the fish haven't seen to many of these "Big Guys" since cut bait went by the wayside, but whatever the reason they have been catching fish. If you're interested in fishing them, use the same flasher/fly combos you like in the 8" flashers and fish them exactly the same..., same setback, same speed. They're working Nothing aboard the Fish Doctor will catch cohos in late August and early September like Hot Tamale ProChips and Custom Fish Doctor dodgers..., nothing. Hot Tamale ProChips on copper off the boards and Hot Tamale dodgers behind an orange/char ring Dipsy are two of our favorites. With no rain in sight, we're predicting some of the best late-season king and coho salmon we've seen in many years. With lots of salmon in the lake and very low flows in the tributaries because of the dry weather, conditions are perfect for massive numbers of salmon to stage just off the river mouths in the coolest water they can find. Thinking cohos? Think Rrred!
70 Time to let this one out of the bag. A favorite of "Miss Em" and a regular aboard the "Fish Doctor", 11" HotChips and Howie Flies really come into their own in late summer, just about the time all of us are looking for a monster $20,000 LOC Derby king. Nothing new to West Coast commercial salmon trollers, any 11" flasher trailed by bait, a hoochie, or a fly will catch kings. But, Capt. Ernie has found that Pro-Troll's 11" HotChip with a Howie Fly has the perfect action for kings at the same trolling speed that you fish the 8" ProChip and HotChip. Fish 11" HotChips by themselves, or in a set of 8" ProChips or HotChips...., DEADLY!! The effectiveness of the EChip in the HotChip speaks for itself. Just check the LOC Derby winners since 2003. No rocket science here..., exactly the same combos that work for you with 8" ProChips and HotChips will work with 11" HotChips trolled at exactly the same speed. This one isn't rocket science either. The best, time tested fly on the market is the Howie Fly. Yup, there are lots of copies, most of them poor,improperly tied, ineffective imitations, but the mylar trolling fly that beats them all is the Howie Fly. Why? Because every single Howie Fly pattern has been tested over time, some of the originals for 30 years. The best anglers in the Great Lakes have fished them. Every fly has been tweaked over time to make it fish even better. Legendary Lake Michigan captains like Dan Keating and Chip Porter fish them exclusively. Howie Flies showed up on Lake Ontario aboard the Fish Doctor in 2000, and have been catching fish ever since, including the LOC Derby winners in the fall of 2006 and spring of 2007. If a fisherman tells me he's having trouble catching fish on flies, the first thing I ask is, "Are you fishing Howie Flies?" If he answers, "No.", my response is, "I'm sorry, I can't help you."
71 Scattered kings mean tough fishing right now for boats fishing out of Oswego Harbor, but the big kings are there. Fish Doctor anglers boated two derby class kings on 8/7/07, one on an AM trip and one on a PM trip. Both were caught on mag spoons fished on copper from Megaboards. PA angler, Bob Huttner, and CA angler Larry Peltz came to Oswego for the same reason..., to catch a big king. That's just what happened aboard the Fish Doctor on the afternoon of 8/7/07. Bob spotted the hit after as the fish ripped the copper free from the planer board release and all heck broke loose as a big king headed for parts unknown. Larry Peltz grabbed the rod off the roof rack and 30 minutes later after some huffing and puffing boated a magnificent male chinook pushing the 30 lb. mark. Good job, guys!
72 It's August and the kings are starting to stack up in the southeast end of Lake Ontario. The weather has been calm..., perfect for fishing. Kings are scattered, our deepest king coming in 384 fow on 8/2/07 and our shallowest in 91 fow. They're everywhere! Look inshore, my friend, look inshore. Browns are scattered from Oswego well into Mexico Bay, and they are dandies. Dave Gagnon, boated one over 12 lbs. on 8/2/07 On the morning of 7/28/07, "Way-Low" ProChips with doctored Glow Baby Howie Flies were the answer in low light in 65-95 fow, just west of Oswego Harbor. On the afternoon of 7/28/07, it was more kings for Fish Doctor crew Rick Morford, daughter Mickey, and grandsons Carter and Codey in 205 -325 fow. "Late Riser" ProChips and Reverse Green Howie Flies tuned the kings in flat, glassy water under sunny skies. Ask Dave Gagnon about Chaquita dodgers on copper, and he'll tell you..., "Chaquita Rules!" The first Chaquita dodger of the 2007 season went in the water today, 8/2/07 and in less than 10 minutes a big adult king was making the clicker on a Penn 345 GTI sound like a machine gun. Think COLOR for big August kings!
