This Lake Ontario salmon hit one of my favorite deep water spoons, the NK28 Spook.

If you fish the east end of Lake Ontario where prevailing westerly summer winds push cold water deep, you know all about fishing the depths for trout and salmon. 

Fishing deep water has been a way of life out of Oswego lately, with temps in 200 feet of water, 60 degrees at 100′ , 50 degrees at 160′, and 43 degrees at well over 200 feet, give or take 20 to 50 feet depending on which day we’re talking about in the last seven days or so.  Throw in an increase in the number of water fleas we’re seeing lately, plus some serious subsurface currents, and this deep water  fishing can be tough. 

Nobody wants to fish a standard size Dipsy on the #1 setting with 400 feet of wire to just barely get to temp 120 feet down.  Riggers take that much  longer to set and retrieve, if they’re down  over 200′, and major snarls using multiple riggers are common.  With copper, better get out your 500′ and 600′ sections, and keep some spare spools on the boat because tangles with Dipsys are not uncommon. 

These challenging conditions discourage lots of anglers, but there are some simple way to cope with them and enjoy some great fishing.

My approach is to go back to basics and keep it as simple as possible.   Here are a few things that help keep me in fish when they’re deep, the fleas are nasty, and the currents severe;

1. Use only two riggers, and use at least a 12 lb. rigger weight that is tunable to make the weights swim away from each other slightly, avoiding tangles.

2.  Use a good speed/temp probe to monitor temp and maintain optimum trolling speed.

3. Use stout releases like the Capt. Jax to handle the extra pull on the line caused by the added resistance caused by all the line in the water, plus fleas.

4.  Use mag Dipsys with 7′ roller rods.  These Dipsys will get you down to 120 feet or more with as little as 250 feet of wire, depending on currents.

5.  Fish copper off boards, 400, 500, and 600′ sections.  Even though the 400-footer will only get you down about 90 feet deep, kings and steelhead will come up out of temp to chase bait and attack a lure.  Also, on sharp turns, a 400′ section will drop as deep as 120 feet or deeper.  When you’re fishing copper off the boards, don’t be afraid to fish a zig zag trolling pattern.

6.  You’re not going to be able to speed troll at 200′ because of swayback, so fish lures and flashers that work well at speeds of 2.1 to 2.5 mph.  Spoons like the NK in the size 28 and mag or Stingers in the Stingray or Mag are excellent.  You can’t fish a better 8″ flasher in the depths than the ProChip.   

7.  The deeper I fish, the more effective I find whole bait and Sushi Flies.

8.  Perhaps most important…, remember that the further west you fish and the  further you fish from shore, the higher the cold water.  If you can find fish there, you won’t have to fish deep!!!

Don’t let deep water trolling discourage you.   Keep it simple, use the right gear,  use your head, and you’ll catch fish.

Biologists estimate this 23 1/2" Atlantic boated on 4/30/10 is 2-3 years old.

In a recent Atlantic salmon blog,  I said I would be back with more info when and if I received further details on any management changes that might have resulted in the recent increase in the number of Atlantic salmon we’ve been catching in Lake Ontario this spring.  Those very interesting details are now available.

A little background…, In 1983, the NYSDEC stocked 45,000 landlocked salmon in three different L.O. tributaries and these fish, along with others stoced the next few years produced some surprisingly good salmon fishing , with some fish in the double digit weights.  Unfortunately, this fishery declined, despite additional stockings in following years of a variety of different strains and sizes of landlocked and Atlantics. 

After 2001, despite various landlocked and Atlantic salmon stockings by New York State and the Province of Ontario, the catch of landlocks dropped off to close to zero, and on my charter boat we saw an average of about one per season, , sometimes sublegal, sometimes larger than the 25” size limit, the largest 13.5 lbs.

 I had heard that not much had changed with the landlocked salmon or what biologists are calling Atlantic salmon management program in New York State, but major changes had been made by the Province of Ontario.  When I received the information I asked for about Ontario’s salmon management program, it became very clear why we’re seeing more Atlantics.  Canada’s stocking increased from  199,062 fry and fall fingerlings in 2005 to 836,898 fry, fall fingerling, yearling, and even 698 adult  salmon in 2009, all so-called “LaHave/Harwood” strain Atlantics, a major change in the program. In contrast, the NYSDEC stocked 74,000 Atlantics in 2009.

