Sandy 6/16/25

[GAMBLER]

Left the dock yesterday with Calvin Vanderboon from strike assist with a goal of getting him video footage of his strike assist product working with Cowbells and Gambler Rigs.  What a tough morning on the lake!  We fished lakers from 6am - 12:30 in 80-130' and only caught 8 lakers.  After landing a laker, I asked Calvin if we had the capabilities of reviewing the camera footage on the water.  He said yes, so we reviewed a small amount of video footage.  The video footage revealed a bunch of dead and dying alewife on the lake floor.  Lakers are feeding on these dead and dying alewife instead of hitting lures.  We marked tons of lakers and had tons of very lethargic follows.  We did get some information from the trip but not as much as I would have liked.  As for the results, we took 8 lakers.  Five were on rigs with strike assists and three were on rigs without strike assists.  The lakers caught on strike assists were deep hooked and stayed buttoned.  The lakers caught without strike assists, feel off in the net or were barely hooked.  We tried brown fishing at the very end of the day and took a small king in brown trout water.  Tons of bait inside.  Hopefully it gets better soon.  I will post some video footage when Calvin sends it to me.  If anyone is interested in Strike Assists, message me and I will be happy to explain the product with you and get you in touch with Calvin.  

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/163e8ZHv7d/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Strike Assist, a new trolling product

Edited June 18 by GAMBLER

[Gill-T]

Holy crap a fishing report!  Sounds concerning about all the dead alewives. I may have to become a Brown Trout fisherman this year when my boat becomes available. Good year to have boat issues I guess. Thanks for posting the results of strike assist. I would think lakers and walleye fishermen would benefit the most based on how those species follow and inhale baits vs the ram-feeding technique of the silver species. 

[pdsalmon]

Thanks for the report

[GAMBLER]

44 minutes ago, Gill-T said:

Holy crap a fishing report!  Sounds concerning about all the dead alewives. I may have to become a Brown Trout fisherman this year when my boat becomes available. Good year to have boat issues I guess. Thanks for posting the results of strike assist. I would think lakers and walleye fishermen would benefit the most based on how those species follow and inhale baits vs the ram-feeding technique of the silver species. 

I was impressed with them.  I can't wait to use them on divers.  No more tap tap gone!  I think they will be killer on browns too.  Talking to Calvin, Erie walleye guys have had great success with them with worm harnesses.  

[Strike Assist]

Gill-T

You are correct that certain species do tend to exhibit more ram speed (closing speed relative to prey item), especially when feeding aggressively. When fish are not feeding aggressively, all species tend to have little to no ram speed. This is based on watching hundreds of hours of underwater footage we collected while doing product testing.

 

We caught over 1,300 fish while doing data collection, the majority of which were silver fish on spoons. Half the lines had Strike Assists, the other half did not. The Strike Assist rods averaged 36% more fish and cut the landing loss in half (33% to 14%).

 

Captain Bob Hinds (Central Coast Angling) used Strike Assists on all his spoon rods last year. He caught over 300 fish with Strike Assists, mostly kings, and had a 95% landing ration. He said normally it is around 70% without Strike Assists.

[HB2]

With all the boat I see going out and no reports , I figured the fishing was less than stellar . 

 

Bass and perch have not been great also . 

 

One saving grace is lots of bait , which should pay dividends in in the future 

[Fat Trout]

3 hours ago, HB2 said:

With all the boat I see going out and no reports , I figured the fishing was less than stellar . 

 

Bass and perch have not been great also . 

 

One saving grace is lots of bait , which should pay dividends in in the future 

Yeah im hoping seeing dead bait is a sign of good population.  Back when i started...dead bait was normal in the spring.

[GAMBLER]

15 hours ago, HB2 said:

With all the boat I see going out and no reports , I figured the fishing was less than stellar . 

 

Bass and perch have not been great also . 

 

One saving grace is lots of bait , which should pay dividends in in the future 

It's funny how the fishing is good and guys put up a report every time they go out.  Fishing sucks and they don't report.  

[seeyawader]

Hey, I posted that the fishing sucked in Oswego last weekend,,,but then again, in my mind I really couldn't figure out if the fishing sucked or I just suck at fishing,,,lol,,,joe

[GAMBLER]

43 minutes ago, seeyawader said:

Hey, I posted that the fishing sucked in Oswego last weekend,,,but then again, in my mind I really couldn't figure out if the fishing sucked or I just suck at fishing,,,lol,,,joe

Last year made everyone feel like a hero.  It was the easiest king fishing I have seen since I started fishing the lake in the early 80's.  For the last 15 years or so, the fishing has been stellar on Lake Ontario.  June transitions in the 90's were like this.  If we caught one or two kings a day, it was a good day.  Most didn't fish in June or they targeted lake trout only.   So many didn't fish back then or can't remember!   

[cannon]

6 hours ago, GAMBLER said:

Last year made everyone feel like a hero.  It was the easiest king fishing I have seen since I started fishing the lake in the early 80's.  For the last 15 years or so, the fishing has been stellar on Lake Ontario.  June transitions in the 90's were like this.  If we caught one or two kings a day, it was a good day.  Most didn't fish in June or they targeted lake trout only.   So many didn't fish back then or can't remember!   

Thank you for a factual history lesson on our lake! The younger guys have indeed experienced our resource at a great time. As everyone knows, history repeats itself.  This was our lake ontario cycle every year. The mild winters were and impact on our resource for many years. This past winter was the norm back in the day. The pendulum has seemed to have returned.  Not to worry, it's a natural cycle of the lake. The die off of alewives was a normal thing. 

As a retired charter captain,  I  appreciate what Gambler wrote.  

Capt D

[GAMBLER]

14 hours ago, cannon said:

Thank you for a factual history lesson on our lake! The younger guys have indeed experienced our resource at a great time. As everyone knows, history repeats itself.  This was our lake ontario cycle every year. The mild winters were and impact on our resource for many years. This past winter was the norm back in the day. The pendulum has seemed to have returned.  Not to worry, it's a natural cycle of the lake. The die off of alewives was a normal thing. 

As a retired charter captain,  I  appreciate what Gambler wrote.  

Capt D

My hope is, August is like it used to be for once!    I don't have any camping plans in August and a ton of vacation time left in the bank!  

[NyFallGuy]

It really was pretty crazy amazing last year.

I remember days where I'd be looking at the fish I just caught and dreaded putting the line back out 

because my arms were too tired to fight another.  Cry me a river, right?  Still, there's slow, and then there's this.

These posts are very much appreciated, as we all might be questioning our own approach at this point, and that's just

not the issue.

Edited June 20 by NyFallGuy

[Pike Hunter]

Awesome video! Thanks for sharing!

[seeyawader]

My hats off to those charter guys in Oswego for putting browns in the boat for their clients, I could see the browns but couldn't get them to bite. And when I finally did catch one I cursed him and didn't want to bring him in the boat cause my family already went home! Yea, I know, northeast wind,,,Last weekend