73 Just headed for the sack, but wanted to share with you one of the hottest flies I've ever fished. I'm calling it a Howie "Crusher". Heavy seas kept us in the harbor for a couple of hours this morning, but we finally blasted our way out thru 3-6 footers to 140 fow NW of Oswego Harbor and got our first line in the water at 7:45 AM. From then until 10:00 AM on a long downwind troll, with only five rods in the water, at most, fishing only two of the Howie "Crusher" flies, Tony Spinelli and his buddy, Gerry, boated 15 adult kings. That's one king boated every 9 minutes. Whew! Ten of them came on the Howie "Crusher", 3 came on a new "Glow Mirage" Howie, and two on spoons. The Howie "Crusher" isn't really a new fly, it's a redesigned Aqua Chartreuse Howie Fly that has been around for many years. Tim Dawidiuk, the man behind Howie Flies decided to give the old Aqua Chartreuse Howie Fly a face lift, by hybridizing it with the new "Clearwater Series" flies and their narrow cut mylar, and his "Frog" Series with the bright colored vinyl trim. The result the first day it was ever in the the water anywhere..., DEADLY on kings behind a white Prochip in the bright seas and a heavy chop Here's one you're going to be hearing about more this salmon season, the new Howie "Glow Mirage". Looks good enough to eat in the water, and the kings like it, too.
74 On Tuesday morning while prefishing for the Oswego Pro-Am with Capt. Jack Bussey, Capt. Ernie had a rare opportunity to reel in a king salmon. Trolling downwind with the autopilot in control, three kings hit simultaneously, and Jack and Ernie hustled to land all three. Although planning to release any fish that were caught, after unhooking a Plain Jane Mauler from the big fish's jaw, one look at the size of the heavy-bodied king Jack had just netted for Ernie was enough to box it and head for the weigh station..., good excuse to have an early breakfast! At the weigh station the verdict was 25 lbs. 9 oz., enough to place 4th in the Salmon Division. After a ton of big kings were boated over the weekend, the fish is in 9th place on the LOC leader board, but the Fish Doctor crew is not done yet. The Summer LOC Derby doesn't end until July 15. With a little luck, who knows? Way to go, guys! There is only one word to describe the trout and salmon fishing right now in the Oswego Harbor area..., WORLD CLASS! Few places in the world can match the combination of fantastic king salmon and brown trout fishing anglers are now enjoying. With a steady thermocline in the 70' to 80' range, browns are concentrated in the thermocline intersect along with lots of bait. Kings are cruising just outside in 100 - 350 fow. With both kings and browns feeding heavily, action on attractor/flies and spoons is hot and heavy. You'll find browns both east and west of Oswego Harbor, and the heaviest concentration of king salmon west of the harbor. Standard ProChip/Howie Fly combos like white/white, white/white-green, green/glow green, green/green krinkle, chartreuse/silver-green, and chrome silver prism/mirage are all good combos. On the Fish Doctor spoons in black/silver, brass/green, blue dolphin, red monkey puke, silver/green, brass/silver and Purple Thunder have all been catching fish. Coming soon from Howie's Tackle are the new "Clearwater Series" flies we've been testing for a year now, an expanded "Frog Series" , and a newly designed Howie's "Crusher" Fly we'll have in the water soon. The Bull Frog produced aboard the Fish Doctor last season, and the Aqua Frog has been catching some fish for us since early May. As soon as possible, the flies will be available locally. If it works in Lake Michigan for trout and salmon, it works in Lake Ontario, PERIOD! Since the year 2000, Capt. Ernie has been fishing Howie Flies, which originated on Lake Michigan in the 1970's and have been fine tuned on the Great Lakes ever since. In, 2001, Capt. Ernie took his first trip on Lake Michigan with Capt. Tim Dawidiuk and saw 52 kings and steelhead boated on Howie Flies and Mauler spoons in a 6-hour trip. Ever since with contacts like Chip Porter, Dan Keating, and others, it has become very clear that king salmon in Lake Michigan like the same gear as they do in Lake Ontario. Sooo..., what's going on in Lake Michigan? Well, here's the scoop from Tim Dawidiuk who manufactures and sells Howie Flies, is a charter captain himself, fishes a number of L. Michigan tournaments each and also operates a retail store in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, on the west shore of Lake Michigan. Tim says; - Kings are being caught now in Sturgeon Bay area in early AM in 60-90 fow, down 60' - 90', then after sunup down 60' - 90' over 150 to 250 fow. - Everyone is using copper for tournaments, charters, sportfishing, down the chute and on inline boards. Howie's Tackle sold 750,000 feet of copper in 2006. - Most charters fish one or two thumper rods(20# Malin wire, 16 oz. "meatball"), sometimes from inline boards with a lighter 8-10 oz. weight - Most charter boats have gone dropped from 5 to 3 riggers. - There is an excellent fly bite there right now, and most boats are fishing all flies - Water Fleas: basically none - The top 5 Howie Flies - Little Boy Blue - Double Aqua - Bull Frog - Holdout(#76, Green krinkle + powder blue - Aqua Pearl(#52) - Top five attractors, all 8" Hot Spots - white - chartreuse - chrome/silver prism - purple haze(UV, disco tape, purple stripe) - Hot Tamale - Top Five Selling Mauler Spoons - Blue Dolphin, no tape - Silver/Blue - Plain Jane ham. silver/char. stripe - Yellow Tail - Oz - Two most popular Dipsy Colors: Clear, Green - Most popular snubber - clear The verdict is in! Capt. Carol drew the winner from the hat and it is "D.J." Vaughn with a 7.4 lb. laker, one of only three lakers caught from April thru June! Congratulations "D.J." and thanks to the three other Fish Doctor anglers who caught the largest trout or salmon in the chinook, brown trout, and steelhead divisions. I guess "D.J." just had the cards stacked with two entries in the hat! "D.J." Vaughn and his Dad, Danny, fished with Capt. Ernie on May 4, 2007. It was a great day for fishing and they boated 4 big kings, 13 cohos, a steelhead, and a 7.4 lb. lake trout. Lucky "D.J." boated a 5.2 lb. coho and a 7.4 lb. laker, both of which were the largest caught in the coho and lake trout division of our derby at the end of June. Way to go "D.J."! The other leaders in the species divisions were; Chinook Salmon - Jim and Tyler Unkel, 24 lbs. 2 oz. Steelhead - Jim Powell, 10 lb. 2 oz. Brown Trout - Dan Barry, 12 lb. 3 oz. Thanks to all who fished our Spring Derby.