Although New York and Ontario biologists don’t yet know if the increased number of landlocks is a result of Ontario’s intensified management program, that certainly(emphasis) appears to be the case. 

My guess is also that we may be seeing the beginning of a spectacular Lake Ontario fishery for Atlantic salmon, and, hopefully,  the successful restoration of this once native species in Lake Ontario.  Historic written accounts tell about native landlocked Atlantic salmon in Lake Ontario up to 47 lbs.  Adult fish in the fall were so abundant in tributary streams that spawning salmon in gravelly river fords spooked horses pulling wagons.  Spawning Atlantics were even speared onto wagons for use as food, and even fertilizer for gardens. 

If it happens, hats off to Ontario’s fishery biologists and their historic accomplishment.

Anglers have learned to cope with these conditions by fishing in low light when browns are most active in clear water, searching out colored water in the sun, using light line/leaders and rods/reels to match, and fine tuning lure selection and presentation.

Since I first fished Lake Ontario for browns in 1978, I’ve watched and brown trout  behavior closely and recorded everything I’ve seen, looking for consistent patterns that help put browns in the boat on every trip.   One year, I had the opportunity to see my customers boat 1004 browns from early April to Sept. 4, 524 of them boated by May 27.  With this much experience you would think catching spring browns would be simple, except that conditions vary from day to day.  Light  conditions, water color, surface conditions, currents, weather swings, wind direction changes, and water temperature fluctuations create complexities that only Mr. Brown Trout understands. 

Early spring fishing in the clear shallows is probably the most challenging of all brown trout fishing.  Morning after morning in April, May, and early June I leave Oswego Harbor and put planer boards, riggers, and other gear in the water searching for browns.   Here’s something I’ve learned about spring brown trout that might help you.

 Once alewives move inshore, this year a mother lode of yearling alewives, browns are very surface oriented.  At dawn, you cannot fish too close to the surface.  The shallower a stickbait or spoon runs, the more effective it is early.  This is especially true if it is flat and glassy.  Avoid deep running stickbaits.  Tune stickbaits like Rapalas, so they run shallow.  Don’t put any weight on planer board lines at dawn.  I run flutterspoons, especially the Flutterdevle with no weight at all.   Riggers are run as close to the surface as possible, sometimes with the releases right out of the water!  I also catch browns early on flat lines…, that’s right, flat lines, right off the back of the boat, especially in flat water. 

As the light intensity increases, add some weight to planer board lines, switch to deeper diving stickbaits, and drop riggers deeper. 

Silver/blue and silver/black are my favorite early AM colors.

Check out this selection of favorite Fish Doctor Flutterdevles.

We’ve seen brown trout stomachs stuffed with them in 10 fow, young lakers on bottom in 190 fow bulging with them, and cohos, steelhead, and kings in the top 30 fow over 200+ fow chowing down on them.  This strong 2009 year class could carry the Lake Ontario fishery for several years, even if subsequent year classes, i.e., 2010, aren’t as strong.  Nothing saying they won’t be, though, conditions for alewife spawning/hatching this year are good.

This brown was stuffed with yearling alewives hatched in 2009.

Leeanne with one of 8 sublegal landlocked salmon boated aboard the "Fish Doctor" this season.

It was back in 1983 when the NYSDEC stocked 45,000 surplus landlocked salmon(LLS) smolts from the Adirondack Hatchery in northern New York into three different tributaries of Lake Ontario(L.O.).  In a lake 200 miles long and 50 miles wide, surprisingly, anglers started catchingLLS and quite a few of them.  In just a few years, I saw LLS up to 13.5 lbs.  come aboard my charter boat, and heard of LLS up to 16.5 lbs. caught, but the fishery soon fizzled, despite expanded stocking by the NYSDEC.

Interestingly, a variety of different LLS and Atlantics, some from the Tunison lab in Cortland, were stocked over the next few years.  Once in a while a decent landlock(call them Atlantics, if you like) would be caught.  I saw one LLS  in about 2001 that weighed 22.5 lbs.  A NY record  was set by a L.O. fish weighing 24.5 lbs.

