ChrisS

Fished the afternoon shift out of Oswego yesterday. Thermocline was about 75-80 ft down. Started in about 90-125 FOW and had blank screens, so I trolled out to 250-350 and eventually found a pocket of bait at about 300 FOW. Hit that a few times and went 5/8 with a couple of hit and runs and off the water by 7pm. The RV Crabface was the primary spoon - both mag and regular, but I took a ~10lb king on fake meat and one decent steelhead on a michigan stinger blue dolphin. Biggest fish was about 17lb and was starting to get darker.

If I ever had 20 hookups in a handful of hours during the middle of the day, I would sell my boat and everything else and call it. Last weekend I spent an hour trying to untangle a dipsey and a rigger setup that got twisted up when my autopilot freaked and started turning a circle. That was fun.

Interesting thought. I don't know what the maximum range of alewives is, but if Lake Ontario is just on that edge, then it would make sense if climate swings would affect the populations. I'm sure there have been some studies on this from somewhere. It's kind of what people are seeing with Moose in NH and VT. Those populations are on the already on the edge of their preferred range and then they also get hit with increases of ticks and whitetail deer brainworm due to THEIR changing range.

Rick, thanks for these. I usually catch most of your videos. If you get a chance, on the next few can you discuss a little bit of what goes into your thinking on choice of colors and types of baits? You said something the other day that you wouldn't use a certain spoon until the water color was right, but you didn't go into it more than that. You do a lot for our sport and we're here for it!

How deep were you targeting? I fished out of Mexico Saturday as a first trip out and had a couple of fish on a chicken wing close to bottom before deciding that I was done with the wind. My auto-pilot would freak out a few times when there was a big gust (usually because I was standing up acting as a sail while checking and resetting lines). An aluminum gets blown around pretty easily.

I've used Hirsch Taxidermy in North Syracuse before. He does really nice work. No website, but he's on facebook.

Always interesting to me seeing how some groups of fish react so differently. I was out of Oswego Saturday in the 600s and only had hits on a ~220deg heading with most of my hits coming on meat with a white crush/mt dew spinner. A blue dolphin spoon on a weighted steel took the majority of the other hits. Landed two good sized kings in the teens and a bunch of smaller fish. Towed one very small king on meat for a while.

500-600 FOW is where I was seeing the boats last weekend. Nearly no one inshore. But I caught a couple in 80 FOW ... very slow day though until I found some pods of bait.

Harborfest, yay. I know its one weekend, but it kills me that they use the marina for this when it's peak salmon season. Anyway, skipped out of work early to fish and lines in the water by 2:30pm. Started with lots of flashy spoons as well as meat. Temps were stable shallow and I was finding 50F water at 50 ft. Marked some bait in 100-150 FOW, but not many salmon marks. Trolled out to 350 FOW and worked a bait pod, changing up speed and angles, then switched out some baits and colors. Took a small atlantic on a stingray seasick waddler on 200' steel. Marked a few more fish, had some a few come check out the downrigger weight and spoons, but no takers. Fished around a bit and then headed back at sunset. Only saw a few other boats out.