75 Things couldn't have looked any better off Oswego Harbor this morning, June 29. With alewives everywhere out to 110 fow, and a water temperature of 60 degrees down 60' and 50 degrees down 90', conditions couldn't have been better, except for the 2-4 foot chop from the NW. From 5:30 AM until 9:00 PM, the 60 degree temp dropped from 60 to 75 feet. It didn't take long to find the kings and browns straight out NW of the harbor and as far east as we fished. Both browns and kings seemed to be hitting a little bit of everything, but black/silver spoons, Plain Jane Maulers, and chrome/silver prism dodgers with an Aqua Frog Howie Fly seemed to be the best. The Dipsys were firing from 120 -225 feet out, the thumper rod down about 90' and the riggers from 60-90 feet down. "Miss Em" was on the water midday, Sunday, 6/24/07, and found the browns off the plant in 120 fow. The bite was all on flies and deep, with the thumper rod firing out 250' with a 16 oz. weight, and a wire Dipsy with a Chaquita Walker Diver out 275' on the number 1 1/2 setting. The two hot items that caught browns were a "Road Kill" dodger with a flat green Howie Fly and a White ProChip with a Hammer Fly.
76 Afternoon charters in June 15's bright sunny skies and flat, glassy seas can sometimes be a tough challenge for transition browns. Brandon McNight and his crew from the Wynit Corporation knew that as we left the dock at 1:30 PM in the afternoon. First, with the bait steadily moving offshore and surface temps warming, we had to find the proper temperature, hopefully with some bait in the area. A quick check with the temp probe told the story..., 69 degrees on the surface, 61 degrees at 20', and 56 degrees at 40'. The browns could be as shallow as 20', or even less, but probably would be with the bait at whatever depth we could find them. A quick check out to 80 fow NW of Oswego Harbor was disappointing. As I swung the bow toward shore, I thought..., "When in doubt in search of browns, look shallow!" Sure enough, before we had even reached my 40' target depth, and having not seen hide nor hair of an alewife, the port Dipsy fired as a 6 lb. brown engulfed a lemon/lime Flutterdevle. It was slow, but steady picking after that in 40 to 50 fow, and my Wynit crew put a respectable bunch of browns in the box, topped with one that was almost 11 lbs. Not too bad for funky, afternoon conditions. Dan Barry, Steve, Dick had a good day on June 13 with a few decent browns, rainbows, and a steelhead in the box as quitting time approached. Just about then, a 200' section of copper popped free from a release on a board and moments later the fattest brown trout of the spring was thrashing in the net. The verdict..., 11 lbs. 3 oz. for the heavy bellied brown, placing Dan at the top of the brown trout category in our $1,000 Fish Doctor Derby. Our derby runs through the end of June, when our $1,000 winner will be drawn from the five species category winners. Current leaders of the species categories; King Salmon - 24 lbs. 2 oz., Jim and Tyler Unkel, May 12, ProChip/LBB Howie Fly Coho Salmon - 5 lbs. 2 oz., D.J. Vaughn, May 4, Howitzer (red #00 dodger/grn Howie Fly) Rainbow/Steelhead - 10 lbs 2 oz., Jim Powell, May 19, Howitzer (dodger/grn Howie Fly) Brown Trout - 11.lbs. 3 oz., Dan Barry, June 12 , "Late Riser" ProChip/slv/grn Howie Fly Lake Trout - 7 lbs. 4 oz., D.J. Vaughn, LOTSA dodger/LOTSA Howie Fly
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78 B.J. Zobka was not to be outdone on June 10. With a hot brown trout bite in early morning and a couple nice kings for Bill Sr. and Uncle Ronnie in late morning on June 9, the decision was made to go for the gusto on the second day of their trip. It would be kings or nothing, or, as B.J. had said, "Fish Big or Go Home!" It didn't take long. After locating the outer edge of the bait movement in about 80-90 feet of water, our target area paid off when a 330 GTI on the roof rod rack started screaming as a king ripped 200' of copper from a release on a Megaboard and headed for Henderson Harbor. Not a big fish, but it put a smile on B.J.'s face.