The potential of L. O. to produce trophy LLS was obvious, but it wasn’t happening.  Survival of stocked fish was poor.  No serious research was being conducted, at least by NYS, to determine the problem and find a solution.  The basically insignifigant LLS  fishery continued for years with DEC’s lake wide creel census summary for a number of seasons showing a LLS catch/harvest of “O”.

Then, after averaging about one LLS per year caught aboard my charter boat, in 2008 that changed.  In April that year there were lots of reports of LLS around 18″ being caught.  During the 2008 season, my charters boated 8 fish that by midsummer had grown to 21″.   But few larger LLS were reported.  Then in the spring of 2009, more reports of LLS…, a number of verified reports of fish in the 10 lb. class, plus numberous reports of smaller fish from 20-21 inches.  By May 1st, this season, my charters had boated 8 sublegal salmon, as many as we caught during the entire 2008 season, and probably more than we caught in the five years together prior to ‘o8.

When I inquired about this, I heard that the Province of Ontario had changed their landlocked salmon stocking and management program with a rumor that stockings of spring fingerlings in tributaries might be doing the trick.  As I collect more info, I’ll report on it here.

Whatever the reason for the drastic increase in LLS we’ve been catching, one thing is very obvious.  There is potential for producing a major LLS salmon fishery in L.O.  We’ve seen that it is possible to successfully stock LLS in L.O.  We’ve also seen that the growth rate of L.O. LLS may be some of the best on the planet.

Sooo…, if it is Ontario, Canada that is producing the LLS we’re seeing, if their success continues, if they expand their program, and if NYS follows suit successfully, we may be looking at one of the finest if not the finest future trophy LLS fisheries on the planet. 

Very, very exciting!

Lake Ontario salmon fishing on May, 7, 2010..., Lori got the best of this big boy!

Yes, if you’re wondering and haven’t been out fishing for them, there are some kings and cohos around outside Oswego Harbor.  So far, the numbers haven’t been big, but the size has.

Steve Farrell caught the first one, about 20 lbs.,  of the 2010 season aboard the Fish Doctor on the morning of May 4.    It came on a “Casper” flasher/fly fished on a clear Dipsy on a 7′ roller Dipsy rod.  Another king about the same size was also boated that morning along with browns and lakers.   The second king hit a black venom Mauler.

On May 6, Jethro Pease, Ben, Jason, and Jim  took two more kings along with browns, lakers, cohos and Atlantics.  Riggers, Dipsys, and copper all produced fish, but the two kings came on a thumper rod with a chrome glow dodger and purple/silver fly with a glow sardine insert. 

Then, on May 7, it was Colby Classic grand prize winner Steve LaDue’s friend, Lori, who put the biggest king of the season in the net.  Lori’s fish weighed 22.5 lbs. and hit an NK 28 Diehard at 65 feet on a rigger.  Steve, Lorie, Jay, and Joe also boated some cohos on spoons and flies out in the depths.  They were feeding on yearling alewives and smelt in the top 30 fow.

Not a lot of kings out there, but some nice ones…, enough to make things interesting if you’re entered in one of the derbies!

The first trip of the season for Fish Doctor Charters was a short shakedown cruise on 4/20 followed by our first 2010 charter on 4/21.  Dave and Don, two old verterans and skilled lake trollers in their own right, joined me for an 8-hour AM trip.  As we pulled out of Oswego Marina just as light started to crack the eastern horizon, I looked at my Fish Hawk surface temp and it read 57 degrees…, unbelievable for April.  Flow in the Oswego River had been low at 1,000 cfs for some time, and the water had very little color to it.  

I figured fishing would be hot and heavy the first hour or two…, wrong!   After the first hour and not a nibble, all I could say to Don and Dave was, “Hmmm…”.  Then things started to happen, and action was steady in and out of the harbor until about 11:00 AM for browns up to 10.6 lbs. on my Epson digital scale, domestic rainbows just shy of the 21″ size limit, and two landlocked Atlantic salmon, both less than the 25″ size limit. 

The fishing was good, but what we learned from our first two trips was verrryyy interesting!!!  First, the browns, rainbows, landlocks and one coho we caught were pot-bellied and in top condition.  They had obviously been feeding heavily on something.  The past few years their primary April forage has been gobies because smelt have been scarce, and alewives had not moved inshore to spawn until May or June.  In April some years, browns have foraged on gobies almost exclusively.

