FishOn!
-
Posts
2 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Gallery
Store
Posts posted by FishOn!
-
-
Hello Everybody -
I'm new to this forum and to fishing salmon on Lake Ontario. Used to live in the SF Bay area, fished kings and cohos out of the Golden Gate. Sold my boat, moved east, and have been missing salmon fishing ever since!
Last week some buddies and I went on a charter out of Oswego. I was quite surprised to see that the charter captain handled all of the rods, reels, etc. until a fish was hooked and it was time to reel in. Is this standard around these parts? We would have liked the opportunity to set the hook and start the process rather than just be handed a rod to crank. None of us were newbies, all of us have been on multiple charters, party boats, or in my case, on my own boat.
What is the common practice here?
Charter Capt Does All The Fishing?
in Open Lake Discussion
Posted
Thanks all for the welcome and the good thoughtful responses. Very instructive.
As has been said in several posts, communication is the key. I think I had made some assumptions, and didn't expressly communicate what was expected.
I can completely understand the need to take care of your gear, and not let newbies break or lose equipment. And netting a fish is indeed a skill one needs to develop with practice. To the point, the captain lost a fish at the net that day. So I get it that there is a skill to this.
In this situation, it was a rather choppy day, tough to stay upright in the back all of the time. One needed a good set of sea legs to get it done. And a few folks were sick over the side.
On the other hand, this charter was advertised as one that could include a mate or not, our choice, presumably to do all of those things and more. We opted not to have a mate on board, and that was fine with the captain. So with that in mind, we expected to be more hands on. Probably I should have expressed that at the get-go.
But we did catch a few nice salmon, nothing for the record books and no limits. Fishing Lake Ontario is something I'd like to do at least once a year (4 hour drive for me). Next time we'll be a bit more up front when discussing the booking. I look forward to getting out there again soon.