Mexico Bay boat launch gate

St Paul's Cemetery looking east toward 4 mile point

Lately I have seen a lot of posts online about how much of the Great Lakes are ice covered. I have seen some reports claiming the the lakes are as much as 85% covered in ice.

 Last Saturday February 28th was a cold but sunny day so Barb and I decided to check for ourselves how much ice is on our end of lake Ontario.

The first place that we stopped was the Mexico point boat launch where we took a couple of pictures and as far as we could see out on Mexico Bay there was solid ice. 

  

       The Oswego Harbor from the cemetery bluff

We then drove to Oswego where we went to the bluff at Saint Paul’s Cemetery and from our vantage point there we couldn’t see any open water either. 

To finish our fact finding trip we went to the West side of Oswego overlooking wright’s Marina and the Oswego Harbor from there I think I saw a little open water in front of the lighthouse but I’m not 100% sure of that. The river is ice covered from the bridge street bridge all the way to the light house and from Wrights landing marina to the Maritime Museum the ice looked thick enough to fish on.

There must be some open water out in the Lake somewhere because we are still getting lake effect snow and if the lake was frozen over we wouldn’t be getting any of that. This winter is one for the record books and I’m hoping that it will pass sooner rather than later because I’m chomping at the bit to get the boat in the water and catch some brown trout. 

 

Oswego Lighthouse

To book a spring brown trout trip give me a call at 1(800)368-4467 or for more information go my website www.luckydutchman.net    

West side of Oswego Harbor

             
                            

                          Wrights landing marina looking east toward the Maritime Museum

2010 a very challenging year

Over the years I have always said that the most important factor influencing fishing is the weather and in the 2010 season the weather had a huge affect on the fishing in Lake Ontario. The weather started to influence our fishing in the winter of 2009 / 2010 which was extremely mild in upstate New York. Last winter there was less than normal snowfall and warmer than normal temperatures and ice out occurred in early March. Most years when we launch the boats and start fishing, the rivers and creeks flowing into the lake are full of runoff from the snow melting and the spring rains, but the spring of 2010 was an exception. With no runoff and little rain the usually fantastic early spring brown trout fishing was mediocre at best. The browns would move into the near shore water but because there was no runoff there was nothing to hold them in the shallow water, so they would move back out into the lake and we would have to hunt for them. This made every day in the early spring a challenge. Because the brown trout didn’t want to cooperate we had to figure something else out to do, so we reached into our bag of tricks and pulled out the old cowbells and went lake trout fishing. The lakers we caught weren’t as big as they used to be in the old days, but it was better than not catching.

June fishing was better than usual

In April and May the rainfall was way below average and this didn’t change until June, when it went from unusually dry to unusually wet which improved the fishing. From Oswego we were catching a mixed bag of fish, some browns, a few steelhead / rainbows, and a few salmon. During June we were fishing anywhere from ten feet of water for browns, out to a couple of hundred feet of water for salmon and steelhead and on the days we fished we were boxing from eight to ten fish.

Late Summer Early Fall

As the summer progressed the temperatures started to climb and the west winds started to blow. We had many days in late summer where we couldn’t fish because of the high waves. Not only did these winds cause big waves they also blew the warm surface waters to the east end of the Lake and this pushed the thermocline very deep. I remember some days after a blow where we would have 72 degrees on the surface and 120 feet down on a downrigger we would still have 72 degrees. The high winds and the warm temperatures again made it very challenging to catch fish, but by fishing 135 to 140 feet down we still managed to catch fish.

Fall Salmon Season

Usually in August we fish for salmon and we don’t target other species, but last year with all the warm water and with the constant west winds we had to change our strategy. Early in the month we fished for brown trout instead of king salmon. These browns were some of the biggest we caught all season weighing in anywhere from 5 pounds up to 10 or 12 pounds with the occasional fish in the teens. In September the browns being a fall spawner quit biting. Usually this isn’t a problem because we are fishing for salmon, but this year the unrelenting west wind kept the salmon offshore and very deep where we couldn’t find them. Not only was the wind against us but 3 years ago there was a drought in upstate New York. That year the water in the Salmon River got so low that the fish couldn’t make it up the river and the hatchery couldn’t collect all the salmon eggs they wanted. Because of the low water there was also no wild reproduction from the river. These factors all contributed to the tough salmon fishing in 2010. In October the weather made the river fishing challenging with heavy rains which put the river at flood stage. During this high water we had some guys from Virginia staying with us at the lodge and in 7 days those 6 guys landed 380 fish between them. They proved that if you don’t give up and if you adapt to the conditions you can have a good time in spite of poor conditions.
In the 23 years that I’ve been chartering I have seen some tough times but things have always turned around and I’m sure that the fishing will turn around again. In fact there were a number of signs that things are getting better. One sign was the large number of 1 year old salmon that we caught last spring and summer, another good sign was the large size of the adult salmon which indicates that there is plenty of bait fish. At the risk of sounding like a broken record the weather last year was not our friend, but as I am writing this report in late December Syracuse is going to set a record for the amount of snowfall and if the rest of the winter is normal, I will be a happy fisherman come next spring.