79 Browns in close and kings just outside the harbor made for a great trip for Ron, Bill, and B.J. Suttons, Evil Eyes, and Silver Streaks, and Maulers were hot for browns, while, you guessed it, a combination of ProChip/Howie Flies and spoons did the trick on the kings. If you haven't been fishing deep, you should think about it if you're interested in kings, steelhead, and lakers. We're seeing most of the bait in 60-80 fow. Browns in close, kings out deeper, and scattered steelhead and lakers. The two kings came in 85 fow on ProChips/Howie Flies. Fishing browns early, we didn't get out deep until midmorning, but the kings were nibbling. Not a lot of bait around in deep water yet, so the kings seem to be cruising and hungry.
80 Ask Bob and Ruth Gallagher about the brown trout fishing in the Oswego area, and they'll probably say, "Wow!" Bob and Ruth are Fish Doctor regulars on both the lake charter boat and the drift boats. They've seen it all over the years, but they never saw brown trout fishing any better than on June 7. Bob and Ruth boated 28 browns, releasing all but two, one for them and one for their captain. The browns ranged from 5.4 lbs. to 10.9 lbs, just shy of the 11.0 lb. brown leading brown division on the $1000 Fish Doctor Derby Leader Board. The superb brown trout fishing we're seeing right now will last right thru June and into the summer. Ruth Gallagher handles a rod as good or better than any guy that ever fished aboard the "Fish Doctor". The custom built 6' Brown Trout ShortStiks and Penn 965 Internationals make it easy. Way to go, Ruthie! In the past 6 trips, Fish Doctor anglers have released 96 adult brown trout and all looked good when they went back in the water. With water temps at 55 degrees, just below the surface, conditions are perfect for releasing browns and survival is basically 100 %. When any of our anglers boats a fish that is bleeding badly or when survival is questionable, we keep the fish. Some anglers almost never release a spring brown trout, believing they might die. Not the case. All it takes is quick and careful handling in the net, careful unhooking, and minimal time for photos. Getting the brown back in the water quickly without letting it flop all over the bottom of the boat is essential for good survival.
81 May 12 was NOT just another charter aboard the Fish Doctor. Lou Pixley and his crew had booked the trip during the Spring LOC Derby to fish for a grand prize winner. I had been fishing the Spring LOC Derby with Fish Doctor anglers for a grand prize winning salmon every day since the derby began on May 4. Fishing for kings had been tough, and Lou and his crew knew it. The king salmon fishing on May 12 was slow, as expected. Lou and his crew, Norm Pixley, Jim Unkel, and Gene Bartlow, plus 7-year old Logan Pixley and 9-year old Tyler Unkel, were patient and determined in a 1-3 foot NE chop. Until late morning, the only action was cohos on Howitzer rigs. About 11:00 AM, I picked up the VHF mic and made a call to "Miss Em" who was on the water aboard the "Intimidator". "We're slow here, Jeff, anything going on?" Jeff, came right back, "Yup, we've got a couple cohos and just picked up a king in 85 fow, between "X" and "X". You might want to come over here." Jeff didn't have to say it twice. The "Fish Doctor" was on it's way. A half hour or so later, trolling toward Jeff's "spot" from deeper water on a SE bearing, I watched the digital depth finder slowly reading shallower..., 120', 110', 100', 90', keeping one eye on the rods. As I turned my head to check the digital, I noticed that it read exactly 85'. At that very instant, with my back to the rods, I heard little Tyler Unkel yell, "We've got a fish on!", and pandemonium broke loose as we dealt with a triple, two cohos on Howitzers and something big on the specially rigged Dipsy I had set up for a big king. With rods flying everywhere, my main concern was with the white ProChip flasher and Little Boy Blue Howie Fly on the 7' roller Dipsy rod hammering over hard in the rod holder. After Gene, Jim, and I weaved the three rods around to avoid a tangle, Jim Unkel grabbed the Dipsy rod and the battle began. We had already boated some big kings during the derby, but this one had my attention. Jim excitedly asked, "Is this a good one?" My comment, "I'm not sure, Jim, because they all fight hard in this cold water, but it has the potential to be as big as 30 lbs!" Jim swallowed hard, and paid a bit closer attention to my rod handling suggestions. What seemed like forever later, I put the heavy-bellied king in the net, knowing the second I saw it that we had a heavy fish. The bouncing digital scales, accurate to the ounce , fluctuated between 23 and 25 lbs. It was time to head for shore and the weigh station, a much welcomed decision by tough little 7-year old Logan Pixley who had been dealing with sea sickness for a good three hours..., At the dock, my boat