Fish Doctor Charters

Lake Ontario Trout and Salmon Fishing Tips from the Fish Doctor

MLE(Make Life Easy) Tips from Fish Doctor Charters

There is nothing a charter fishing captain who fishes two trips a day, day after day in all kinds of weather and conditions likes any more than something that MAKES LIFE EASIER(MLE)!  Over the years, I personally have discovered some of these MLE items, and thought some MLE tips might help you as well.

As I look toward the beginning of the 2010 charter fishing season that will begin in early April in and around Oswego Harbor fishing for browns and cohos, one of the first things that makes life easier for me when I’m trolling shallow, say less than 30’ deep,  is 6 lb. downrigger weights.

It may not sound like much, but the difference between using 6 lb. and 10-12 lb. downrigger weights when you’re fishing up to two trips day after day is huge.  It’s huge as far as saving energy, and it’s even huger when it comes to reducing wear and tear on your body and equipment.

Here’s the deal.  Most anglers use the same 10 or 12 lb. rigger weights all season, whether they’re fishing shallow or deep.  However, there is actually no need for the heavier rigger weight when you’re fishing shallow, especially at early spring brown trout depths or offshore spring steelhead depths shallower than 10-15 feet.  The lighter rigger weights work fine with minimal blowback.

If you’re using downriggers mounted either astern or abeam with booms long enough to require a retro-ease, which is used to pull the weight close enough for rigging, there is a huge difference between pulling a light rigger weight and a heavier weight to the boat.  If you’re using a heavy weight, you have to grab on to the retro-ease line firmly with your full hand, pull it to the boat, and lock it in place with the chock.  It takes some “umphh”!  When you get it locked in place, if the water is rough, you all know what happens.  The weight starts to rock and roll, putting a lot of stress on your retro-ease line, downrigger boom, rigger cable, terminal snap, etc., etc.  Put too much stress on the cable connection to the weight too many times, and you hear the dreaded splash as the cable breaks and the weight heads for bottom.  Been there, done that, eh?

Now, with the lighter 6 lb. MLE weights,  you grasp the retro-ease line with a couple of fingers, easily pull the light weight to the boat and lock it in the chock.  When it’s rough, the little weight bobs around a bit, but doesn’t put much stress on your gear.

There is a HUGE difference handling 6 vs. 12 lb. rigger weights.

Lake Ontario Salmon Fishing Tip - Fishing Sushi Flies

Using brass wire to fasten a Familiar Bite alewife strip to a Lake Ontario salmon fishing fly

Mike DuCross and his fishing buddies from Cornwall, Canada, were excited as we headed out of Oswego Harbor in eastern Lake Ontario in early September, 2009.  They had seen the catch of 20-30 lb. kings my morning charter carried off the dock,  and heard the war stories about how we had them dialed in all morning with whole alewives and big flashers.

With 30 years of experience fishing for fussy Lake Ontario kings, I wasn’t quite as confident.  With a hot bite all morning long, I didn’t really know what to expect on the  afternoon trip.   Two things  I did know, though, were that conditions had not changed a bit, in my eyes, since late morning, and the “X” on my chart plotter that marked the scene of the morning’s hot action was where we would start with the same hot 2-rigger spread of Kingston Tackle golden retriever Slashers and Familiar Bite alewives in sun-faded chartreuse bait heads, one rigger at 130’ and back 25’, the other at 120’ and back 15’.

After an hour of trolling without a touch, everything looked the same in early afternoon as it had in late morning on the 10” Sitex CVS 210.  There were   plenty of kings in the area, but their mood had changed.  Altering  leader lengths between flasher and bait and switching  bait head colors had made no difference. 

With unwavering confidence in the big  silver and gold prism taped golden retriever flashers in bright midday light for staged kings,  I had opted for changes in leader length and bait head color, to no avail, before deciding on one last change before doing something drastic. 