I always clean and package my party’s catch onboard before returning to the dock, giving  me a check of the stomach contents of our fish.   What I saw when I gutted the browns was not solid gobies, but smelt in good numbers, lots of 3″ -4″ yearling alewives, a few 6″ - 7″ adult alewives, lots of spottail shiners, and a few gobies.  No wonder those browns were so fat…, warmer than normal water temperatures that activate browns and a diversity of all the forage they can eat!  These are  perfect conditions for maximum growth of browns, with 3-4 lb. April browns probably reaching 5-6 lbs. or larger by September. 

The other thing we noticed…, not one single brown, rainbow, Atlantic, or coho had a single lamprey attack mark…, not a scale missing.  This compares with the past few years when almost every single larger brown, 3-years old or older had been hammered by lampreys, and even some of the smaller 3-4 lb. 2-year old browns had been attacked by lamprey transformers, 6-12″ lampreys, fresh out of the rivers.   Lampreys may kill their host, in this case trout and salmon, if a lamprey is large enough and a fish is small enough, and the lampreys remove too much fluid from the fish’s body.  If  a lamprey doesn’t  kill the fish, the loss of body fluids, retards their growth.  Either way, lampreys are hurting the fishing.

Secondly, lampreys seem to attack brown trout and lake trout more than other species like steelhead, and studies have shown they select a larger fish to attack and feed on.  Both of these factors spell troube for big browns.  The more lampreys, the higher the mortality of brown trout and the poorer the survival of the larger trophy browns.  This is why in the last few years in eastern Lake Ontario we have not seen the numbers of brown trout larger than 15 lbs. that we used to see in the ’80’s and ’90’s.  Let’s hope what we’re seeing is real, not just an April blip on the lamprey radar screen, and we have fewer lampreys this season, which means more and bigger brown trout. 

The browns we’ve been catching on our first few trips have been hitting standard gear, mostly stickbaits and spoons fished on boards and riggers.   Silver/blue Flutterdevles and ham. silver/ brass 44 Suttons have been our hottest spoons.  The SB90 Megabait, especially in the Kiro Kin finish have been the best stickbaits.

As for location, we haven’t  had to leave the area around Oswego Harbor, but browns are being caught east of the harbor off Four Mile Point, where the warmer water of the Osweg River sweeps along the shoreline.  West of the harbor the water has been gin-clear with visibility to 20′ or more and fishing has been tough.  With the high winds we’re getting today, 4/27, and tomorrow(predicted), 4/28, there will be a lot of colored water west of Oswego Harbor, which should produce some good fishing there. 

If you’re fishing colored water in the sun, fire tiger and clown Smithwicks or other stickbaits with a little color usually work well.  Ditto for spoons, i.e.,  the lemon lime Flutterdevle, Bitterlemon MI Stinger, etc. 

See you on the water!

Experience has taught me that high spring flow in the Oswego River is a major attraction for baitfish and spring kings and cohos.  Since 2001, another great year for spring kings, the pattern seems clear, high flows produce hot spring salmon fishing.  Soo…, huge dumps of lake effect snow in central New York and the Finger Lakes are a kind of a love-hate thing.  You hate to move it during the winter, but you love it when high runoff in the Oswego River sucks in May kings.

Some springs, the Oswego River flows at close to 25,000 cfs, almost twice the normal flow for this time of year.   Laden with nutrients from thousands of acres of rich farmland in the Finger Lakes watershed, the huge greenish colored plume of water off Oswego Harbor is like an oasis in the Sahara to fish in eastern Lake Ontario.  It’s a magnet for both baitfish and predators like browns, cohos, and rainbows, but especially aggressively feeding spring kings.  Some years, the spring king fishing extends out from the Oswego area east into Mexico Bay, but most years the bullseye for eastern Lake Ontario king anglers is the 2-4 mile zone, just east of Oswego Harbor.

When it comes to cashing in on this super spring king fishing on a typical sunny May day, you should remember the number one rule of May salmon fishing…,  the early bird definitely gets the worm.  Leaving the dock at Oswego Marina at 5:00 AM, it’s only a short 5-minute boat ride for me to the fishing grounds in give or take 90 to 100 feet of water.  Most mornings I try to have my rods in the water just before daybreak.  At that time, almost no fish or bait can be seen on my 10” color Sitex video fish finder deeper than 30 feet.  This is one of the main reasons the May king salmon fishery was overlooked by anglers.

