Char_Master

That's good to know, I wasn't aware of any current efforts, thanks for informing me. Do you know I they've done any studies on NR for Ciscos/Herring yet?

My taste buds are fine, there's a reason that the original lake trout collapse occurred in the lakes, they were severely overfished because of a market demand for their meat! Although Sea Lamprey certainly didn't help the matter... But getting back to my main point from the original post, anyone have an opinion on Cisco recovery efforts?

I've never tried that, maybe some time I'll use the gizzards, skin, and head in my garden. But the meat is just too good to not eat.

Walleye certainly taste good, but their taste is pretty boring and they need a lot of work before they actually taste like anything. I want to know I'm eating a fish and not just a piece of random meat. Ever try a Laker? They're no where close to as oily as people here make them seem, when prepared properly, that is.

Interesting topic here. I have to ask, has the reintroduction of Ciscos even been considered by New York or Ontario? I have multiple problems with relying on Alewives as the dominant forage population, including that they're invasive, they're intolerant of severe cold, and they're not a healthy forage species, especially for Salvelinus genus species (i.e. Lake Trout, which often develop thiamine deficiencies from consuming too many Alewives). On the other hand there's Ciscos which are native, very tolerant of the cold, and a healthy forage species for everything in the lake (Lakers, Salmon, Steelhead, etc) because of their higher fat content. If you look at the facts, the Cisco is truly the ultimate cold-freshwater baitfish and they once thrived in all of the Great Lakes before the invasive Alewives came along. Personally, I'm much more fond of Lakers. To me, nothing beats the fight of a big 25 pound Char heading straight for the bottom like a sinking freight train that you just can't turn around until it lets you. I also think they taste better, I've only eaten a couple Lake Trout that I fatally hooked because I want to preserve the population, but man, they tasted better than any Trout or Salmon I've ever eaten, maybe even better than Walleye, the taste was comparable to a Brook Trout for those of you who have eaten them before. But I know I'm a minority here and most people would rather catch Chinook Salmon. I still love Salmon, but Lake Trout will always be my personal favorite. I also noticed that there isn't much talk at all on the US side of the lake of Atlantic Salmon, which along with Lake Trout and Ciscos are the only other native Salmonid in the lake. I only caught a single Atlantic out of Lake O on my trip this year but it was easily the hardest fighting fish I caught and had to be over 20 pounds. Who can't love a fish that runs for 395' and then hauls at least four feet out of the water almost nonstop? Atlantics seem to be much less dependent on Alewives than Pacific Salmon are and often being referred to as 'The King of Fish', it seems like the DEC and MNR would be much more enthusiastic about restoring this species, yet there is little effort put forth to do so. Maybe people are just stuck in their old mindsets and are resistant to accept that the lakes have changed drastically over the past several decades and that they will continue to change in the future. Or maybe I'm just crazy. Thoughts?

Hey everyone, sorry I never got around to posting a full trip report, but I had a great first time on Lake 'O. The Chinooks were not very cooperative but everything else was! Due to the odd weather that occurred while we were there, the fishing didn't get good until the last two days, but those two days were amazing. It was astonishing to see surface water temps from 71.6° all the way down to 33.4° due to the lake flipping! I've never experienced such a temperature change in my life! I also noticed that the swells on Lake Ontario are much smoother than Erie's. We were successfully trolling in wide 6-7'rs one of the days where on Erie we'd be getting pounded by choppy whitecaps with waves that size. Anyway, I loved the fishing and I'll without a doubt be back to Lake Ontario next summer, although most likely in a more eastern port such as Rochester where I can catch Lakers as well, as we were not able to find even one fishing out of Olcott. Total fish haul: 3/5 Brown Trout 3/7 Steelhead 2/2 Chinook 0/1 Atlantic PS, I fell in love with Atlantic Salmon on this trip after having a 20#+ fish stripping 395' of line in about a minute on almost full drag before spectacularly jumping and throwing the hook at me. I'm already craving this species!

Has anybody been catching Lakers out of Olcott? Hard to find info but from what I've heard from a couple others, they all migrate east towards Rochester this time of year. I'd like to get in to some even if they're sparce, but don't want to waste time trolling for them if there's NONE around.

Day two went a bit better. Too rough to troll in the morning yesterday so I tried the channel wall and landed 2/3 nice Brown Trout casting Stickbaits and Plugs. Headed out on the boat once it calmed down a bit and did a nearshore troll for Browns. Got a 5#r to the boat and had a 12-14" fish flop off 10' back. Ended the day trolling for Chinooks in 120 FOW without a hit. Released all the Browns. This morning tried 250 FOW and was rewarded with a 23" 4.5# Salmon on a flasher fly, finally. Wouldn't revive so he's in the cooler now. Hoping to get out for more (and with any luck, larger) Chinooks this evening if the rain ever stops. Not fast action to be sure, but there's a few fish to be caught anyway.