Reaching into my bait cooler, I pulled out a a freshly salted Familiar Bite alewife strip, and securely wired it to the leading beak hook of a Tournament Tie on a Mirage fly with a 48” leader and replaced the whole bait with the baited Mirage fly.  After dropping the rigger back to same depth of 120’ with the same 15’ setback as before,  the rod fired in minutes.  Immediately after I reset it the second time, it fired again.  Meanwhile, the whole bait, 10’ deeper at 130’and 25’ back was just a slug.  While fighting the second fish, Mike  pulled the deep rigger, while I baited another fly, and we reset the rigger exactly as before,  130’ down and 25’ back.  Before we untangled the second king from the net, the deep rigger with the baited fly fired.

.  Why a king salmon would select a baited fly over a whole alewife one time and do the reverse the next time  I cannot say.  What I can say is that it’s not the first time I’ve seen it happen.  

A couple hours later, as the sun dropped toward the horizon and light intensity at the riggers dropped, you guessed it.  The program changed and the kings decided they absolutely loved whole Familiar Bite alewives 60” behind an 11” glow green ProChip 11.  

Baited flies and, before that, baited hoochies or squids, in combination with flashers have been a go-to rig for me aboard my charter boat, ever since my first trip to Alaska  in 1990.   I was fortunate to  be invited aboard several commercial salmon trolling boats,  and the first thing I noticed on deck was  buckets of 11” plastic flashers, mostly white, green, chartreuse, and red.   Hanging on the rear of the cabins were rows and rows of  3 ½” hoochies(squids) in a myriad of colors, some for kings, some for cohos.  Closer inspection of the hoochies showed a piece of light brass wire, inside each hoochie, attached to the eye of a large commercial single hook.

The wire on these hooks was for attaching strips of herring inside the hoochie.  The bait strips are generally about 3 inches in length, and a hoochie rarely goes in the water for Alaskan kings without them.

The commercial trollers also showed me how they rigged whole herring, herring filets, and cut plugs, all of which they carry onboard, along with spoons and plugs,  when they’re trolling. To a man, they were adamant about how fussy king salmon were and how important it was to master a variety of techniques to consistently catch fish in all conditions. 

I never forgot that lesson, and returned to Lake Ontario with not only a new perspective on fishing bait for kings, but a new conviction to do my utmost to become as versatile as possible in fishing for them .  

Today, my favorite flashers with baited flies include, 8” ProChips, 11” ProChips and HotChips, and 13” Kingston Tackle Slashers in a variety of color and finishes.  I use 36”-48”, 60 lb. mono leaders behind 11” and 13” flashers, and 19” to 30” leaders behind 8” flashers.  Flasher/fly color combos are exactly the same as for clean flies.

Rather than the single hook used by commercial trollers, I prefer a tournament tie with a 5/0 beak hook and a #2 bronze treble.  The same tournament tie used with clean flies can be used with bait, but I prefer to extend the leader length between the beak and treble hooks about 1 ½” so the treble trails at the tail of the bait.  Although, the alewife bait strip can be hooked on the leading beak hook, even a properly prepped alewife bait strip softens quickly in fresh water and seldom will stay on the hook very long. 

The secret to keeping an alewife bait strip secured inside the fly is to wrap it on the beak hook just behind the hook eye using soft .020” diam. brass wire.  Although the brass wire can be attached to the beak hook on a pretied Tournament Tie, I like to attach it before I snell the hook, by simply placing it through the eye of the hook, pulling the brass wire down along the shank of the hook, tying the snell, and trimming the brass wire leaving about 1 ½ inches of each end of the wire extending to each side of the hook. 

The head end of a correctly shaped bait strip  that is tapered to about 3/8” at the head end of the strip is then laid skin down against the hook shank, and the brass wire is wrapped from opposite directions around the bait with enough tension to slightly bury the wire into the meat on the bait strip.  It is not necessary to twist the ends of the wire together to hold the strip.  Using this setup, the bait will stay attached to the beak hook as long as you fish it.  I tie my own, lightly dressed flies to use with bait. 

From 18 years of experience fishing baited flies, I’ve found that elongated diamond shaped bait strips about 3” in length and ½” to 1” wide, tapered to 3/8” at the head and ½” at the tail  is about right.  The later in the season, the larger the bait strip, including strips with tails as large as ¾ inches in width.  Bait strips are filleted from the both sides of an alewife and trimmed to shape.