Some calm mornings at first light, salmon can be seen porpoising right on the surface…, exciting.  All the early morning action is in the top 30 feet of water, and I mean action.  Triples and quads are not unusual.  One morning, my crew of three,   ranging from 79 to 85 years old, including one lady angler, hooked and landed six kings at once from 13 - 19 lbs.  Whew!

  Even though the surface water temperature in early May is 39-40 degrees, on  sunny days, kings start to move deep by 7:00 -9:00 AM and are often flat on bottom in 120 feet of water by late morning, another reason the May king salmon fishery was overlooked.

ProChip Flashers and dodgers trailed by flies are my standard fare for spring kings.  Northern Kings and Michigan Stingers are also excellent spring king medicine.  Although, a standard spread of downriggers, Dipsey Divers, and copper line fished from planer boards get lures down to kings, I’m sure that stickbaits off the boards would catch fish right at the crack of daylight, if you wanted to run them.  The only problem is, once it starts to get light, the kings drop deeper quickly.  My personal favorite in May is a white ProChip 8 trailed by a blue pearl/glow fly, whenever I’m dealing with low to moderate light levels.  The Diehard NK28,  black alewife Stinger, blue dolphin Silver Streak, and other standard spoons are some of my favorites.   Copper off the boards is a killer!

Four king salmon at once in early May just out of Oswego Harbor!

One thing for sure…, you don’t need long rigger setbacks to catch May kings in early morning.  My anglers have boated hundreds that were caught on riggers, 25-30 feet down and only 12’ back.  As light levels rise, though, longer setbacks often fish better.  The same is true for wire Dipseys which on my boat are fishing on 40’ of wire, #3 setting, just as it starts to crack daylight.  One of my hottest early morning rigs is a thumper rod with a 10 oz. ball on 80’ of wire with a dodger/fly.   I start the morning with two copper lines fishing from each megaboard, the outer one with 100’ of copper and a spoon, and the inner one with 200’ of copper and a ProChip/fly. 

Although it is the green water plume of the Oswego River and the bait it holds that sucks in May kings to the Oswego area, the kings aren’t always located in the plume, especially early in May, when kings first move into the Oswego area from the main lake and the surface water temp is around 39-41 degrees.  You’ll often find them at this time just outside the plume in the gin clear water.  If you don’t find them there, move in shallower.  One year, 2008, we caught over half our early May kings right in the plume, just outside the harbor in 50-75 fow.  Why?  Only the kings can tell you that. 

One thing that I can tell you…, speed is critical, and the frigid 40 degree water of early May is no time for speed trolling, another reason why anglers overlooked May kings.  Many of the early May kings caught aboard my boat have been taken at trolling speeds less than 2.0 mph.

Oh, yeah, and there is a secret for precisely pin pointing the exact location of early spring kings, but I’ll leave that for a later blog.

See you on the water. 

Coho salmon are an early spring bonus in inshore waters of  Lake Ontario,

Cohos are hyper fish.  Everything they do is fast including the rate at which they grow.  The cohos that make up Lake Ontario’s spring fishery are 2-year old fish that weigh 3-5 lbs.  By late August of the same year, when they stage before returning to the hatchery in the headwaters of the Big Salmon river in northern Oswego Co., they will weigh 6-12 lbs. and more.   After spawning, adult cohos will die like all Pacific salmon. 

Unlike Chinook salmon that migrate back to the lake from spawning streams as 3-5 month old spring fingerlings, young cohos remain in spawning streams in rearing areas for more than a year.  To mimic this behavior, the New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation stocks 3”-4” chinook salmon at the spring fingerling stage and 5”-7” cohos at the yearling stage.

One of the favorite rigs for spring cohos is a fluorescent red #00 dodger trailed 12” – 14” back by a small 1” – 2 ½” green mylar fly.  Companies like Howie’s Tackle(www.howiestackle.com) manufacture these smaller coho flies.  The smaller dodgers are effective trolled shallow on downriggers and Dipsy divers.  The icing on the cake for any spring coho spread is a set of #00 dodgers and coho flies behind inline planer boards like the Church TX-12 Mini Planer(www.churchtackle.com) off each side of the boat.  . 