Well, day one was a bust. There were 4-5'rs in the morning and we just got back to port in 1'rs. Started at about 10:00 AM in 130-230 FOW trolling spoons and flasher flies 60-110' down at 2.4-3.0 mph. Nothing, headed back to 35 FOW to try to jig up whatever small fish I saw on the finder (White Bass?), nothing. Headed back out to 300-350 FOW trolling spoons 2.4-3.0 mph SOG 40-110' down. Nothing again, ended the day at 7:00 after trolling in 130-140 FOW for Lakers with cowbells, Dodgers, and spoons at 2.1-2.3 mph SOG, (seemed much slower underwater going with the waves). N.O.T.H.I.N.G. The worst part was that in 9 hours of trolling, we only marked 4-5 fish all day other than white bass or similar fish by the pier heads. Probably just one of those days, but I did see a few people come back with full coolers. Does anyone have any advice or tips to give as I'd like to get into fish of any kind tomorrow? If so, they would be greatly appreciated!

Heading up Friday morning and hoping to fish until Tuesday afternoon. Not asking for secrets, but does anyone have any recent (current/past week) general reports and info for a new guy to the lake? I also don't have a depth probe (coming next year) so that may be problematic, but it hasn't stopped me yet! My plan as of now is to start out by running to 150-200 FOW straight north of Olcott for the first few hours in the morning for Chinooks, maybe even troll out to 250-300 FOW if the bite is slow. 2.4-2.6 mph SOG to start, otherwise speed up to 2.8-3.0 mph SOG. I'm going to use a four rod spread to start (I don't need a 25#r trashing my spread!), running two rigger rods and two diver rods. I'll probably stick one rigger down at 110-120' in the ice water for big matures with a flasher fly combo and the other down 70-90' with a spoon to try to get any Salmon, considering I've never caught a Chinook I'll be happy to get the first fish of any size in to the boat. Unfortunately the mag dipsies I order didn't get here in time so I'll be using my size ones with spoons and flasher flies, which I can probably get down to 60-70' with enough line out, but I theorize they'll mainly be Steelie catchers this time around (PS, does anyone have size 1 dipsy charts? The charts I use only give data for up to 198' of line out and I can put 250-300' out no problem). After Chinooks I'll most likely search for Lakers in 120-170 FOW slow trolling with Cowbells, Dodgers, and Spoons using a six rod spread (riggers, divers, 10-colors) 1.5-1.7 mph SOG. If that doesn't work, I'll try faster trolling with all spoons. 2.4-2.8 mph SOG. After that, jig for a while with casting spoons and swimbaits in 80-120 FOW. At some point during the trip I'll probably search 300-500 FOW with high spoons and stickbaits for Cohos and Atlantics too, both fish I'd like to catch that I never have. Thinking 2.8-3.2 mph.

This past weekend I caught three Pinks fishing out of Erie, PA along with two Steelhead and a nice 23# Laker. None of the Pinks survived (all gill or eye hooked) so I took them home for the grill and we had a great dinner Sunday night! Caught one Pink last July too, they seem to be getting more common.

As of now I'm thinking we're going to make our trip up to the lake from July 29th to August 1st. Long range forecasts are never very accurate, but as of now it's saying winds will be 10 and 18 ENE on Friday, 2 and 5 NW on Saturday, 15 and 29 ENE on Sunday, and 6 and 17 E on Monday. I'm not familiar with Lake Ontario's wave patterns, but with predicted winds like those, is it likely I'll be able to get offshore to Salmon and Laker grounds for at least three of those days in a 22' boat? We can always fish inshore for Browns if the winds get too bad, but this is primarily a Salmon and Lake Trout trip. Also, if the winds do follow those patterns how big approx. would the waves be? I know on Lake Erie with 15 and 29 mph winds from the ENE, there'd be 4-5' waves with 6' swells within an hour or two at that speed.

For Dipsies, I use 9' Okuma Classic Pro GLT Dipsy Rods with Tekota 600LC reels, so they should work fine, I'm just always amazed by how much pressure those rods can take! I tend to check each lure every 20-30 minutes out of habit to check for hitchhikers that don't trip the releases on Erie (White Bass, smaller Drum and Trout, etc) and change lures about every hour or so if they're not getting any love, so no problem there. My go to spoons are always MI Stingers, but I'm not sure if I have any with UV finishes, although that just gives me an excuse to spend more money . I'll pick up a pair of flasher/fly combos soon since I've never used them before. I assume run the same colors on them as you would for spoons. Thanks for all the help, ryonybony, I appreciate it and will continue to do further research on here and the Internet before my trip up to the lake.