The better the quality of the bait strip, the better it catches fish.  Availability of alewives to use as whole bait or bait strips has always limited the use of bait for Great Lakes trout and salmon.  The Familiar Bite Co., which harvests, brines, and vacuum packs freshly collected alewives in 8-packs has now solved this problem.   To properly prep quality alewife bait strips, filet them immediately when fresh or immediately after removing partially thawed bait from the vacuum pack. Trim them to shape, and place them in a ziplock bag of noniodized salt.  They will keep indefinitely refrigerated.  I carry a ziplock bag of preshaped bait strips in a small bait cooler along with a brine jar of whole alewives and an ice pack.

Years of experience and millions of Great Lakes king salmon have proven clean flies catch kings, but I’ve found  that baited flies will outfish clean flies for unaggressive fish, whether  they are just negative,  nonfeeding staged fish, or big, lazy fish.

2009 Lake Ontario Salmon Fishing - Lessons Learned, 10/10/09

An 11" ProChip and Familiar Bite whole bait were this king salmon's undoing

You’re never too old to learn, and even though I’ve fished Lake Ontario for trout and salmon since 1977, and operated a charter fishing business on this great fishing lake since 1982, my learning curve peaked in ‘09.  Part of the reason…, I force myself to not get in a rut, and to stay as far out as I can on the edge of the developement of new Great Lakes trolling techniques and the refinement of old ones.

One thing I learned in ‘09…, 11″ flashers like Pro-Troll’s ProChips and HotChips trailed by flies and Familiar Bite whole bait are deadly for  king and coho salmon.  Luhr Jensen’s magnum dipsy divers are an essential part of my 11″ flasher program.  These magnum divers will take big flashers way downnnnn to depths.  For example, on the #3 setting a mag dipsy on 225′ of wire will fish down 90′, depending on trolling speed, current/trolling direction, etc.

The same flasher on a standard size LJ Dipsy will fish down maybe 60 t0 70 feet.

One of the bonuses for those fishing mag dipsys along with copper…, the sharp downward angle of your wire on the Dipsy rod is far less likely to tangle with copper coming in and out…, HUGE!

Lake Ontario Charter Captain’s Vacation!

My English Setter retrieving a Hungarian partridge on the Schauer ranch in South Dakota

What’s a Lake Ontario charter captain do when the lake fishing season for salmon and trout is over?  Well, he goes hunting!

And that’s just what I did in late Sept., 2009, when I headed west with my English Setter, Bandit, to South Dakota to hunt sharptail grouse, prairie chickens, and Hungarian partridge on tens of thousands of acres of rolling grasslands and ranches in endless prairie country.

With experience scouting and hunting these great game birds in South and North Dakota, plus north central Montana in the fall of 2008, I knew eactly where to go…, the Pierre National Grassland, Grand River National Grassland, and the 27,000 acre Schauer Ranch near the community of Faith, population 789, in Northwest S. Dakota.

The national grasslands are a public treasure where hunters, have access to hundreds of square miles of hunting for big game like antelope, mule deer, and whitetails, plus small game, especially sharptail grouse and prairie chickens, collectively known as prairie grouse. 

 The wide open rolling grasslands are a mecca for hunters with wide ranging pointing dogs who pursue these wild, native game birds that inhabited America’s prairies long before the white man set foot here.   Visit Pierre, South Dakota on the opener of the prairie grouse season, Sept. 19 this year, and as you drive by the Fort Pierre Motel you’ll see a large sign that says, “Welcome Hunters and Dogs”.   In the motel parking lot, you’ll see pickup trucks with  license plates  from Maine to Virginia to Alabama.   