scales read a solid 24 lbs. 3 oz. Later, at Larry's Salmon Shop, the derby scales told the story..., an official weight of 24 lbs. .2 oz. and $10,000 worth of king salmon in the 2007 Spring LOC Derby. Thanks to Lou Pixley for booking the trip and making sure everyone was in the derby, "Miss Em" for putting us on the spot, tough little Logan Pixley for hanging in there, Tyler Unkel for spotting the hit, critical help from Gene to keep rods untangled, good rod handling by Jim Unkel, ProChip flashers and Howie Flies, and a huge amount of Lady Luck, Lou Pixley's crew and Capt. Ernie will be splitting the $10,000 grand prize. Congratulations and thanks to everyone. It was a blast! It takes a lot of skill, persistence, and patience to win any LOC Derby grand prize. To win two consecutive LOC Derbies as Fish Doctor anglers have, takes even more. Every angler who fishes aboard the derby must be entered, and every possible minute of the derby has to be focused on catching one fish..., a derby winning king. Derby winning kings are not taken by chance or accident. Either folks who don't have a lot of experience and skill fishing for monster kings just happen to be doing the right thing in the right place, or someone who does know how select for derby winning kings gets some help from Lady Luck. One of the things that has helped improve Derby results aboard the "Fish Doctor" in the past few years is using the right gear..., ProTroll flashers with EChips and Howie Flies with Echips. Another vital factor..., lessons in patience and persistence learned through musky fishing. It only takes one big fish to win the grand prize. If you're catching lots of kings during a derby, for a number of reasons, you can almost rule out catching a grand prize king. You also have to be fishing the right gear. Check the LOC Derby records. In the past four LOC Derbies ProTroll flashers WITH ECHIPS have produced the grand prize 3 out of 4 times. In the past three Derbies, Howie Flies FISHED WITH AN ECHIP have produced the grand prize 2 out of 3 times. From now thru the end of July, Fish Doctor Charters will be booking (1) Transition Brown Trout, (2) Summer Brown Trout, and (3) Summer Salmon On-Water Fishing classes aboard the Fish Doctor. These are either AM or PM, 6-hour classes for 4-6 persons at $120/person. On-water classes are more than a casual fishing trip. They are formal, structured sessions with an outline, and handouts, including favorite Fish Doctor color combos of dodger/flies and flasher/flies in various conditions. You'll get hands on experience with all the gear onboard. A Strike Vision camera in combination with a thumper rod will show you how to monitor and control trolling speed. You do not have to have a party of four or more to fish these classes. We routinely mix and match anglers to produce a full class. If you only have one or two persons who want to attend, email us and we can generally put a group together for you. We have some on-water classes already scheduled, and have openings for additonal classes, if you have a specific date that is convenient. Here is a schedule of classes with one or more openings which we now have on our calendar; June 8, PM - Transition Browns June 22, AM - Transition Browns..., Need one person July 13, PM - Summer Browns July 14, PM - Summer Salmon July 20, AM - Summer Browns..., Need three persons July 21, PM - Summer Salmon July 27, PM - Summer Browns We have been selling a lot of 600' coded copper Setups with .036 ga. copper, 50# braided Cortland Spectron backing, and 20# mono leader spooled on a Penn 345 GTI reel, ready to go. Anglers are finding the coded copper line with shrink tube marks every 50' takes all the guess out of putting a lure at a certain depth. Because of the demand, we're also coding 500', and 400' Copper Setups, plus the 300' Copper Setup on a Penn 345 GTI reel for a cost of the setup plus $10 for the shrink tube coding. We also spool bulk copper with backing and leader on your reels, either the Penn 345, 340, and 330 GTI or the Shimano 800, and sell 200', 300', 400', 500', and 600' spools of .036 ga. copper. Email us Yes, the $1,000 Fish Doctor Spring Derby, running from April thru the end of June for Fish Doctor charters is in full swing, and we have the following anglers on our leader board; King Salmon - 24 lbs. 2 oz., Jim and Tyler Unkel, May 12, ProChip/Howie Fly Coho Salmon - 5 lbs. 2 oz., D.J. Vaughn, May 4, Howitzer Rainbow/Steelhead - 10 lbs 2 oz., Jim Powell, May 19, Howitzer Brown Trout - 11.0 lbs., Chad Beesley, April 28, Sutton spoon Lake Trout - 7 lbs. 8 oz., D.J. Vaughn, LOTSA dodger/fly Chances are these fish won't hold up thru the end of June, but for those that caught them, enjoy your moment of "fame"! After the end of June, we'll put the leaders of the brown trout, lake trout, king salmon, coho salmon, and steelhead/rainbow categories in the "Hat" and draw the $1,000 winner! Good luck.