Okay, so maybe around 2.5-2.6 mph for running both flashers and spoons in a spread? 250 out with mag Dipsy at that speed? I feel like I'd snap my diver rods doing that haha.

Would you recommend picking up some mag dipsies for Lake 'O? Right now I'm running size 1 divers for Erie Lakers and Steelhead, but they require a lot of line to get below 50'.

You can catch Lakers jigging on Ontario? I'm making my first trip to the lake later this month (I fish Lake Erie) and didn't even know vertical jigging was an option. Any specific jigs or live bait that works well?

I'm thinking I'll probably run four spoons (definitely a mag NBK for Kings and Steelie Stomper for chromers) and two flasher/flies to start and go from there. I've got some pretty heavy spoons I can run off the lead like magnum DWs and even large casting daredevles, but they tend to work better at slow speeds. From what I've heard, Salmon speed is 2.5-3.0 mph, correct? I'll fish 150-500 FOW I'm thinking and run lures from 50-120' down for the Salmon, maybe one or two at 20-40' later on if I have an itch for steel and bottom bounce in 120-130 FOW for Lakers. Do you ever pick up any Cohos out on the lake?

They're an issue on Erie, too, but I actually have more problems with them on my downrigger cables and mono rigger lines than I do with the braid.

Will Kings ever go for stickbaits/Crankbaits? I could always run some deep diver reef runners or bay rats on the lead and that'd get me 70' down, most likely. Even spoons get 50' down with 10 colors. How deep do the Salmon suspend in late July/early August?

Thanks for the reply, ryonybony! I've got two rigger setups, two braid dipsy setups, and two planer board setups with 10 colors of leadcore, but if I don't want all of the lead out I'll often just flatline with the board rods so I can adjust the depth of the lures.

Hello, everyone. I'm Sean, from Pittsburgh, PA, and I'm hoping to make a trip up to Lake Ontario with the boat within the next month or so. My home port is Erie, PA, fishing Lake Erie's eastern basin for Lakers, Steelhead, and Browns in the open water as well as Northern Pike and Gar in Presque Isle Bay. Walleye and Perch, Lake Erie's staple species, bore me, not much fight to them haha. I fish out of a 22' Sea Ray usually using a 6 rod spread (max I legally can in PA with just two anglers in the boat, and it's all I have room for!). Anyway, Lake Erie can be great in the summer for open water Chromers, but Lake Trout have a reputation for being very difficult to catch in the summer here and I still don't understand what the Browns do this time of year. Looking on the Internet on various other forums and sites has revealed to me that Lake Ontario offers great summer fishing for a wide variety of Salmonids, all of which I'd love to catch. So, I decided it was time that I finally take the two hour drive north from Erie and see what our neighboring Great Lake has to offer. As I said, I've never fished Lake Ontario before, so I have no idea what to expect being as Lake Erie is so much different. On Erie, finding 150 FOW can take over an hour of driving on the boat and it's rare to find surface temps below 74°F in July and August. Erie can also get very rough, very fast. Last August for instance, at one point the waves were 2' with 3' swells, 20 minutes later they were 5-6' with 7-8' swells and building! From what I've heard of Lake Ontario, there is access to deep water relatively close to shore and it takes longer for the waves to build with high wind speeds, which is good news to someone like me who is unfamiliar with its waters. As for when and where I plan on coming up, I'm hoping to fish out of Olcott sometime between the middle-end of July and beginning of August for four days (probably Friday-Monday). If anyone can recommend a good date in that frame of time when there's a not a tournament occurring (the last thing we need with fishing a new lake is fierce competition), I'd greatly appreciate it. I'd love to pursue as many of the Salmonids on Lake Ontario as possible, but my primary target when I come up is going to be the Chinooks/Kings, which are not present in Lake Erie and I have never caught. Lakers are my overall favorite fish to catch on lakes (Brookies in streams), so I'll defineity be taking a couple hours each day to target them as well. Finally, although I probably won't be targeting them as much as Chinooks and Lakers, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing some Cohos, Steelies, Atlantics, and Browns mixed in as regular by-catch with the other two, if there's a certain way to up my odds of catching some. If you guys have any tips, advice, or knowledge to give me as far as fishing Lake Ontario in general, when to come, what areas to fish, and how to go about catching my target species, I'd very much appreciate either a post here or a private message if you'd rather not publicize your secret info . And don't worry another tourist taking all your fish, I'm mainly a C&R guy and would only be keeping a King or two for the freezer to last the family all year haha. Thanks for having me on your forum! (I promise, I don't always ramble like this!!) -Sean P