Gill-T

Don't lose hope. This time of year the salmon are not feeding, but rather striking lures out of instinct/aggression. You are at their mercy as to what type of mood they are in. If you are fishing the morning bite.....it may be short lived and over when the sun comes up. Set up in the dark with glow stuff an hour before light starts coming up. The other prime time is in the evening. Try a longer stretch with a flasher/fly behind your downrigger ball and send it down until the ball touches bottom and then up quickly 5-7' before your flasher starts dragging zebra mussels. Troll a little slower....say 2 mph. If you have some planer boards you can throw out some j-plugs on leadcore.

Two good areas come to mind. The deep water past 400' deep east of the sumerset plant west to off Olcott. The other spot that comes alive is the water near the Canadian border out deep off the Niagara. These have been traditional late season offshore steelhead and immature salmon hot beds. Tough to pick good weather days in October as the winds usually blow. For stream fishing....Eighteen mile at Burt Dam or steelhead fishing on the Catt. near the Springville dam.

Congrats on the win and the manscaping.

Hi Jonah. Welcome to the addiction.

I have had similar incidents with farmhouses. Better to call ahead or beep your car horn until someone comes out. There is a level of paranoia among farming families. They are very isolated and have to look at strangers as potential bad doers. The shotgun by the door and protective dogs is usually the norm I have come across. I probably would be the same way. Unfortunately, there should be a level of an expectation of safety when you knock on the door. Especially if there are no warning signs to "beware of dogs". Lucky the incident did not escalate into gun play.

More than one set of ugly pants aboard. My buddy with the muck boots was wearing pajama bottoms because of a dog biting incident. The poor guy went to ask permission for bow season at a farm house. When he tapped on the door, three dogs inside charged the door knocking the screen door down. One of the dogs got out and started tearing into his arse while he was holding back the other two dogs against the screen. Got a couple of good arse tears out of ordeal. My buddy got the third degree from the local cops "well did you learn your lesson"? Anyway he was feeling sorry for himself so I dragged him out of his house with his Jammies on. He is much better spirits now after the day we had.

Close your eyes.....picture your perfect day out on the water. West winds....check. Slight salmon chop...check. Right time of year for staging salmon....check. Cool water close to shore.....check. Lucky hat, skinny shirt and hand-me-down dorky pants from in-laws.....check. Launched out of Youngstown and headed for the drop. Set her down on the Canadian line with the intentions of showing a newbie with a new boat the red can area during derby time. First rig down was an eleven inch protroll and fly with a mag yellow NBK fix cheated above. Turned on the drop at 120' and hooked up before the second line was down. Pulled off the drop to fight the fish away from boat traffic and landed a lean 25 Lber to start the day which took the spoon. By the time we got back to the drop boat traffic was getting heavy with the usual crap that goes on there. Managed to take a double with another king and a laker soon after setting up. There is a nice pod of kings sitting right on the bottom near the canadian line on the drop and everyone saw them on their graph and wanted a piece. At 10:00 we left after we got pinched (newbie driving) and I had to scramble to clear two riggers and three dipsys by myself when we ran up onto the shelf. Met another friend in Youngstown at the dock and headed back out at noon to fish some quieter water away from the pack. Set up in 95' east of the river, sent a rigger down 12' with a flasher and fly.....with line in hand to add cheater the rod goes off. I think no way....has to be a brown or steelhead in the 75 degree water......then it starts peeling drag....King????? Yep. That started what turned out to be one of the greatest days of fishing I may ever experience. We went on to troll waters from 94-110' with temps down only 65'. The action was incredible. We hooked majors every 15 minutes! More incredible was we did not loose one fish all day. Every hook was BURIED and many down deep. Flasher fly bite. Riggers down 75-88', Size #1 dipsys fished off boards 300' back, Mag dipsys 180-225' back. Hot combo was green-dot SD with A-tom-mik pro/am fly with yellow UV beads. To add to the incredibleness of the day was we did not see anyone else and we pretty much straight-line trolled in a 2-3 mile area. This group of salmon going up the river is HUGE (our fish were 19-30 lbs) Anyway, what a way to cap the season. The boat is put away until spring got work to do on house before fall sets in.

Wind this weekend should keep the little buggers at bay.

Be aware when you add depth to shorter copper segments, they may get together with your divers. I run weight-added-copper WAY off on my otterboats to prevent the FUBAR.

Salsa and fish go great together. Fresh Lake O salmon or trout skin side down on grill, with pineapple salsa over top, covered with tin foil. Right before you pull it, sprinkle grated cheese over top. Serve with wheat thins. Easy to make and clean up.

Current plays a huge roll. Trolling off Oswego this weekend my blowback on my riggers, bend in the dipsy rods, angle of diver wire in the water LOOKED like I was trolling much faster than my subtroll was telling me. Best guess was the upper water layers were crankin' but in the deeper water layers....not so much. I know I was not hitting my usual depths with my divers and I dumped a 300 Copper into a mag diver out 300'......that should never happen.

I have caught Kings with verts and a j-plug or a flasher/fly trailing fished close to bottom. Usually wait until fish have moved in closer to try.

Had my Cannon manual riggers upgraded to electrics. The conversion was done at Screwy Louies and was 1/2 the cost of new.

Untapped resource. I gaurantee there are a ton of browns in the water east of Olcott and you will have the place to yourself.

Boat Doctors in Olcott will do it for you. Reasonable pricing. If you want the boat closer to home there is a marina on Campbell Blvd. on Tonawanda Creek that will offer the same.