82 Bill Mattison, his son Will, and their fishing partners Jim and Wayne hit just the right conditions for a combination of cohos and browns. On May 6 the cohos were biting in deep water on Howitzer rigs on planer boards and shallow riggers, then on May 7 in flat glassy water in midmorning, it was steady brown trout action in 15 to 20 fow east of Oswego Harbor. Doctored and tuned Suttons were the key, with the largest browns weighed at 8 1/2 lbs. Since Bill's trip, hordes of alewives have moved inshore and the brown trout bite has slowed. Erratic winds and changeable conditions may be the reason why the king salmon bite has been slow in recent days. The last king taken aboard the Fish Doctor was on Sat., May 5, by Brian Kegg, during an on-water class. Because Brian and his crew were not entered in the LOC Derby we released the king without weighing it, and I estimated it's weight at about 23 lbs. If you're looking for some wild action grab a handful of Howitzer rigs(#00 red dodger and green Howie Coho fly) and fish them in the top 30 feet of water anywhere from the Oswego lighthouse to 150' of water. Inline boards on the surface, riggers short and shallow, orange Dipsy Divers with as little as 30' of line in the water, and short copper and leadcore sections off the boards are all producing. You'll find the hottest action in early morning, but cohos will bite all day. Lots of fun.
83 Danny Vaughn and his son D.J., hit it just right on May 4. The lake was flat as a flounder and the sky clear as glass. The result by 8:00 PM with 6 rods in the water by 8:00 PM was 9 cohos up to 5.2 lbs., 3 kings caught and released from an estimated 15 lbs. to a weighed 18.9 lbs., one king about the same size lost at the back of the boat, 9 cohos most released, a steelhead, and 1 brown. Later in the morning Dan and D. J. released more cohos and a 7.4 lb. lake trout. Not a bad early morning bite. With the surface flat and glassy at daybreak, subsurface light conditions were dark as night when we put our lines in the water at about 5:15 AM. In these conditions the kings and the cohos were liking the custom "Way-Low" ProChip with a "Glow Baby" Howie Fly, and a black/glow red NK 28, one of "Miss Em's" favorites way back in the late 80's when he was working every day during the summer aboard the "Fish Doctor". When the sun got a bit higher, the "Late Riser" ProChip with a reverse silver/green Howie produced more cohos, a brown, and a laker. Speaking of lakers, welcome news from a Canadian Fiseries survey crew working in coop with U.S. crews. Two days of gill netting off Oswego with minimal gear produced 17 lakers one day and 35 the next. Let's hope the lakers are making a comeback.
84 Yesterday was the third early morning this season that Fish Doctor anglers spent with Capt. Ernie scouting for kings the first hour after daybreak. Yesterday was also the first day, May 2, of the 2007 season that a good sized king came aboard. Joel Graham was the lucky angler, and boated a 37" silver bullet that pulled the digital scales to 19.1 lbs. It hit a spoon 30' down. Along with the king, Joel, Tony Gelardi, and Adam Littel also tangled with a number of cohos and took a nice brown down 60' on a Dipsy Diver, white ProChip and blue Howie Jitterfly. We'll tell you more about this lure later. There is only one way to describe the brown trout fishing we've had since our first trip on April 20..., FANTASTIC, and the best Capt. Ernie has seen since 1993. With a catch rate of about 20 browns per trip, with fish in the boat up to 11 lbs. and fish on and seen close to the boat, in the air, at an estimated 15-20 lbs., how could anyone argue. On May 1st, the last full trip spent fishing for browns, Tony Gelardi and his crew boated about 30 fish, 25 or so browns, 5 cohos, and one steelhead. It's true they were cheating a little bit running Tony's Jitterfly, but it's still a heck of a day. The biggest brown they boated was Yes, the $1,000 Fish Doctor Spring Derby, running from April thru the end of June is in full swing, and we have the following Fish Doctor anglers on our leader board; King Salmon - 19.1 lbs., Joel Graham, May 2nd, spoon Rainbow/Steelhead - 7.6 lbs., Tony Gelardi, May 1st, Jitterfly Brown Trout - 11.0 lbs., Chad Beesley, April 28, Sutton spoon Chances are these fish won't hold up thru the end of June, but for those that caught them, enjoy your moment of "fame"! on July 1st, we'll put the winners of each species category(salmon, lake trout, brown trout, steehead/rainbows) in a hat and a grand prize, $1000 winner will be drawn. Good luck It's always fun to fish with new gear the fish have never seen before, and Capt. Ernie had the chance to do just that on a recent 2-day trip. Still in the developmental stages, the action fly we nicknamed "Jitterfly", is yet to be formally named, but was formally christened by Lake Ontario browns, cohos, and rainbows. Not your typical trolling streamer, the vibrating, oscillating action of the "Jitterfly"is created by a concave, adjustable disc fastened at the head of the fly. The disc can be attached to either make the oscillating fly run travel straight thru the water(perfect for downriggers) or make it dive like a stickbait( ideal for planer boards). The ones we used were tied specifically with Capt. Ernie's