I spent several days hunting sharptails and “chickens” at the Pierre Grasslands, then traveled on to the 27,000 acre Schauer Ranch with thousands of acres of wheat and sunflowers  stretching from horizon to horizon, plus more acres of grassland where hundreds of black Angus dot the fields.  Food plots of corn, sourghum, and millet are strategically scattered through the property.  Doug Schauer, who operates Prairie Hills Hunting www.prairiehillshunting.com carefully manages the habitat for trophy antelope, whitetails, and mule deer, plus wild South Dakota pheasants.  Two of my favorite western game birds, sharptails and Hungarian partridge, are abundant there.   The hunting for “sharpies” and Huns this year was even better than in 2008.  Exactly as described on the Prairie Hills Hunting web site, I saw many antelope, whitetails, and mule deer while hunting birds, with no other bird hunters on the entire ranch while I was there.

My last stop this season was the Grand River National Grassland, my favorite grassland for sharptails because there are lots of birds and NO HUNTERS!  In about 10 days of hunting in ‘08 and ‘09, I’ve seen only two other bird hunters, and they spent only a few hours away from their vehicle.  The word for Grand River is remote…, it’s almost as if you were the first person to hunt there.

Lake Ontario Salmon Fishing Report, August 25

Paul Collis with a hefty king salmon that hit a fly trailing a ProChip 11

When you’re aboard the Fish Doctor salmon fishing in Lake Ontario, you’ll notice one thing…, 11″ ProTroll flashers and Fish Doctor Sushi Flies rule in late August and early September.

One of the reasons…, big flashers catch bigggg staged kings.    With a $20,000 LOC Derby grand prize up for grabs thru September 7,  biggg kings are where it’s at!

Lake Ontario Salmon Fishing Tip, Sushi Flies

An early morning king that hit a Purple Passion flasher and glow green Fish Doctor Sushi Fly on August 13, 2009.

If you’re not fishing 11″ Pro-Troll flashers and Sushi flies for Lake Ontario salmon, you’re missing a bet.  These 11-inch “Big Guys” and flies baited with Familiar Bite alewife strips have been our go-to rigs aboard the Fish Doctor lately.  If  you’ve fished cut bait behind these big attractors in the past, you know the color combos.

Lake Ontario Salmon Fishing Report, August 12, 2009.

Lake Ontario salmon fishing has had it’s ups and downs in the past week since August, 6, 2009.

If you had been onboard the Fish Doctor on August 6 with the Huttner party, you would have thought you were in salmon heaven.  With kings scattering in the 140t0 160 foot area west of Oswego where Capt. Ernie had been fishing the previous three days, it was time to do something different.  Shortly after departing the dock at 5:00 AM, the Fish

This Lake Ontario salmon made Ron work up a sweat when it hit a Prochip flasher and fly on 500 feet of copper

Doctor was on plane headed northwest of Oswego Harbor to deep water in search of bait, kings, and steelhead.  With the fish finder basically void of any fish marks after a 20 minute ride, the Huttner crew was on the verge of mutiny.  But as we approached 500 feet of water, the 10″color Sitex lit up with the marks of alewife schools, kings, and steelhead.  A few hours later, with a limit catch of kings and steelhead in the coolers, the Fish Doctor was headed back to Port. 

After three days of good fishing in deep water, the bait and kings scattered and it was back to hunting mode.  On August 11, the Norris party from Maine found themselves in king salmon heaven once again, with good numbers of kings in 130 feet of water.  Jessica, Ron, and Jeremy caught some dandies that day.  Anxious to return to the same area, the crew was surprised that the fish were gone, with a tally for the first couple hours of fishing of 0 for 2.  A catch of browns up to 9 lbs. and a 14 lb. laker saved the day.

The king salmon fishing the past week?  Definitely a riches or rags deal.  When will the mother lode show up???

Lake Ontario Fishing Charters, Safety, Fun, Then Fish

Carol Angel on an August 1, 2009, Lake Ontario salmon fishing charter.

When it comes to Lake Ontario fishing charters for trout and salmon aboard the Fish Doctor with Captain Ernie, there are three primary priorities…, safety, fun, and, then, fish.