To rig dodgers and flies for trolling behind inline planers, use 6’ of 20# test leader ahead of the dodger.  Between the leader and the main line snap in a 5/8 to 7/8 ounce bead chain keel sinker.  This weighted keel sinker helps keep the dodger from planing to the surface.  Set the dodger/fly back 25 to70 feet behind the inline planer board, and let the planer board out to the side of the boat the desired distance.  Multiple inline planers can be used off each side of the boat.  High action jointed plugs like the J-9 orange and gold Rapala are favorites, along with standard size Michigan Stingers in hot colors, especially in a combination of fluorescent red and silver or brass.

Riggers are normally set in the top 10 feet of water when surface temperatures are cold in late March, and April, then set deeper as temperatures warm and cohos move offshore.  Much like landlocked salmon, cohos are attracted to the boat, and downrigger setbacks of  6 to 20 feet are common.  My side riggers are set 3 to 5 feet down and 10 to 12 feet back with the dodger fly clearly visible from the boat as it wobbles back and forth.  Diving planers are set on 15 to 25 feet of line.  A trolling speed of 2.0 to 3.0 mph is about right depending on water temperature.  When a coho hits close to the boat, you usually see the fish in the air before you see the rod go!

Interestingly, the one salmonid species that likes dodgers and flies almost as much as a coho is the landlocked salmon. 

Capt. Ernie Lantiegne has operated a charter fishing business on Lake Ontario for trout and salmon for 27 years.  He also worked as a fishery biologist/manager for the New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation for 22 years. 

Fishing Lake Ontario for spring brown trout can be a challenge at times, especially when it comes to lure color selection.   Variable water color and turbidity complicate the matter even more.  Your favorite spoon or stickbait may be deadly, but if you don’t have the right color in the water, you’ll probably end up going home with a nice clean cooler.

There are some basic recipes for lure color selection based on water clarity, which generally revolve around the rule of thumb…, natural colors like silver, black/silver, black/gray, Tenessee shad, and others in clear water, and lures with more color, with some chartreuse, green, or fluorescent orange in the color pattern, in more turbid the water.  The more turbidity and less visibility, the more color, until you reach near solid chartreuse or orange colors.

That’s fine, if you can figure out exactly what the turbidity is.  If you’re fishing the mouth of a large river like the Oswego, where I do much of my brown trout fishing, the water is commonly turbid or colored most of the time.  If it has been dry and river flow is low, the water in the plume of the river mouth is fairly clear.  If it has been rainy or there is a lot of snow melt, flow is high and the water color can be quite muddy.

Look over the side of the boat on a clear, sunny day with a slight ripple on the lake surface, and the color of the water on an average day might not seem too turbid.   An hour later on the same day, with no actual change in the water color, under overcast skies and a glassy surface, the water will probably look more turbid to you.  Sometimes, it’s just difficult to eyeball this and figure out exactly what the conditions are.

To make life easier(MLE) for myself, and make my lure color selection more effective when I’m fishing spring brown trout, I paint one of the five 6 lb. cannonballs I use on my riggers in the spring fluorescent red.  This give me a water turbidity indicator when I lower it down in the water and check my depth indicator on the rigger when the brightly colored ball disappears from sight.  I call it my COLOR-SEELECTOR.

I have my favorite color patterns, just like you do, and have developed my spring brown trout color selection formula around a combination of what I see with my COLOR-SEELECTOR, overhead light conditions, and what the fish tell me after I put lures in the water.  If my COLOR-SEELECTOR READS(fl. ball disappears) 6-8 feet, and it’s moderately overcast,  I’m going to fish my favorite silver/blue Flutterdevle.  If it reads 3-5 feet, I’m going to fish a silver/blue/green Two-Tone Flutterdevle. 

It works for me, and for 10 cents, how can you go wrong?  The bonus…, if there are any cohos around, they love to snuggle right up close to that red ball and hammer a brightly colored spoon or plug 3 or 4 feet behind it!

A fluorescent red 6 lb. cannon ball, the perfect Color-Seelector for spring Ontario brown trout