input on size and patterns to represent Lake Ontario forage fish. It only took a few minutes to realize that cohos absolutely loved the wild, vibrating action of the "Jitterfly". We also caught browns and rainbows on them running straight, and browns and cohos on them running them behind dodgers and flashers. Hmmm...., seems to be some potential here for something new the fish haven't seen. Can't wait to get some constructed with Howie Fly material to run behind flashers. Watch out Mr. King Salmon! If you're looking for copper, we've got it. It's the good stuff, .036 ga., and it's available in 200' to 600' spools, in Copper Setups prespooled on Penn 345GTI, 340GTI, and 330GTI reels with braided backing, 20# mono leader, and Spro swivels. If you can leave your reel with us for a few days, we will also spool it with whatever lengths of copper you like. We also have Church Planer Boards to fish it with. Good luck out there
85 Fishing for brown trout couldn't be better right now in the Oswego area. Water temps are already up to 49 degrees, colored water from high flows in the Oswego River stretches well to the east of 4-Mile Point, browns have plenty of alewives in their stomachs, and some are full of gobies up to 7 inches long. Conditions couldn't be better for fishing browns, so get your gear ready and head for Oswego. The public launch at Wright's Landing on the west side of Oswego Harbor is just minutes away from the brown trout fishing. Although there are plenty of browns in the Oswego area, don't expect them to jump in the boat with all the available bait already inshore. Most days the bites have been short, but occur throughout the day. We have fished one or two trips per day since our first of 2007 on April 20, and most days have had to fine tune things to catch fish. Rapalas, Smithwicks, Thunder Sticks, and MegaBaits have been our hottest plugs. The more colored the water, the brighter the color of the plug. Fire Tiger patterns are working in the most turbid water in the sun. The opposite is true with the more natural colored stickbaits in the clearer water as you move to the east or west from Oswego Harbor. The blue/silver and black/silver/green Smithwicks have been catching fish in low light and slightly turbid water. Hottest spoons include the bitter root and glow frog Stingers, small Silver Streaks especially silver/red/orange, white/green Honey Bees, silver/brass Suttons with orange or lime green trim, and Flutterdevles in silver/red, silver/black, silver/lemon-lime, and silver/blue. After Harry, Dave, Bill and Matt fished with me for browns for three days, one of their comments, other than, "Wow, what great fishing!", was, "Before we came up our friends who charter on Lake Ontario told us we wouldn't be able to touch any of the fishing gear, or set hooks. We were surprised and pleased that you not only let us handle the gear, you were glad to allow us to help set rods, and set our own hooks when fish hit. We really liked that." That's the way it works aboard the Fish Doctor. I fish without a mate, and, although you don't have to, you are welcome to help set lines, hook your own fish, and, in some cases, even net your own fish, if you like. It's called hands on fishing. The only thing the captain likes to do himself, is clean your fish for you. Thanks Dave, Bill, Matt, and Harry. Great trip, some beautiful brown trout filets to eat, and some nice fish released. With a 4 lb. limit on the boat this spring, you still ended up keeping plenty of browns. Anglers aboard the Fish Doctor catch lots of browns and release many of them. Currently, our voluntary minimum size limit is 4 lbs., unless a fish smaller than that is mortally hooked. The NYS minimum size limit is 15", or about 2 lbs. I don't require that all browns less than 4 lbs. are released, but highly recommend it to help improve the brown trout fishing throughout the season. When you consider that a 3 lb. brown in April will be close to 6 lbs. in late August, and 6-12 lbs. the following spring, it's easy to see why releasing small browns is so important. With water temperature now in the low 40's and artificial lures used most of the time, the survival of lightly hooked released browns is near 100%.
86 Capt. Ernie did his first lake charter of the spring today, 4/20/07, and found conditions in the Oswego area ideal. Surpisingly, he fished in water temps as high as 48 degrees, with the temperature inside Oswego Harbor at 44 degrees. On a bright sunny day with a mild NW breeze, the browns were cooperative on both the boards and riggers. A Lemon Lime Flutterdevle, a customized orange/brass #44 Sutton, and silver/orange Silver Streak did the trick on the riggers. Browns were taken on the boards on the fire tiger Smithwick, green speck Jr. Thunderstick, black/silver/chartreuse Smithwick, and others. With air temps warming look for hot brown trout fishing this weekend. The 2-year old browns Capt. Ernie's crew boated on 4/20/07 were in super condition with some guesstimated at over 4+ lbs. That's great growth in late April. These fish will weigh up to 7 lbs. by Sept. It's looking like a fantastic year for Oswego Browns. The fish that were cleaned had sticklebacks, emerald shiners, and a few large alewives in them. Good chow produces great growth.