As the Fish Doctor departed the dock at 5:00 AM on the morning of August 1, 2009, with repeat customers Bill and Carol Angel and their kids, Will and Jen, those priorities were exactly what we were discussing.   First I was stressing safety, especially that the boat, with it’s twin V-8s was very seaworthy with countless hours spent below deck on preventive maintenance, plus a midseason out-of-water hull check, routine marine surveys, etc.    The nautical rule of thumb, is for every hour you spend fishing/boating on the water, you spend a half hour off the water or at the dock on maintenance of boat and gear.  Electrical storms and high winds with rough seas would be the only conditions that would keep us off the water, and those conditions hadn’t been forecast for 8/1/09.  Safety aboard Great Lakes charter boats is not automatic, and there are many horror stories involving poorly maintained, poor condition, and uninsured vessels getting into trouble and endangering customers.

Fun, the captain’s second priority, would not be a problem with the Angel’s.  I knew from past experience that they would have a good time no matter what.    They enjoyed just being out of the water and “getting out of Dodge”.  They were already having a great time before we ever left the dock.

Then, there’s the third priority…, fish.  What it boils down to is that catching Great Lakes trout and salmon is actually automatic for an experienced, successful captain.  That’s not to say that trout and salmon are actively feeding 24-7 or that a captain always can locate large concentrations of fish in every situation in 200-mile long Lake Ontario, but given halfway decent conditions, a veteran captain is going to put at least a few fish in the boat for his customers on almost every trip. 

Knock on wood, but so far in the 2009 season, after about 85 trips, the Fish Doctor has not returned to the dock with

a skunk in the box!

Lake Ontario Fishing Charters for Families

Family salmon fishing charters on Lake Ontario can be a blast!

On the afternoon of July 25 and morning of July 26,  2009, three generations of Morfords fished aboard the Fish Doctor for trout and salmon…, ages from 5 years old to 65 years old.  Everyone had a great time because they prepared properly for the trip.

First, the Mom, who has fished aboard the Fish Doctor  with her Dad, Rick, from way back as a child and knows her children better than anyone else, recognized that they were ready for their first charter trip.  It’s not a question of age, but behavior and maturity.  Secondly, she and her Dad knew how to prepare the children for the trip, making sure they had been fitted with proper PFDs and had taken Dramamine well before the trip. Despite a slight chop, none of the children got queasy.

Second, our charter boat,  the Fish Doctor is seaworthy and comfortable, with a walk-in head and enough bunk space top side so children and even an adult can take a nap, if they get sleepy.  With the Mom and marine-sargeant grandpa Rick maintaining order and discipline to make sure everyone was safe and well behaved, all the kids had a great time and caught some nice fish including a monster sheepshead and chinooks up to 18 lbs.

Preparing for Lake Ontario Salmon Fishing Charters

Lake Ontario salmon fishing aboard the Fish Doctor in choppy seas on July 27, 2009, was no problem for Justin

Salmon fishing charters on Lake Ontario can be  safe and  lots of fun for families, if everyone involves prepares properly for their trip. 

Remember that for the safety of your child, children 12-years old and younger are required to wear a Type II PFD(personal floation device) at all times while onboard our charter fishing vessel, the Fish Doctor.   Although your Captain carries the USCG required number of youth size Type I PFDs aboard the Fish Doctor, they are very uncomfortable for children to wear over extended periods of time.  There are also two youth size Type I PFDs onboard, but to assure the proper fitting Type II PFDs for the children in your fishing party, parents/adults should bring proper fitting PFDs with them on charter fishing trips.

Sea sickness is a serious issue that ruins many charter fishing trips on the Great Lakes.  Kids especially tend to get sea sick, but so can adults.  To avoid ruining your trip because of a a queasy stomach,  follow these simple rules;

1. Be sure that everyone takes Dramamine before your charter trip, as directed on the packaging label.  Taking dramine after you get on the boat is too late.

2. An alternative, if you tend toward motion sickness, is a medicated patch prescribed by your doctor and applied as directed, well before departure on your trip.

2.  Get a decent night’s sleep before your charter trip

3. Most folks pay dearly for excessive partying the night before your trip

4. Avoid heavy,  greasy meals at supper and breakfast before your trip

Proper preparation helps assure a fun fishing trip, with no problems.