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I wanted to see if anyone had been out of Stony Creek yet this year. I was planning on coming up Thursday, but I wasn't sure if it was ice-free and passable from the the public ramp to the lake. Thanks! Sent from my iPad using Lake Ontario United

I'm assuming that you don't mind trailering your boat to different ramps since it is 17 feet long. If so and you want to get into some browns, I'd recommend putting in at the Stony Creek launch. After motoring out to the lake, go left and fish in front of the sand dunes. We did ok there last weekend for browns, but the bite has been tough and we had to work for them. Best luck was in 15-40 fow, with both spoons off downriggers and stickbaits off in-line boards. Like others have said, start early. You can pick at them all day if there is a chop or it is overcast, but the first hour or two in the morning is best. Good luck.

I fished Black River Bay on Friday night from 6pm to dark. Had one decent fish hooked up for about 2 minutes before it came unhooked, but I don't know if it was a walleye. Black River Bay seems to get tough, at least for me, after about the first three weeks of the season. I think that with the above normal temps and below normal rain, the fish might be moving to deeper water earlier than normal.

From my experience, it's more a matter of the size of the fish rather than where it was caught/what it's been eating. I fish for a week every year in Northern Ontario (the province, not the lake), and the larger walleye up there aren't that great to eat even though they don't have alewife in any of those lakes. Taste on a walleye seems to start going downhill once they get over about 3 pounds, regardless of their diet. Maybe an alewife diet makes the taste go downhill faster though, I can't say for sure.

Put in at Sackets just before 5 pm - probably should have taken the hint that 3 boats were simultaneously taking out just as we got there. Trolled the north shoreline until about 6:30 when the strong southwest wind just made it too hard to fish. Trolled back to the south shoreline and back in to take out just after 7 pm. I would have put up with the rough water if I thought it would produce, but we only marked a few fish and only saw 2 other boats out fishing. From my experience, when the walleye are in Black River Bay, there will be a lot of boats out and that wasn't the case on Saturday. Maybe Chaumont or Guffin Bays would have been a better choice.

Is that the same area that people sometimes call "the Sands"? Just south of the mouth of Stoney Creek? I fish that area a lot, but I had never heard it called by that name before.

Landshark, Black River Bay (Sackets) is usually hit or miss for me. I either get into them or really have a tough time. I've found that I do best there in the late evening right up to dark, especially if there are lots of boats out. If I were going to fish there in the am (which I rarely do - I usually fish another spot in the morning), I would be out right at the crack of dawn. How many boats were out when you fished? All the lures you mentioned seemed to be good. How far back were you running them? I sometimes run my shallow-running lures 200-250 feet behind the boards if the fish seem to be skittish that day. Even if you didn't get any fish at least you got to fish a new area. I think Sackets Harbor is a really cool little town. I'm most likely going to be up there this weekend, so I'll post how I do when I get back. Let me know if you plan on trying again.

Landshark, I've never fished either of those tournaments, but I fish the Henderson area pretty frequently. I'll be up that weekend as long as the weather is decent. For accomodations, I like the Willows (www.thewillowsonthelake.com). They have cabins for rent as well as tent sites. It is about 2 miles from the Henderson Harbor launch. There are also several places to stay right in the harbor. Henchen's Fish Camp has cabins that are decent in the heart of Henderson Harbor.

I've got a 16.5 foot aluminum Tracker deep-v and it has a 40 hp on it. It's plenty of power for fishing, and I can get up to 35 mph with 2 people on board. I've even used it for water skiing once or twice and it has enough power for that, but barely. When you say you are underpowered with your 28, what are you looking to do? Any idea of the hull weight of your boat?

I have that Bert's system on my boat. The track accepts all of the Bert's products. And you're right about the mount on top, it's a downrigger mount. They're great products but unfortunately I don't need another one.

I don't know how much line you fish off of your rods, but in my experience the otter boats get out plenty far for walleye. We fish a lot around Black River Bay and Chaumont Bay for walleye, and the otter boats have always caught fish. I normally put about 75-115 feet of line from the rod to the planer release, then vary the distance from the release to lure from anywhere from 150 to 200 feet. You might not run the otter boats as far as in-line boards, but big boards like otter boats do a much better job at getting away from the boat. At trolling speeds, my planer lines are pretty much perpendicular to the boat. When I used to use in-lines more, I found that they often went more behind the boat than they did out to the side. I guess it is all a matter of preference really, but most of the charters around Henderson Harbor use planer masts and big boards for walleye, so they must work pretty well.

It all depends how high off the water your planer reels are mounted. Obviously, the higher they are mounted the more planer line you can get out without drag. I have a small boat (17 feet), so my reels are only about 6 feet above the water. With my otter boats, I can get about 125 feet of planer line out before it drags very much. On a windy day with bigger waves you'll have more line drag and won't be able to put out as much. Honestly though, 125 feet is plenty of distance from the boat for your boards. You can't always get away with even that much if there is heavy boat traffic.

I'm heading up for my first trip of the year this week and I was wondering if anyone noticed any sea fleas yet on the east end of the lake. I figured it was early in the year for fleas, but I wanted to check before I spooled my reels. Thanks guys.

Rich, Nice report and great fish. Looks like you got into a little bit of everything. Let's hope the bite around Henderson stays good. I'll be up a week from Wednesday. Auggie