87 2007 could be another great season for big king salmon because of three factors, a strong year class of 3-year old adult fish, an abundance of alewife forage bolstered by a strong 2005 year class, and the contribution of 5-10 million wild chinook salmon smolts from the Salmon River in 2005. DEC collections of spawning king salmon at the Salmon River Hatchery in the fall of 2007 showed not only the good numbers of larger than normal 3-year old fish of larger sizes, anglers had expected, but also an abundance of heavy-bodied 2-year old fish that will produce our trophy salmon fishing for 3-year old kings this season. Add to that the findings of SUNY Syracuse fisheries researchers that 5-10 million wild chinook salmon smolts were produced in the Salmon River in 2005, and we could be talking major numbers of 2-year old kings returning to southeastern Lake Ontario and the Salmon River in 2007. Federal researchers at the Oswego biological station tell us the reason for the excellent growth and size of king salmon in 2006 was a direct result of a solid forage base of alewives. Researcher, Bob O'Gorman, points out that a very strong 2005 year class of alewives that were 3-4 inches long when the fishing season started in early April, 2006, were the icing on the cake for trout and salmon growth in 2006. This abundance of alewives should produce some trophy 3-year old kings in 2008. Look for a Fall LOC Derby even larger than the 38 lb. 14 oz. Grand Prize winner boated aboard the Fish Doctor. Lake Ontario is famous for it's trophy brown trout fishing, and has consistently produced tens of thousands of "football browns" year after year. Browns over 20 lbs. are caught each year and the New York State record is over 30 lbs. Fishing for these big bruisers in 2007 could be exceptional because of a quirk of fate, namely the goby. Yup, this small, camo-colored, bottom-scurrying fish that was introduced into the Great Lakes via the the ballast water of ocean going ships, has made a huge impact on the brown trout and steelhead fishing. Less than 6" in length, and not a favored forage for browns, it's tough to figure why it's so important to the brown trout fishery until the word "cormorant" is mentioned. It just so happens that gobies have infested the Great Lakes, including the northeast corner of Lake Ontario. And, guess who is chowing down on them? Mr. Cormorant! Lake Ontario cormorants roost on the islands in the northeast corner of Lake Ontario near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. In past springs, because of frigid water temperatures in that area of the lake, every morning literally thousands of cormorants commonly winged their way 40-50 miles southward along the shoreline of Mexico Bay to feed on any available fish, including fresh stocked brown trout, in the warmer waters off the mouth of the Oswego River. Cormorant predation at the time on stocked browns and steelhead was severe. Today, we see very few cormorants in the southeastern corner of Lake Ontario. Why? Cormorants are targeting gobies, available by the millions right around their roosting islands. The result...., higher survival of stocked browns, and the most yearling browns in our 2006 catch I've ever seen in 30 years of summer brown trout fishing in Lake Ontario. Not only that, because of the abundance of 3" - 4" yearling alewives, they were also the largest yearling browns ever. Of the many yearlings browns we boated last season, NOT ONE had the tell tale "V"-shaped cormorant scars that have been common in past years. Look for a banner fishery for browns in 2007. Steelhead fishing in eastern Lake Ontario has not been anything to brag about the past few years, but by September, 2006, we were seeing more 5-10 lb. steelhead and rainbows than normal. This same pattern held true in tributaries like the Oswego and Salmon Rivers in the fall of 2006, when more young steelhead ran these streams than we've seen in many years. Sooo..., we could see some improvement in the steelhead fishing in 2007, especially locally in Mexico Bay and near the mouth of the Little Salmon River where volunteers working with DEC have been pen rearing and stocking Skamania steelhead each spring since 2004. The yearling Skamanias in the Little Salmon in 2004 will be 4-years old in 2007 and could weigh 10 - 15 lbs. The only bad news for 2007 is the declining fishery. Once so abundant in Lake Ontario, lakers are now on the decline. Worse yet, fishery bilogists don't know why. We still catch some nice lakers, but nowhere near as many as previous years. If you're looking for a cure for cabin fever, check out Cabela's Captain's Weekend, at their Hamburg, PA store on Mar. 24 and 25. Thirty outfitters, charter captains, and fishing guides from Alaska to Texas to Florida and the Northeast will be giving seminars and manning booths. Capt. Ernie will be doing a seminar on fishing flashers, dodgers and flies, and will detail copper line fishing techniques, including the system he used to catch the 2006 Fall LOC Derby Grand Prize.