What a way to start a new season

Our first group of fisherman arrived at Feeder Creek Lodge on the 15th of April and they fished for steelhead on the Salmon river Thursday and Friday. These guys were also my first charter trip of the year. On Friday a cold front blew through and saturday morning the wind was still blowing from the W/NW around 25 miles per hour. With the wind blowing so hard we couldn't fish outside of the protection of the harbor so we were forced to fish on inside. We made a few passes but the cold front the night before had slowed the fishing down. We managed to boat one brown and had a couple of others on but not for long. About ten in the morning my crew and I noticed a couple of people walking on the outer break wall toward the light house and big waves breaking over the wall every few minutes. We were astonished that anybody would try to walk on that wall in that kind of weather so I called the coast guard on the radio and gave them a heads up on what was going on. A few minutes later a wave took both people off the wall and into the water. I called the coast guard again and let them know what had happened then I tried to get to the people to get them out of the forty nine degree water. Luckily they managed to get back on the wall and a few minutes later the coast guard got there. While we were trying to render aid everything we were fishing with got tangled up and one of my planner boards was cut off and was drifting around the Harbor. It took quite a few minutes to retrieve my planner board so after we did that we decided to call it a day.
The next day Sunday wasn't much better weather wise than it was the day before, but the cold front had passed and the wind was a little less than Saturday. I had just two anglers Art and Joe. Art is a long time customer he has stayed at the lodge and fished with me numerous times. Last year he had some serious health issues so this was his first time fishing with me in a long time. We waited for it to warm up a little so we didn't leave the dock till seven AM. Like the day before we didn't want to leave the harbor because it was so rough on the lake. We decided to at least try to fish in the harbor and see if we could catch a few fish. We ran six rods, four rods on planner boards with smithwick plugs and two downriggers set shallow with Michigan stinger spoons. Long story short we boated around fifteen fish and we kept a limit for Art and Joe and released the rest. The fish we released were nice chunky healthy fish and I hope that they survived the handling and they live to fight another day. On the east side of the harbor we were catching mostly browns and on the west side we caught mostly rainbow / steelheads.
Altho we didn't catch a lot of fish on Saturday it was a good thing for those people that we had decided to at least try and fish.

Over the Hump

Sunday February 21 2010 Barbara and I have been in Florida since late November and it has been nice to be able to spend time with my daughters and my grandchildren and is always nice to be out of the snow and cold of upstate New York in the winter. It has been about ten degrees below normal in Florida so far this winter and this cold weather has taken a toll on the snook and tarpon. It got so bad that Florida has closed the fishing for snook and tarpon until April, many snook and tarpon died in the first cold snap that we had. I try to fish as much as possible when I am here but this winter the cold north winds took a lot of the fun out of it.
I have my fingers crossed that the weather will settle down and spring will arrive on schedule. If there are no surprises by this time in April I should have the boat (lucky Dutchman II) in the water and be fishing for brown trout. I am always excited about the new season. There are many factors that effect the fishing on Lake Ontario it could be the weather, stocking survival and how much bait is available, so some years are better than others . But even on our slow years we still have the best freshwater fishing anywhere. Where else can you go and catch trout that range anywhere from three pounds to over twenty and to catch chinook salmon like we catch. You either have to come to the Great lakes or you have to spend thousands of dollars and fish in the Pacific Northwest. Far too often Lake Ontario fishing gets taken for granted. It is one of the few places to fish that is close enough and affordable enough that the average fisherman can enjoy it.
If you would like to experience the fishing on lake Ontario this year you can contact me and we can set up a charter trip with lodging for you. If you have a boat of your own you can bring it to lake Ontario and experience the spring near shore fishing. Either way if I can be of assistance contact me. I am always glad to help out. Captain Bill

2009 End of the year fishing report for lake Ontario

The weather last year started off with our usual spring weather but quickly took a turn for the worst. Last year on the eastern end of Lake Ontario the weather was rainy and windy. Our spring brown trout fishing was good, but the bigger three year old browns were much harder to catch in 2009 than in previous years. I think that because of the slow summer salmon fishing in 2008 we fished more for brown trout than we did for the hard to find chinook salmon. Consequently we caught so many two year old browns in 2008 that there was a lack of three year old browns in 2009.

