April fishing report for Lake Ontario

Our 2009 Lake Ontario fishing season is off to a good start. My first trip was on the 17th of April with Mark Murphy and his crew. On their annual spring trip Mark and his guys always arrive at Feeder Creek Lodge a couple of days before their lake trip so that they can fish the Salmon river for steelhead. This year Mark brought his little boy, his brother Fran , and two other guys. The two days before we fished the wind blew from the East which blew most of the warm water away from the shore line and caused the fish to scatter. We managed to land a few small brown trout, released a couple of small fish and  lost a couple. It wasn’t a great day fishing but considering the conditions we did all right. I forgot to bring my camera so I didn’t get any pictures of m

Marks trip to post.

My next trip was Sunday the 18th of April with Mike Torcivia, Fred and his little boy Fred Jr., and a couple of first timers. We fished in the same area East of Oswego where we had fished the day before, only on sunday the wind was steady from the west so the water had a little more color to it plus it was a couple of degrees warmer. Sunday’s trip wasn’t gangbusters like their last years trip, but we did do better than we did on Saturday. We picked away all day long with the fish being a little bigger than the day before. We had a fun trip. The weather was a little warmer with a little less wind and that alone made the trip much more enjoyable.

On our next trip Jim Ardagna took advantage of my Buy one get one half off special. He brought his nephew Leo and Leo’s friend Paige to fish a couple of days with me. Jim and Leo have fished with me in the past but Paige was a first timer and was a lot of fun to fish with. We started our trip on Monday morning April 27th. As we were leaving the harbor in Oswego, I spotted some fish rolling and chasing bait in the mouth of the harbor, so we decided to see if we could get these fish to bite. Long story short, we fished within a mile or two of the harbor for the next two days. On the first day of fishing Jim caught the first king salmon of the year a nice 10lb 10oz fish and on both days we caught a nice rainbow/steelhead along with a bunch of browns. All in all we had two good fun filled days of fishing.

I did remember to bring my camera on the second day of fishing and when I forgot to bring mine Paige had her camera so I got the pictures that she took. I am including some those pictures in this post and I have posted more pictures on a site that I have from Apple. To see more pictures of April fishing click on the Title.  

 

Spring Brown trout fishing on Lake Ontario

It really took some work to get the boat the Lucky Dutchman II ready for launch this year. The weather in upstate New York has been miserable with snow and cold. I had planned on launching on the 15th of April but it took till the 19th to get it in the water and on the 20th I had my first charter fishing trip. Normally I like to launch and fish with my grandkids before I take customers fishing, so I can check everything out. This year because of the weather that was not possible and the only thing I needed that was not on the boat was a pair of needlenose pliers. Thankfully my angler Mark Murphy had a pair with him. We fished just East of the Oswego River Harbor in 10 to 20 feet of waqter and we ran smithwick and rappal stickbaits on the surface lines and Michigan stinger spoons set shallow on the downriggers at 4 and 6 feet down. We caught all the browns that we wanted to keep and then we played catch and realease for a while. This past saturday was equally as good and after catching and releasing browns most of the morning we decided to try and catch a King Salmon, so we left the shallow water and trolled in the 30 to 70 feet of water. We had one bite in the deeper water but that fish didn't stay on the hook very long. Altho I haven't caught a King Salmon yet this year, a couple of the other Captains from Oswego have and the biggest of those fish weighed in at 18 pounds. All in all the fishing this year is living up to the expectations and I expect the fishing to get better and better as the weather settles down and Lake Ontario warms up a little. Catch you later. Capt. Bill VanWormer http://www.luckydutchman.net