The summer salmon fishing in 09 was better than the year before and we spent most of the summer fishing and catching salmon instead of brown trout. When august arrived it brought east winds with it and these contrary winds caused the cold water to well up on the eastern end of Lake Ontario which scattered all of our fish. The first two weeks of August we worked very hard to catch any salmon. But after a couple of weeks the water temperature and the fishing improved and the rest of the month the salmon fishing was okay.

From the first of September until the middle of the month is usually some of the best salmon fishing of the season, but in 2009 it didn't happen that way. Instead of getting better the salmon fishing got worse in the Oswego area. The best concentration of salmon were in the Mexico Bay area and most of the charter boats in oswego moved to the Salmon and Little Salmon River for the balance of the 2009 charter fishing season. Why the numbers of salmon were so low in the Oswego area is unknown but this is the second year in a row that the fall salmon fishing was off. If the same thing happens again in 2010 I have made arrangements for a dock on the Little Salmon River so I can make the move to Mexico Bay sooner than I did this year.

I am quite optimistic about the fishing next season, I am so inclined because of the abundance and the size of the bait fish (alwives). Last season when I was cleaning my anglers catch I would routinely check the stomach contents to see what the fish were feeding on. Most of the time I would find very large mature alwives, and on occasion I also found small rainbow smelt. Finding big alwives in the stomachs of the salmon leads me to believe that the bait fish population in lake Ontario is doing very well and when the bait fish are doing well usually the trout and salmon are also doing well. Last year was the first time in a few years that we caught king salmon that weighed over thirty pounds. These facts make me believe that the 2010 Lake Ontario fishing season should be a good one.

I try to take as many pictures as I can during the course of my charter trips, but because I work alone somedays I don't take as many pictures as I would like to. Click here to see the 2009 Lucky Dutchman Fishing Pictures

Full Moon

One other thing about this past weekend was that the moon was full and I don’t really like a full moon when I am fishing. It seems to me that I have more slow days a couple of days each side of the full moon than I do when the moon is not full. 

I usually fillet the fish for my anglers and when I am cleaning fish I quite often check their stomach contents to see what they are feeding on and how much they are feeding. When I am doing this if the stomachs are empty someone usually says boy they must be hungry and I think that is totally opposite from what is really going on. Empty stomachs means to me that the fish are not feeding and the only reason we caught them was because we got our lures right in the fishes face. What I like to see when I am cleaning fish are stomachs stuffed right full, that tells me the bite is on and the fish are actively searching for food.  Of all the fish I cleaned this weekend only one of them had anything in their stomachs and that was one almost totally digested bait fish. I feel extremely fortunate that we did as well as we did this past weekend with the full moon.

  To check out the latest pictures go to my photo gallery at http://gallery.me.com/lucky_dutchman

Transition fishing

Saturday and Sunday I fished with four anglers from Margaretville, NY  who took advantage of my two day summer special. I fish with a lot of guys and gals from the Catskill Mountains and one thing they all have in common is their love of fishing and Kenny, Joe, Bill, and Pudgy all share in this trait. Saturday morning we ran out from Oswego Harbor to 180 feet of water where we started setting up. By the time I got all ten rods out we were in 300 feet of water and a board line with a blue/sliver/ orange belly smithwick went off with a nice 9 pound lake trout. A nice way to start our morning off. We never had a big flurry but we picked away all day long. Some of the fish we caught were rainbows under the 21 inch size limit and we released them as quickly as we could. We also had a couple of king salmon and one of those was over twenty pounds and we also had a couple of bigger rainbows that we kept. The fishing Sunday was pretty much the same as Saturday only we didn’t manage to find a big king to brag about and we caught more rainbows Sunday than we did Saturday. We had two decent days of fishing we didn’t set the fishing world on fire, but we had a great time. Good company and a few fish a winning combination.